Virginia Ktsanes with her grandson, Bon.
| On Saturday, July 12, a memorial service will be held for Virginia Kratzer Ktsanes, a longtime Tulane epidemiologist and former Champion of Public Health. The service will take place 10 a.m. at Myra Clare Rogers Chapel on the campus of Tulane University.
Ktsanes, at 82 years old, passed away on May 5, 2008, in Berkeley, California, after a nearly three-year battle with mantel cell lymphoma.
Ktsanes taught for nearly thirty years at Tulane University and served as chairperson of the departments of biostatistics and epidemiology in the late 1980s and early 1990s. She was a much admired and respected professor whose teaching and research covered a wide range of public health issues including population studies, family planning, teenage pregnancy, malaria, cancer, HIV, and AIDS. Ktsanes also served as an advisor to the World Health Organization, U.S. Peace Corps, and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In the 1980s, she was a lead investigator in an EPA research project that found significant health risks for swimmers in Lake Pontchartrain. In 2002, she was honored as a Champion of Public Health by Tulane University.
Over the years, Ktsanes was active in a number of professional and social organizations including the American Association of University Professors, the American Sociology Association, the American Public Health Association, the Tulane University Senate, the Tulane University Women’s Association, the Blood Center of Southeast Louisiana, New Orleans Friends of Music, and San Francisco’s Bay Area Youth Arts. She was also very active in academic affairs and served on dozens of governing bodies and advisory committees at Tulane University.
Frances Mather, former associate dean at the school and a close friend of Ktsanes, fondly recounts that “Virginia was always involved in the lives of her students, staff and faculty. She brought a caring atmosphere to the department and was supportive of the desires, plans and career opportunities of everyone around her. She wrote letters of support, listened carefully to students and helped them solve their problems. Her specialty was the design, implementation, and execution of population surveys in which her students learned to write proposals for surveys they hoped one day to carry out. Her skills made her a much sought-after reviewer of proposals and papers.” Mather also notes Ktsanes maintained many friendships with former students from all around the world “who often contacted her to just relate where they were, how they were doing, and thank her for all she had done for them.”
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be given in her memory to the Audubon Nature Institute and sent in care of William Ktsanes, PO Box 6096, Albany, California 94706. A bench in Audubon Park’s myrtle grove will be dedicated in memory of Thomas and Virginia Ktsanes. - William Ktsanes, son of Virginia Ktsanes July 2, 2008 |
