JoAnne Simson Obituary

JoAnne Valentine Simson BRENTWOOD, TN - JoAnne Valentine Simson, long-time faculty member at the Medical University of South Carolina, died on November 6th in Brentwood, TN at the age of 83. Raised in Waterford, Michigan, she went on to earn a Bachelor of Arts from Kalamazoo College, a Master of Science from the University of Michigan, and a Ph.D. from the State University of New York, Syracuse. Starting in 1970, she became assistant professor at MUSC, progressing over the next quarter of a century to the rank of full professor. During her tenure there, she spent a sabbatical year at the Biozentrum in Basel, Switzerland on a Fogarty International Fellowship. Jo Anne was also an active member in the Unitarian Church in Charleston and an intrepid traveller: following her retirement from MUSC, she taught overseas with the University of Maryland on American military bases in Korea, Kosovo, and Germany. A member of the American Association of Anatomists and the American Society of Cell Biology, Dr. Simson has won numerous awards, including grants through the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. As a practicing scientist, she was an author of 60 scientific publications. She was also featured in a Smithsonian exhibition, Science in American Life (1994 - 2011). Dr. Simson has written several travel books and other nonfiction as well as fiction and poetry. She is survived by her sister, Virginia Pierce of Michigan; her brother Richard Valentine of Texas; her daughters, Maria Simson of New York, NY; Elisabeth Gay of Nashville, TN; Briana Smith of Duluth, MN and six grandchildren. The family welcomes contributions in her name to Amnesty International. Visit our guestbook at www.legacy.com/obituaries/ charleston