Beryl Benacerraf, 73, Dies; Pioneered the Use of Prenatal Ultrasound
Benacerraf led the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Toronto from 1956 to 1978, where she became a senior research scientist and professor emerita.
Benacerraf, 73, died on Monday, Jan. 9, 2003. She was the daughter of John and Edith Benacerraf, who emigrated from Romania in the mid-1930s.
Benacerraf was a pioneering scientist and teacher. She developed and taught a course in fetal echocardiography at the University of Toronto in the 1980s and created a graduate program in fetal and neonatal pathology at the same university.
She led the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Toronto from 1956 to 1978, where she became a senior research scientist and professor emerita.
A native of Romania, she was a child of emigrants who joined the newly established Romanian Jewish community in Toronto in 1935 following World War I, and later, in the 1940s, the Jewish community in Romania.
She earned a biology bachelor of science degree at the University of Bucharest in 1951, before emigrating as a student to Canada. She earned a medical degree in 1954 from the University of Toronto, and then joined the Institute for Advanced Study.
In 2006, she was awarded the Ontario Order of Merit, for her contributions to medicine.
Benacerraf was a pioneering scientist and teacher, said her family. She developed and taught a course in fetal echocardiography at the University of Toronto in the 1980s and created a graduate program in fetal and neonatal pathology at the same university.
“She was an extraordinary person and a great role model for women in medicine,” said her son, Irving Cohen. “Her passion for knowledge — particularly her love of science — made her a truly outstanding researcher. She could see the patterns in data that were so familiar to her father, the Romanian-born physician and researcher.”
Benacerraf was born in Bucharest to parents who left Romania decades earlier, said her son, Irving Cohen.
“The family was so proud and excited that we lived in Canada and received a university education.”
She was a pioneer in the use of ultrasound, said Cohen, noting that Benacerraf and her mother helped establish the University of Toronto’s
