Updated September 21, 2017 with service information and memorial gift information. See below.
There will be a Memorial on October 5th, 2017, from 1:00 - 5:00 at Boston University, in the Metcalf Building, Trustees Ballroom, 1 Silber Way. There will be speeches from family, friends and colleagues throughout Howard’s life, followed by a reception.
There will also be an Academic Retrospective held on March 23, 2018 at Boston University. This event will be a day-long celebration of Howard’s body of academic work and his lasting scientific legacy.
Memorial gifts may be made to the Professor Howard Eichenbaum Undergraduate Neuroscience Fund at Boston University.
Gifts by mail may be made by including a note designating the Eichenbaum Fund, making checks payable to “Trustees of Boston University” and mailing to: Boston University Gifts & Records, 595 Commonwealth Avenue, Suite 700,Boston, MA 02215.
Online gifts may be made at www.bu.edu/campaign/donate-now/
Click the “give to BU” button, then click “Other Fund” under the Cause button, and also write “Eichenbaum Fund” in the text box.
Howard B. Eichenbaum, of Needham and Chatham, formerly of Wellesley, a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Boston University, and an internationally recognized figure in advancing our understanding of the fundamental nature and brain mechanisms of memory, died in Boston on July 21, 2017 following recent spine surgery at age 69.
Eichenbaum’s contributions to the field of memory research were profound; elucidating the mechanisms underlying memory and its organization in the brain, including the discovery of “time cells” in the hippocampus. Eichenbaum joined the BU faculty after obtaining a BS in cell biology and a PhD in Psychology at the University of Michigan, completing a post-doctoral fellowship in the MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, then holding faculty positions at Wellesley College, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and SUNY Stony Brook. Eichenbaum served as founding Director of the BU Center for Memory and Brain and of the Cognitive Neurobiology Laboratory, after having earlier founded both the Undergraduate Program for Neuroscience and the Graduate Program for Neuroscience.
Eichenbaum’s non-science pursuits included coaching his two sons’ Little League baseball teams for many years, taking his sons around the country to catch a game at every Major League Baseball Park in America that spanned summers across 15 years, kayaking in the waters off Chatham and rooting passionately for his Boston Red Sox and University of Michigan teams. He is survived by his beloved wife of 35 years, Karen J. Shedlack; two sons, both pursuing graduate studies, Alexander E. Eichenbaum, at Washington State University and Adam S. Eichenbaum, at the University of California- Berkeley; 100-year-old mother, Edith (Kahn) Eichenbaum of San Diego; brother, Jerold Eichenbaum of San Diego and sister, Miriam Eichenbaum Drop of Los Angeles.