Nigel Warwick Daw

A good friend and colleague. Gone, but certainly not forgotten. Superb scientist, his work remains alive and current.

Nigel took me on as a post-doctoral fellow at Washington Univ in 1991-92 and I had the great honor to work with him closely on most of our experiments and co-author an article with him. He was extraordinarily kind to me, taught me a great deal in a short time, and was a very good friend. I enjoyed his company, his dry sense of humor, and his remarkable eyebrows. Thank you for everything, Nigel. That was a happy time.

I was a post-doc in the joined lab of Nigel and Alan Pearlman at Wash Univ from 1978-1980 when I moved to David Gottlieb´s lab. Nigel was so smart and kind and an amazing mentor. I still talk to the people in my lab about the lessons I learned from him about rigor and reproducibility. I remember going into Nigel´s office once and asking him a question about the pattern of connections in visual cortex. There was a really long and uncomfortable period of silence. I got up and went back...

Nigel hired me for my first job out of college. Worked with him for a year. I made tiny glass pipettes, heated and pulled thin to use as neural signal detectors to study neurovisual plasticity. Amazing opportunity. Such a gentle man who would slowly correct me when I´d say something stupid and hand me a paper to read. He was a great mentor, taught me to run whole Neurobiology experiments and believed in me. I´ll never forget that opportunity and try to pay it forward. 18 hour experiments,...

I worked for Nigel as a postdoc for about 9 months in 1991-92. He was as kind and lovely as he could be, and a real honor and pleasure to have as a colleague and friend. Thank you for everything you taught me, Nigel, and for being the nicest boss I've ever had.

As a newly minted doctor and vision researcher, I met Nigel when he came to talk at the National Eye Institute. His brilliance and his kindness, equally evident, convinced me to seek his mentorship at Washington University. His advice was valued, his friendship dear. We traveled to scientific meetings near and far. We golfed and skied and shared a love of seafaring, and in his Yale years, we listened to music in New Haven concert halls. I will greatly miss my friend and mentor.

Nigel was a good friend and wonderful colleague who always was a delight to be with. I knew him from our days at Hopkins and he was a superb scientist whose opinion I always closely listened to over the years. I will miss him greatly.

One of the first talks I gave as an independent investigator was at Yale and Nigel was extremely supportive and enthusiastic. To hear positive feedback from such an impactful researcher gave me the confidence to soldier on with my ideas for research. For that I will always be grateful. Marla Feller, UC Berkeley

We were saddened to read of Nigel's passing. My husband John remembers him from long ago during his graduate student days in the Physiology department at Washington University. He remembers Nigel as soft spoken and very kind. We had the good fortune to be invited to a party that Nigel and Leila threw for the graduate students then. Every room of their house was beautifully decorated, and each room you walked into held a different and fun experience . That was 50 years ago, or very close...