Deepak Pandya (6 December 1932 – 4 October 2020) was an

Indian-American Indian Americans are Americans whose ancestry originates wholly or partly from India. The terms Asian Indian and East Indian are used to avoid confusion with Native Americans in the United States, who are also referred to as "Indians" or "Am ...

neuroanatomist Neuroanatomy is the study of the structure and organization of the nervous system. In contrast to animals with radial symmetry, whose nervous system consists of a distributed network of cells, animals with bilateral symmetry have segregated, defin ...

who is best known for his contributions to the understanding of cortical and subcortical brain connectivity in the

macaque The macaques () constitute a genus (''Macaca'') of gregarious Old World monkeys of the subfamily Cercopithecinae. The 23 species of macaques inhabit ranges throughout Asia, North Africa, and Europe (in Gibraltar). Macaques are principally f ...

using tract-tracing methods. He was the father of

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

astronaut

Sunita Williams Sunita Lyn "Suni" Williams ( Pandya; born September 19, 1965) is an American astronaut and a retired U.S. Navy officer. Williams served aboard the International Space Station as a participant in Expedition 14, a flight engineer for Expedition ...

Early life and career

Deepak was born in Jhulasan,

Mehsana District Mehsana district (alternate spelling "Mahesana") is one of the 33 districts of Gujarat state in western India. Mehsana city is the administrative headquarters of this district. The district has a population of over 1.8 million and an area of over ...

Gujarat Gujarat () is a States of India, state along the Western India, western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the List of states and union territories ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. He was orphaned and completed his I.S. in 1953 from

Gujarat University The Gujarat University is a public state university located at Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. The university is an affiliating university at the under-graduate level and a teaching university at the post graduate level. It is accredited A+ by NAAC ...

in India. After obtaining his M.D. degree from Gujarat University in 1957 (and interning in V.S. Hospital in

Junagadh Junagadh () is the city and headquarters of Junagadh district in the Indian state of Gujarat. Located at the foot of the Girnar hills, southwest of Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar (the state capital), it is the seventh largest city in the state. It i ...

till 1958), he went to the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

and did his internship and residency training in Medicine in

Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

. In 1964, Pandya joined the Department of

Anatomy Anatomy () is the branch of morphology concerned with the study of the internal structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old scien ...

Case Western Reserve University Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a Private university, private research university in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It was established in 1967 by a merger between Western Reserve University and the Case Institute of Technology. Case ...

, as a postdoctoral

fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

. He moved to Boston in 1966 and joined the

Aphasia Aphasia, also known as dysphasia, is an impairment in a person's ability to comprehend or formulate language because of dysfunction in specific brain regions. The major causes are stroke and head trauma; prevalence is hard to determine, but aph ...

Research Center at the Boston Veterans Administration Medical Center, and the Departments of

and

Neurology Neurology (from , "string, nerve" and the suffix wikt:-logia, -logia, "study of") is the branch of specialty (medicine) , medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the nervous syst ...

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. BU was founded in 1839 by a group of Boston Methodism, Methodists with its original campus in Newbury (town), Vermont, Newbur ...

School of Medicine as an Assistant

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

. During his

postdoctoral A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). Postdocs most commonly, but not always, have a temporary acade ...

fellowship A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned or professional societies, the term refers ...

and subsequent period in Boston, Pandya focused his research investigations on cortico- cortical connections. In 1969 his laboratory moved to Boston City Hospital. During this time he was appointed a lecturer in Experimental

Neuropathology Neuropathology is the study of disease of nervous system tissue, usually in the form of either small surgical biopsies or whole-body autopsies. Neuropathologists usually work in a department of anatomic pathology, but work closely with the clini ...

at Harvard Medical School, and he participated in teaching the

Neuroscience Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions, and its disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, ...

course at both schools. In 1973, Pandya joined the Veterans Administration Medical Center in

Bedford, Massachusetts Bedford is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population of Bedford was 14,161 at th2022 United States census History ''The following compilation comes from Ellen Abrams (1999) based on information from Abram Engl ...

, as a staff internist. He practiced clinical medicine while continuing his research studies and teaching, until his retirement in 1995. After this, Pandya moved his office to the Department of

Neurobiology Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions, and its disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, ...

at Boston University School of Medicine.

Contributions and research

Pandya, along with many colleagues, made significant contributions in the field of connectivity of

cerebral cortex The cerebral cortex, also known as the cerebral mantle, is the outer layer of neural tissue of the cerebrum of the brain in humans and other mammals. It is the largest site of Neuron, neural integration in the central nervous system, and plays ...

. Several postdoctoral and Ph.D. students received training under Pandya. His research works have been internationally recognized and he presented his work at conferences in North America and Europe. Prior to his death, he had continued his research studies on comparative brain architectonics in

monkey Monkey is a common name that may refer to most mammals of the infraorder Simiiformes, also known as simians. Traditionally, all animals in the group now known as simians are counted as monkeys except the apes. Thus monkeys, in that sense, co ...

s and humans, as well as connectional studies in monkeys.

Personal life

He married

Slovene American Slovene Americans or Slovenian Americans are Americans of full or partial Slovene or Slovenian ancestry. Slovenes mostly immigrated to America during the Slovene mass emigration period from the 1880s to World War I. History The first Slove ...

Ursuline Bonnie Zalokar, who resides in

Falmouth, Massachusetts Falmouth ( ) is a New England town, town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 32,517 at the 2020 census, making Falmouth the second-largest municipality on Cape Cod after Barnstable, Massachusetts, Barnstable. T ...

. They are the parents of

astronaut

. He is a relative of

Haren Pandya Haren Pandya (27 August 1961 – 26 March 2003) was the Home Minister of Gujarat in India. He was murdered in 2003 in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, when he was sitting in his car (the place of his murder is contentious), after a morning walk in the Law Ga ...

.https://english.varthabharati.in/india/congress-revives-haren-pandya-murder-case-as-sunita-williams-returns-to-earth#google_vignette

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pandya, Deepak Indian emigrants to the United States 1932 births 2020 deaths Case Western Reserve University faculty Harvard Medical School faculty Boston University faculty Gujarat University alumni People from Mehsana district American people of Gujarati descent