Local News
Campus News
Police Beat
Weather
Features


(LAST_STORY)(NEXT_STORY)






news Sports Opinions arts variety interact Wildcat On-Line QuickNav

UA alumnus dies in Swissair crash

By Sarah Spivack
Arizona Daily Wildcat
September 8, 1998
Send comments to:
city@wildcat.arizona.edu



[Picture]

Wildcat File Photo
Arizona Daily Wildcat

Donald Sheer


Donald Sheer, a UA alumnus en route to a scientific conference in Geneva on Wednesday with his wife, Diane, died when Swissair Flight 111 went down off the coast of Nova Scotia. He was 49.

Sheer had a "great ability to get a lot out of life," said Stuart Hameroff, his cousin and a Tucson resident. "You wanted to keep tabs on him - he was always doing interesting things."

Sheer came to the University of Arizona after receiving a bachelor's of science degree from Ohio University in the early 1970s. He spent several years studying in France before pursuing his graduate degrees at the UA. He earned a master's degree in toxicology and pharmacology, which he followed up with a Ph.D. in biochemistry.

While at the UA, Sheer conducted research on the effects of hormones produced by thyroid glands on the heart. His work was supervised by Dr. Eugene Morkin, a UA internal medicine professor.

Morkin said Sheer was one of the "better students in his age group" and a "friendly and affable" man.

After receiving his Ph.D. in 1984, Sheer worked for various companies in the pharmaceutical industry. He focused on protein analysis using high performance liquid chromatography methodology.

Sheer, who worked for Aresserono pharmaceutical company in the Boston area, developed new techniques and machinery for protein analysis, Morkin and Hameroff said.

When Sheer came to Tucson for graduate school, he was reunited with Hameroff and other cousins, whom he grew up with in Cleveland, Ohio.

Sheer was "the most popular" of the cousins in the neighborhood, Hameroff said.

He was "really likable with a great smile ... girls loved him," Hameroff said.

When he was young, Sheer loved sports. He played Little League baseball and worked with Hameroff in the Cleveland Indians' stadium.

Sheer, who ran marathons and triathlons, also had a passion for jazz and played the saxophone.

"He always had a band going," Hameroff said. "He had a great zest for living. Don was a real character."

Sheer is survived by his brothers, Jerry Sheer, of New York City, NY, and Ronald Sheer, of Chicago, Ill.; sister Harriet Hansell, of Columbus, Ohio; mother Sylvia Sheer and father Irving Sheer, of Cleveland, Ohio.

The family has not yet set a date for a memorial service.

Sarah Spivack can be reached via e-mail at Sarah.Spivack@wildcat.arizona.edu.










Financial Times Fall 98