Emory H. Braswell

1932 - 2021

Emory H. Braswell of Storrs, CT passed away at the age of 89 on September 27, 2021. At the time of his death he was undergoing heart valve replacement surgery at Hartford Hospital. Emory was born January 22, 1932 in Brooklyn, NY to Harold Braswell and Myrtle Edenfield Braswell. His family split their time between Georgia and Brooklyn-but he much preferred Brooklyn. From an early age, all things technical and scientific intrigued him; he spent much of his allowance on radio kits, diodes, and early electronics-and nearly blew a hole in the kitchen table with his chemistry set. So it was no surprise that he wound up at Brooklyn Technical High School and then attended Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute for a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1952. He received his master's in chemistry from Brooklyn Tech as well in 1955 and a doctorate in physical chemistry from New York University in 1961. Along with all this, he was a lecturer at Hunter College and a general chemist at General Foods, where he was part of a team that developed instant Jell-O. He came to the University of Connecticut in 1962 after a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Birmingham, England under the U. S. National Institutes of Health. He became a full professor at UConn in 1987 and served as the Biophysics Program Director, Dept. of Molecular and Cellular Biology until his retirement in 2002, as well as director of the National Analytical Ultracentrifuge Laboratory. Over a lifetime of research, he has studied the development of Dextran into a substitute for blood plasma and worked on the structure of the blood anticoagulant heparin. He was proud to have helped develop one of the first drugs to treat MS. Even after retirement he didn't stop learning, becoming an amateur astronomer and photo astronomer. Emory loved to ski, to talk and to lecture. His curiosity was as endless as his hobbies: he raised bees and geese, imported glassware from England, was an early adopter of computer technology, built his own telescopes, and hunted. He loved opera, hated the term "organic" as it now often applies to fruit and vegetables and never gave up the argument. He leaves his wife of 50 years, Frima Botnick Braswell, their daughters Elizabeth and Sabrina and his son Geoffrey with his first wife Rita Collins Braswell. He also leaves 5 grandchildren and two sisters, Carol and June. There will be a memorial service in early Spring. For and online memorial guestbook please visit www.potterfuneralhome.com