We are deeply saddened by the news of Kendric C. Smith’s death on November 1, 2024. Kendric earned a B.S. degree in chemistry from Stanford University in 1947 and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of California–Berkley in 1952. With a special interest in radiation and ultraviolet light pathobiology, he began his career at the University of San Francisco Medical Center in 1953, and in 1956 joined the faculty of Stanford University Medical School, where he was promoted to Professor of Radiation Oncology in 1973. While there, his research focused on DNA repair and mutagenesis following radiation exposure. Realizing around this time that the photobiological sciences were too diversified for one sponsoring organization, he founded the American Society for Photobiology (ASP) in 1972, which focused on non-ionizing photobiology and photomedicine. Kendric published more than two hundred scientific papers and wrote or edited twelve books. He was appointed ASP’s first president in 1973, serving a three-year term with great distinction and with a tremendously positive influence on those who followed him up to the present day. Kendric’s good advice and helpful suggestions were especially valuable to each of us when elected to the ASP presidential office: Al Girotti in 1995 and Frank Gasparro in 1996. His kind words to us and other ASP members at the Society’s 50th anniversary in 2022 provided us with a lasting memory of this great man.
Al Girotti, Ph.D.
Frank Gasparro, Ph.D.
