Harry George Sperling

Harry George Sperling died on July 29, 2023. He was born in New York City to Beatrice Baer Sperling and Edward Sperling on August 26, 1924. He had one sister, Elizabeth Rose Sperling Hurwitz, who preceded him in death. He was married in 1950 to Doris Newman until her death in 1983. They had two daughters, Dr. Linda Sperling of Paris, France, and Dr. Diane Sperling Lauderdale, of Chicago, Illinois.

Dr. Sperling graduated from P.S. 114 Queens, the Horace Mann School for Boys, and received the A.B. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1944. He received the M.S.Sc. from The New School for Social Research in 1946 and the Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from Columbia University in 1953.

He was appointed Instructor in Psychology at The Johns Hopkins University in 1947 and served as Experimental Psychologist at the U.S. Navy Submarine Medical Research Laboratory in New London, Connecticut from 1948 to 1959. He served as Manager of Life Sciences at the Honeywell Federal Sciences Research Division in Minneapolis, Minnesota from 1959 to 1967. Dr. Sperling was appointed Associate Professor of Visual Sciences in Ophthalmology in the Medical School of the University of Minnesota in 1961.

He was the founding Director of The Sensory Sciences Center and Professor of Neural Sciences at The University of Texas Health Sciences at Houston from 1967 to 1994, then named Joe M. Green, Jr., Distinguished Professor of Neurobiology in Ophthalmology in 1994 and Emeritus Distinguished Professor in The University of Texas at Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in 1995. He subsequently served as Professor of Visual Sciences in Ophthalmology at the Boston University School of Medicine and The Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

Dr. Sperling was named Fellow of the Optical Society of America, was given the Award of Merit in Retinal Research by The Retinal Research Foundation, and the first Founders Memorial Medal of The International Colour Vision Society.

He leaves behind Susanna Ehrmann, his beloved wife of nearly 39 years, his two daughters, his son-in-law, two grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.

In his memory, donations may be made to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (aafa.org) or the American Lung Association (lung.org). Or you may have a tree planted in his memory: shoparborday.org/commemorative.