De Villafranca, George W., 1922-1977

George Warren de Villafranca was born in 1923 in Meriden, Connecticut. He entered Yale University as a student of Zoology in 1942. His studies were interrupted by the onset of World War II and he became a radio and control tower operator for the USA Air Force in 1943. He eventually finished his undergraduate studies (1948) and went on to receive his Ph.D. from Yale University in Zoology in 1953.

In 1951, de Villafranca left the Marine Biology Laboratories in Woods Hole to take up a position at Smith College. At Smith, de Villafranca continued his research on contractile proteins in muscle. By the 1950s Burton Hall was considered an outdated facility for research and so de Villafranca and his students built a lab in one of the closets of Burton Hall. During summer, he took his lab to Wood Hole where he enjoyed state-of-the-art facilities and good sailing.

For his outstanding research and teaching, de Villafranca steadily rose through the academic ranks. He was promoted to Assistant Professor in 1954, Associate Professor in 1959, full Professor in 1963, and Gates Professor in 1974. In 1961, he was appointed Assistant to the President and was tasked with building a new science facility. The Clark Science Center opened in 1967.

Outside of his duties at Smith College, de Villafranca was incredibly active. He wrote nearly fifty articles on muscular contraction and won several grants for his research including a NIH grant from the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Disease. He travelled to Germany as a visiting professor and to India as a consultant for the National Science Foundation. In 1971, he became the first scientist to deliver the prestigious Katherine Asher Engel lecture titled "The Driving Force: Muscle". De Villafranca was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the American Society of Zoologists, the American Society of Biological Chemists, the Society of General Physiologists, Sigma Xi, the Biophysical Society, and the Marine Biological Laboratory Association. It is said that de Villafranca inspired so many of his students to enter the zoological field that many began to call meetings on the subject "de Villafranca Reunions".

De Villafranca passed away in 1977 after sustaining second heart attack. He was survived by his wife, Diana Fetter de Villafranca, Class of 1955, his children: Suzanne Stina Hans, Ruth Place de Villafranca and George de Villafranca Jr., and a former wife, Erica Pauli. His first wife, Suzanne Crane, died in 1960.

From the guide to the George Warren de Villafranca papers 42., 1922 - 1977, 1951 - 1992, (Smith College Archives)