Robert H. Ackerman ’57

Robert H. Ackerman ’57, of Cambridge, Mass.; Dec. 18. He worked in pioneering research in the fields of stroke imaging and prevention, including private patient practice, consulting with private companies, and in educating students and faculty in the field of medicine. He helped in the development of non-invasive modalities for the diagnosis of carotid disease and the use of positron emission tomography in the study of ischemic stroke, and was the program director of the National Institutes of Health funded Interdepartmental Stroke Center at Massachusetts General Hospital. He was an associate professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School and a member of their medical school admissions faculty for many years. In the early 1990s he was a distinguished scientist in the department of radiologic pathology of the Armed Forces Institute. In 2013 Massachusetts General Hospital honored him by renaming the MGH Neurovascular Laboratory, which he had founded in 1974 and where he was serving as chairman emeritus, as the R.H. Ackerman Neurovascular Lab. The lab was one of the first non-invasive labs in the country dedicated to using ultrasound to understand blood flow to the brain to identify patients at risk or who have experienced stroke. For many years, he served on several advisory boards and sponsored notable charities, including well known public and private organizations throughout the Boston metro area. An avid rower, he often competed in the Head of the Charles Regatta in Cambridge, as well as other best in class competitions, such as Henley Royal Regatta in England. He enjoyed gardening, writing stories, playing the piano, and traveling. He was a member of the American Board of Radiology, the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, the Cambridge Yacht Club, and the Eastern Point Yacht Club in Gloucester, Mass. He is survived by a stepbrother and several nieces and nephews.