Estate of Arthur K. Solomon

Arthur Kaskel Solomon, PhD ’37, was a true renaissance man who had a love and talent for both art and science. He was well-known for the phenomenal art collection that he and his wife, Mariot Fraser “Marny” Solomon, amassed together. Encompassing contemporary works and pieces from the 19th and early 20th centuries, their collection included a Cézanne watercolor, a self-portrait by Monet, and a sculpture by Rodin.

Solomon’s lifelong passion for the sciences motivated him to study chemistry at Princeton as an undergraduate and to complete his graduate work, also in chemistry, at Harvard. Wartime research needs brought him to England for volunteer work on radar, but he would return to the U.S. in January 1945, temporarily joining the Radiation Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before landing a role at Harvard Medical School, where he would spend the rest of his career.

During his lengthy and storied career at HMS, Solomon led the former Biophysical Laboratory and was an embodiment of cross-campus collaboration before it became the norm. In 1950, he strongly advocated for the establishment of a biophysics program to be based at HMS. By involving members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), the program represented an early example of cross-University collaboration. Although it initially faced opposition from skeptical colleagues, the Biophysics Graduate Program began in 1959 and became a great success. Solomon ran the program from its inception until 1980. In 1983, Solomon formally retired from HMS, but he maintained an active laboratory until the mid-1990s and continued to participate in the program until just a few years before his death on Nov. 6, 2002.

In the 1980s, Solomon wanted to make a financial commitment to support the Biophysics Graduate Program in the future, so he created provisions in his trust for the establishment of the Arthur K. Solomon Professorship of Biophysics at Harvard Medical School, in addition to providing funding for fellowships at FAS. A recent distribution from the trust will allow HMS to move forward with creating the professorship.

“Arthur K. Solomon’s generous gift to endow a professorship of biophysics at Harvard Medical School is extremely valuable as it provides solid support for the mission of the Harvard Biophysics Graduate Program in educating and training the next generation of biophysicists,” says Martha Bulyk, PhD ’01, co-chair of the program. “Importantly, Professor Solomon presciently recognized the value of an interdisciplinary graduate experience spanning faculties in both FAS and HMS. The establishment of this professorship strengthens the cross-river collaboration inherent in the program, firmly confirms the program’s base at HMS as well as in FAS, and provides strong support for continued improvements in the education of graduate students in this program.”