Richard E. Dickerson

October 8, 1931 - May 14, 2025 Richard Earl Dickerson, 93, of Pasadena, California, passed away peacefully on May 14, 2025, surrounded by his family and loved ones. Richard was preceded in death by his beloved wife, Lola, one year earlier.
Richard was born in Casey, Illinois, the son of Earl and Zelda Dickerson. He excelled in academics and won a scholarship to Carnegie Institute of Technology, receiving a BS in Chemistry in 1953. Richard went on to study structural biology, receiving a PhD in Physical Chemistry in 1957 working in the laboratory of Nobel laureate William Lipscomb at the University of Minnesota, where he studied small molecule crystallography. Richard then carried out a post-doctoral fellowship in the lab of the Nobel laureate John Kendrew at Cambridge University. In Kendrew's lab Richard was part of the group that solved the first crystal structure of a protein molecule, Myoglobin.
Richard returned to the US in 1959 and set up a lab at the University of Illinois, then in 1963 moved to the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. He continued his work on determining the crystal structure of large molecules such as cytochrome C at Caltech. He later shifted his focus to the structure of DNA and was among the first investigators to determine the crystal structure of small pieces of the DNA double-helix. In 1981, Richard moved his lab to UCLA, where he served as the Director of the Molecular Biology Institute from 1983-1994.
Richard was a renowned researcher and beloved mentor of the many students who trained in his laboratory at Caltech and UCLA. In 1985 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was a prolific author; in addition to many seminal papers in structural biology, he authored multiple textbooks on physical chemistry, general chemistry, biology, protein chemistry, and evolution.
Richard also had a strong interest in the arts, being an accomplished musician on the clarinet, recorder, piano, and harpsichord, and had a lifelong love of opera. This artistic side was evident in his collaborations with the illustrator Irving Geis, who interpreted the protein and DNA structures from X-ray diffraction data. Together Dickerson and Geiss produced some of the first detailed graphic images of molecular structures, long before computer-assisted images were available. Richard retired in 2004 but never lost his love of learning.
While at the University of Minnesota, Richard worked on more than his PhD; he met and wooed Lola Mae Hulderson, whom he wed in 1956, shortly before they left for Cambridge. Richard and Lola were married for 68 years and had many adventures across the country together. Richard was an avid hiker and outdoorsman and regularly went on hikes in the San Gabriel mountains near their home in Pasadena. Richard is survived by his children Ian, Dan, Lise, Sara, and Joyce, and nine grandchildren. Richard will be dearly missed as a father, educator, mentor, and master of unending puns.
A memorial service will be held at 2pm on July 31 at the UCLA Faculty Club. For those wishing to share memories or offer condolences, please send email to REDMemorial2025@gmail.com.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Richard E. Dickerson Biochemistry Seminar fund at UCLA: http://giving.ucla.edu/dickersonbiochem.