Carl Erwin Mondon

1930 - 2025

Carl Erwin Mondon
01/03/1930 - 04/02/2025
Carl Erwin Mondon, Ph.D, a physiologist dedicated to a lifetime study of diabetes, passed away in his sleep, April 2, 2025, in San Francisco, California, the city of his birth.
He was 95 years old.
Born Jan. 3, 1930 at St. Joseph's Hospital, Carl attended Lawton School where at the age of nine he was diagnosed as a Type 1 diabetic. He would spend the next eight decades of his life cheating the disease by enjoying a childhood in the sand dunes of the Sunset District, learning to master classical violin, fishing for striped bass at Ocean Beach, diving from the Fleishhacker Pool dive tower and graduating from Lincoln High. He began his medical studies earning a B.S and an M.S at the University of San Francisco (once challenging underclassmen Bill Russell to a game of ping pong - and losing badly). He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Southern California and served his post doctorate at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. In a 52-year career as a research scientist he published over 70 medical papers.
Carl was co-director at the Mount Zion Medical Center research laboratory, a physiologist at Stanford University, the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Palo Alto, and at NASA Ames Research Center. He finished his career as senior research scientist at biotechnology companies Metabolex and FivePrime.
Throughout his life Carl shared his passions for music and medicine with others. He hosted his own weekly string quartet and played first violin in San Francisco's Civic Symphony. He mentored many gifted young science students and post-doctoral candidates. He also grew a mean rhododendron.
He met the love of his life in the string section of the Deutsche Musik Verein where he had trouble keeping his eye on the music as he sat next to the brown-eyed violinist, Gloria Jean. The high school sweethearts married in 1952 at Holy Name Church and grew a family of three loving children, Karen Mondon Scarpulla, Karl Mondon (Patty McGilvery), and Kathryn Atterbury (Wynn), whom he liked to torture at Christmas forcing them to solve math equations before presents could be opened.
He will be missed by nieces Barbara Hartley (Vince), Joani Hartley, and Gloria Compeau; grandchildren Stephen (Kristina), John, Danielle (Andrea Macchi), and Micaela Scarpulla, and Dylan and Walker (Inés) Atterbury; great grandchildren Riccardo and Liv Amelie Macchi Scarpulla, and Siena Scarpulla; and great nephew David Morse.
Carl is predeceased by wife Gloria, parents Carl and Margaret, sister Margaret Yasuda (Charles), and grandnephew John Morse (Leila).
The family is grateful to wonderful caregivers Helen and Janett, and to Dr. Umesh Masharani and the UCSF Endocrinology Clinic.
For those interested in furthering the work of diabetes research and helping others break Carl's record of 86 years living with Type 1 diabetes, donations can be made to the John A Karam MD Award Fund for the UCSF Endocrinology Fellowship Training Program.