Ricardo Mesa-Tejada

On April 15, 2024 Dr. Ricardo Mesa-Tejada passed in his sleep. He was born on November 14, 1942 in Bogotá, Colombia, the fourth child and happy ten-pound surprise of Leonor Tejada Vergara and Doctor Eduardo Mesa Prieto. At a young age Ricardo's parents introduced him to his first two loves: music and travel. As a child he accompanied his mother to the ballet school she helped open in Bogotá, relishing in the chance to listen to her play piano for the dancers. While his father's position as the Chief Physician of the National Railroads brought Ricardo and his siblings across the country, often collecting pets along the way, from bunnies, chickens, parrots, a merino lamb and even a monkey. On visits to the countryside, he and his siblings would stake-out beneath respective mango trees, patiently waiting for ripe fruits to fall. These golden days of childhood were brought to a halt on April 9, 1948 when Colombia's popular presidential candidate and family friend, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, was assassinated in Bogotá; an event with reverberations that lasted decades and displaced over two million people, including the Mesa-Tejada family.

They left their large colonial home in Bogotá and adapted to a more humble quality of life in Queens, New York. Some of Ricardo's favorite phrases, like "the world is your oyster," and "suck the marrow out of life" come to mind when imagining him at eight years old in New York. From lessons at the Third Street Music School, to checking out scores at the Lincoln Center music library and sneaking into the second half of performances at Carnegie Hall and the Met Opera during intermission (a debt he would later repay manifold with over forty years of patronage), Ricardo took advantage of the innumerable opportunities Manhattan offered him to pursue his passion for music.

As a teenager Ricardo also explored an interest in science at home, breeding fruit flies to test the genetics of their eye-colors, impressing a Columbia University professor while plaguing his family's small home with pests. He pursued a degree in Biology on a violin scholarship at Manhattan College and earned his MD at the Complutense University of Madrid, where he discovered a deep love for travel which he would later share with his family. When he wasn't attending flamenco concerts in the caves of Seville, running from the bulls in Pamplona or marveling at the intricacies of the Alhambra, he was developing a profound admiration for human anatomy and physiology. He would later insist to his children that if every person in the world were required to witness the beauty that is the inner orchestra of the human body, violence would become obsolete.

Ricardo returned to the US to complete a residency in pathology at Columbia University where he eventually became an associate professor and member of the Institute of Cancer Research at the College of Physicians and Surgeons. It was at a research lab at Columbia where he first crossed paths with Amy Jonassen. They fostered a friendship, based on shared interests in science, nature, art and food. Their early years involved cross-country skiing down Broadway for snowy lunch dates and horseback riding through the trails of the Rockefeller State Park Preserve, paths they would later walk with their children. Over a dish of suckling pig in Spain, she convinced him to spend the rest of his life with her. They married in 1984 and had three kids: Gabriela, Ian and Anneliese. Ricardo made sure his children were raised immersed in music. From trips to the Opera (as toddlers!), to WQXR constantly emanating from the kitchen or car radios, to his hums of approval as he savored one of Amy's meals, or the melodies he would subconsciously whistle as he moved through the house, Ricardo's very being exuded music.

As a father he oscillated between goofy: delighting in the opportunity to introduce his children to The Muppets, indulgent: sharing his favorite sites across Europe with them at a young age, and strict: demanding a certain caliber in self presentation, chores and schoolwork. His fastidiousness was not always appreciated - be it sending back a plate at a restaurant, telling his children to work harder on a school assignment or insisting to his colleagues that the research for a paper was not air-tight. However these moments of persistence are what made him such a driver of excellence.

As Founder and Director of the Immunocytochemistry Laboratory at the Institute of Cancer Research, Ricardo was able to champion his concept of bringing anatomic pathology to the next level of molecular diagnostics. From Columbia University Ricardo was recruited to head Molecular Tissue Pathology at Quest Diagnostics and was subsequently CMO at Aureon Biosciences, an early innovator in the field of artificial intelligence-guided immunodiagnostics. Ricardo served on numerous committees and review panels (NIH/NCI, NCCLS, among others), acquired several patents and published extensively. He devoted his career to his deep respect and admiration of all life.

Ricardo's retirement gave him more time in his Pleasantville home to pour over his beloved New York Times, a dedication of his going back to his childhood days working a paper route in Queens. Ricardo was always moved by the news, and at times embodied the sorrows of the world. A beacon of hope in his later years was his relationship with his furry Papillon companion Puck. Until the end, the two white-haired friends took daily strolls together around Swan Lake at the Rockefeller State Park. Even at 81 Ricardo was able to let nature surprise and woo him. He died on a stunning spring day, letting us know that through crisp rays of sun, unfurling magnolia blossoms and sweet bird songs, his symphony plays on.