Colorado Altitude Research Institute

Biographical/Historical note

John "Jack" T. Reeves was born on November 17, 1928 in Hazard, Kentucky. Reeves attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, graduating with a B.S. in biology in 1950. He continued with his education at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, receiving his M.D. in 1954. He spent some time as a resident at Cincinnati General Hospital before relocating to the University of Colorado Medical Center from 1957-1961. During his residency at the Center, he developed a working relationship with Robert Grover, a physician and high altitude physiologist at the cardiac catheterization laboratory. He spent eleven years at the University of Kentucky (1961-1972), including one year with Geoffrey Dawes, prominent respiratory physiologist at Oxford's Nuffield Institute for Medical Research. By 1970, he was named professor of medicine. During his years at Kentucky, he studied fetal lung circulation in animals, specifically newborn cattle. In 1972, Reeves moved to Denver at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center where he remained for almost thirty-two years as professor of medicine, pediatrics, and family medicine with involvements in surgery/emergency medicine. He was granted emeritus status in 1994, upon retirement from both the pediatrics and medicine departments and received teaching awards for his second year medical school pathophysiology courses, 1982-1994.

Considered by many of his colleagues to be an interdisciplinary scientist, Reeves' research not only involved high altitude studies, but neonatal medicine, anesthesiology, and biology. Some of his first high altitude studies, he conducted with Peter Hackett, answered questions about ventilatory acclimatization using mountaineers in Nepal. He later continued ventilation testing in Pike's Peak, Colorado, in a series of high altitude tests from 1982-1985. From 1999-2001, he was also involved in a study about altitude acclimatization in women, a subject that had not been explored fully in scientific analysis.

From 1985-1987, Reeves participated in the Operation Everest II research project in a simulated altitude chamber in Natick, Massachusetts. He was responsible for performing cardiac catheterizations to better understand circulatory function at high altitude. The accumulated data would result in numerous published articles and awards including the American Thoracic Society Research Achievement Award in 1996.

His research from over thirty-five years resulted in approximately 400 peer reviewed journal articles and several chapters in eleven published books. The topical distribution of his articles covers over fourteen disclipines, including pulmonary hypertension, altitude illness, cardiac output, metabolism, and circulatory control. One of his notable efforts is the history book Attitudes on Altitude: Pioneers of Medical Research in Colorado's High Mountains (2001), a narrative compilation of pioneers of high altitude medicine, edited with Robert Grover. He also wrote a non-scientific book titled Literary Gems: A Reading List of Great Short Books (1998).

Reeves was a member of the Cardiovascular Pulmonary Laboratory at the Colorado University School of Medicine, where he played a signficant role in the establishment of the Colorado Center for Altitude Medicine and Physiology. He also served as the research director of the former Colorado Altitude Research Institute in 1992, an association developed for public awareness education of high altitude safety.

John Reeves died on September 15, 2004, in Denver, Colorado.

References:

Hopkins, Susan and Peter D. Wagner. "New Directions in Exercise Physiology: John T. Reeves", Respiratory Physiology and Neurobiology, Volume 151, Issues 2-3, April 28, 2006.

From the guide to the John T. Reeves Papers, 1949-2004, (Mandeville Special Collections Library)