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Dr. Pruitt was a visionary leader for the J. Crayton Pruitt Family Department of Biomedical Engineering.
He made multiple gifts endowing the department, including professorships, to enable our recruiting of world class talent to Gainesville. The department endowment has been essential to the development of the careers of our faculty and our graduate students, helping us to meet the tremendous need for biomedical engineering research and the demand from students for a first class education.
Unfortunately Dr. Pruitt did not live to see the first undergraduates enroll and graduate from his department – we’re sure he would have been very proud of how these young women and men will go out into the world to create new technologies and solve important problems in the delivery of health care.
Dr. Pruitt remained actively engaged with the department. This was clear from his last Advisory Board meeting where he continually engaged the faculty in discussions of their scientific work and its implications for health care delivery.
Dr. Pruitt also leaves a legacy as a Biomedical Engineer, having invented a device, the Pruitt-Inahara Shunt that substantially changed the practice of heart surgery. We are mindful that he has inspired us by professional example as well as by his vision for our department.
We will miss him greatly.
A news article appears in the St. Petersburg Times. |
It is with great sadness in our hearts that we note the passing of