March 16, 2021
Robert J. Levine, MD, professor emeritus of internal medicine, passed away peacefully on February 25, 2021, at his home in Hamden, Connecticut, where he resided with his wife of 33 years, Jeralea Hesse. Levine joined the faculty at Yale School of Medicine in 1964. He served for 30 years as the chair of the Human Investigation Committee and was well known nationally and internationally for his pivotal work in human subjects research. His book, titled
Ethics and the Regulation of Clinical Research, and published in 1981 with a second edition in 1986, became required reading for every Institutional Review Board member.
Levine first came to Yale in 1962 as a chief medical resident at the Veterans Administration Hospital in West Haven after completing his training at George Washington University, Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, and the National Heart Institute (now known as the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute). He returned to the National Heart Institute for a ye