Norman P. Willett, 86, microbiologist at Temple Dental School
As a teacher, he encouraged science education in schools.
IF YOU COULD not develop a passion for microbiology, you would have been advised to stay away from Norm Willett.
"Norm is the consummate microbiologist," a colleague once said. "He loves microbiology."
Not only did he love it, he wanted other people to love it, too.
"His enthusiasm for communicating it to everyone, no matter what their status - student, colleague or administrator - is evident in even short conversations," Toby K. Eisenstein, professor of microbiology and immunology at the Temple University School of Medicine, said in a tribute to Norm.
Norman Paul Willett, retired chairman of the microbiology department at Temple's Dental School, a devoted traveler who saw most of the known world, a teacher and a loving family man, died Friday of a brain hemorrhage. He was 86.
Microbiology, as the name implies, is the study of microscopic organisms, like bacteria, that can cause infections. Research in the field can result in new treatments for diseases.
Norm Willett grew up on a poultry farm in Demarest, N.J., and experienced microbiology "from the trenches," as Eisenstein put it.
He dealt with infections in chickens on his family's farm, and was involved in research at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine on the causes of bovine mastitis, an infection of the udder tissue in cows and one of the most dangerous and costly diseases in the dairy-cattle industry.
He also dealt with sick rats as part of his doctoral thesis at Michigan State University and in postgraduate work at Harvard.
"He was a man who believed very strongly in science education - inside and outside the classroom," said his daughter, Susan Willett.
"First and foremost, Norm is an educator," Eisenstein said in the tribute, written when Norm was honored by the Eastern Pennsylvania Branch of the American Society for Microbiology in 2002.
"He has a Renaissance man's interest in science. . . . He reads vociferously and widely. At lunch, he makes conversation about the latest articles in Science, Scientific American, Journal of Bacteriology, American Scientist or Infection and Immunity."
In symposia he organized through the American Society for Microbiology, he encouraged discussions of such diverse topics as science fiction, including the "Jurassic Park" films; the way the press deals with science; and the Ebola outbreaks in Africa.
Norm also involved students from public and private schools, kindergarten through high school, in science education through a grant from the National Institutes of Health.
He developed science-laboratory modules that the students could take back to their schools. In addition, he received a Howard Hughes grant that enabled him to have the original teachers in the program train new teachers to continue the work.
He received another NIH grant to provide a year of supplemental studies to help "bridge" students obtain the skills and credentials to qualify for graduate school.
"Norm figured out how to make education, science literacy and transfer of information down the chain to the students' formative years a legitimate, funded endeavor," Eisenstein said.
He created a network of science teachers who worked together to further science education in their schools.
"He created a community of science," Eisenstein said.
Norm was active in the Eastern Pennsylvania branch of the ASM, serving as treasurer, vice president, and the 29th president from 1975 to 1977.
His travels took him to China, Africa, Australia, Indonesia, Scandinavia, Iceland, Egypt and Russia, and to all 50 American states.
Norm received a bachelor's degree in agriculture from Rutgers University in 1949, a master's from Syracuse University in 1952, and a doctorate in agriculture and applied sciences from Michigan State University in 1955.
He was a researcher at Harvard in the mid-'50s, a researcher for Squibb Institute for Medical Research from 1957 to 1961, and a researcher at the Penn School of Veterinary Medicine in the late '60s.
He joined the Temple Dental School as chairman of the microbiology department in 1967.
Eisenstein said Norm's "positive outlook on life helped me through many tough times at work. Above all, being with Norm, you had to be an optimist."
Besides his daughter, Norm is survived by his wife of 58 years, the former Beverly Efros; two sons, Mark and David Willett; a brother, Bernard Willett, and three grandchildren.
Services: Were Sunday.