Shulman worked for many years at Bell Laboratories, where in 1961 he founded and headed the Biophysics Research Department. His work there pioneered the use of MR to study biology, including protein structure and function, and metabolism, as well the basic biophysical understanding that led to medical MRI contrast agents, a press release said.
Shulman was a Sterling Professor Emeritus of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry in Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences and Yale School of Medicine in New Haven. His research collaborations offered major insights into the role of metabolism and bioenergetics, including diabetes, and neurological and psychiatric disorders, according to Yale officials.
“I came to realize that this was a tremendously smart man who was not confined to the biological sciences at all, even though he was a leader in that,” said Yale comparative literature professor emeritus Peter Brooks. “He was just a very warm and supportive and loving person. I miss him tremendously.”
Shulman was an important figure at the Whitney Humanities Center, which was established in 1981 as a hub for scholarly exchange and research. He was one of the first fellows there and later the Shulman lecture series was named after him.
“It got him out of the box he had been in and enabled him to talk to people outside his field,” Brooks said. “Indeed, he ended up teaching a course in science and literature with a colleague from comparative literature.”
“The center was in its fledgling state, and it needed people like Bob to believe in it and to make it happen,” Brooks said. “He was very important in defining its mission and its structure.”
The three friends enjoyed talking about big thinkers and big ideas spanning different disciplines. These included the late literary critic Lionel Trilling – whom Shulman had studied under at Columbia University as an undergrad — and renown philosopher Tom Nagel, the author of “What is it Like to be a Bat?”
“He was a scientist, but he read ferociously. I mean, he read everything,” Fiss said. “We often talked about books, about history, ordinary literature, movies. There’s all culture was within his grasp. If you were in his house, you would see the breadth and width of his reading.”
“It was totally energizing, and there was a mixture, of intelligence and warmth in Bob,” Brooks said. “When you were with him, when you were talking, whatever you were, it wasn’t just intellectual. You were really comrades.”…Read more by Susan Braden