Ronald Herbert Cohn (November 11, 1943 – September 16, 2022) was an American zoologist who was a long-time research collaborator of psychologist
Francine Patterson
Francine "Penny" Patterson (born February 13, 1947) is an American animal psychologist. From 1972 onwards, she taught a modified form of American Sign Language, which she called "Gorilla Sign Language" (GSL), to a gorilla named Koko. The scien ...
in her work in training
Koko the gorilla in the use of
American sign language
American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States and most of Anglophone Canadians, Anglophone Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual language that i ...
. He documented much of Koko's life on film and on camera,
[
] and is credited as the illustrator for the
children's book
Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. In addition to conventional literary genres, modern children's literature is classified by the intended age of the reade ...
s ''Koko's Kitten'', ''Koko-Love!: Conversations With a Signing Gorilla'', and ''Koko's Story''. One of his photos of Koko was featured on the cover of ''
National Geographic
''National Geographic'' (formerly ''The National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as ''Nat Geo'') is an American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. The magazine was founded in 1888 as a scholarly journal, nine ...
'' in 1978 and 1985.
At the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United States. Established in 1867, it is the f ...
, he received his
bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...
in 1965, his
master's degree
A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...
in
zoology
Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the anatomy, structure, embryology, Biological classification, classification, Ethology, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinction, extinct, and ...
in 1967, and his
Ph.D.
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...
in
biology
Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, History of life, origin, evolution, and ...
in 1971.
After receiving his PhD, Cohn worked as a cell biologist at the
Stanford Departments of Medicine and Pediatrics.
He did research in genetic engineering and membrane structure.
He is credited with discovering that adult cells make hyaluronic acid from glucosamine, which led the way to glucosamine being used to treat arthritis.
Cohn co-founded
The Gorilla Foundation
The Gorilla Foundation is a non-profit organization founded in 1976 by Francine Patterson
and Ronald Cohn with Barbara F. Hiller.
It was created in order to purchase a female western lowland gorilla named Koko (gorilla), Koko from the San Francisc ...
with Patterson and
Barbara F HillerNewsweek website, ''Who was Koko? Sign-Language Gorilla Dead at 46'', article by Katherine Hignett dated June 21, 2018
/ref> in 1971.Redwood City, California
Redwood City is a city on the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area, Bay Area of Northern California, approximately south of San Francisco and northwest of San Jose, California, San Jose. The city's population was 84,292 accor ...
, on September 16, 2022, at the age of 78.
References
External links
The Gorilla Foundation
1943 births
2022 deaths
21st-century American biologists
University of Illinois College of Agriculture, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences alumni
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