Ronald J. Konopka (1947–2015)

Ron Konopka was found dead of an apparent heart attack in his Pasadena, CA home on February 14, 2015. Konopka was my close contemporary and began graduate school at Caltech in 1967. He published his thesis work along with his mentor Seymour Benzer in what is perhaps the single most influential paper in circadian rhythms (Konopka and Benzer, PNAS 68, 2112–2116). The field has spent much of the subsequent 45 years deciphering the meaning and validating (over and over again) the importance of this Rosetta stone.