Harry A. Guess M.D. Ph.D.

Harry A. Guess, MD, PhD, age 65, was born December 24, 1940 in New York City. Harry died January 1, 2006.
He was son of Harry A. Guess and Vista Brabham Guess. Following his mother's death shortly after his birth, he was adopted by his aunt, Dorothy Brabham Guess who had married his father. After his father's death in 1946, Dr. Guess lived with his adoptive mother in Bamberg, SC.
He attended Georgia Tech on a Navy ROTC scholarship and graduated in 1964 with both a B.S. and a M.S. He served in the United States Navy for five and ahalf years on Admiral Rickover's staff at the Atomic Energy Commission, Division of Naval Reactors.
After completing his military service, Dr. Guess attended Stanford University where he received a Ph.D. in Mathematics and a M.S. in Operational Research in 1972. After a year of teaching, Harry spent two years at Bell Laboratories developing statistical models of communication networks and went to NIH to work on mathematical population genetics and biostatistics. There he and others developed what has become a widely used method for calculating the statistical uncertainty in cancer risk estimates based on animal data. This work kindled an interest in taking a more biological approach to understanding human health risks. He enrolled in medical school at the University of Miami, (M.D. 1979) with epidemiologic research as his career goal. His residency training in pediatrics was at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He later added board certification in preventive medicine and public health.
In 1985, Harry established the Epidemiology Department at Merck Research Laboratories and retired as vicepresident from Merck in 2003, in order to become the first director of the University of North Carolina-GlaxoSmithKline Center of Excellence in Pharmacoepidemiology and Public Health at UNC, and professor of Epidemiology Biostatistics and Pediatrics. Harry led the UNC Centers for Education and Research on Therapeutics (CERTS), which focused on the optimal use of drugs, medical devices and biological products in pediatrics. He also obtained NIH funding to lead UNC as part of a large NIH roadmap initiative to study the dynamic assessment of patient-reported chronic disease outcomes (PROMIS). Harry's career straddled pharmacoepidemiology and public health, and he strove to address practical issues facing the industry and clinicians with an academic and innovative approach to complex problems. He has made notable contributions to research on vaccines, the natural historyof complex disease, development and validation of clinical trial endpoints and patient reported outcomes, and pharmacoepidemiology, in many cases setting the industry standard. Harry was a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Preventive Medicine and the American College of Epidemiology. He co-authored more than 150 research articles and served on the editorial boards of Epidemiology, Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, and Journal of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. He was named to Who's Who in Medicine and Health in 2003. He gave invited congressional testimony on medical data privacy in 1998. Dr. Guess received the Award for Sustained Scientific Excellence from the International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology in August 2005. Over the years, Harry was a mentor to numerous junior and senior scientists at Merck, UNC, and other institutions, guiding their development and improving their understanding of epidemiological concepts. His success in academia and research was remarkable, yet his research endeavors were always accomplished while pursuing one of his passions; teaching and advising graduate students. At UNC and elsewhere, Harry was known as the consummate teacher and sought after advisor for graduate students and colleagues.
He is survived by his wife of 41 years, Geraldine Graflund Guess; two daughters, Carol Guess of Seattle, WA and Alison Guess Fitton and her husband, Bruce Howard Fitton; and one grandchild, Jacob David Fitton; and a first cousin, Evelyn Moore McGee of Charleston, SC.
In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to scholarships established at UNC: UNC-CH School of Public Health Foundation, Inc. (note it for the Harry Guess Scholarship), UNC School of Public Health, Campus Box 7407, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7407, (Tax ID # 56-1717285), Attn: Charlotte Parks. An additional scholarship has been presented by Merck Research Laboratories which will provide matching funds for Merck employees: The Harry A. Guess-Merck Scholarship in Pharmacoepidemiology, Attn: Charlotte Parks, Executive Director, UNC-CH SPH Foundation, Inc., UNC School of Public Health, Campus Box 7407, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7407.
A private burial service will be held in New York.
Friends may call at 104 Waterford Place, Chapel Hill, on Sunday, 5:00-7:00 p.m., January 8th.
Walkers Funeral Home is serving the Guess family.