Name Robert Aird | ||
Robert Burns Aird (5 November 1903 – 28 January 2000), was an American educator, neurologist and epileptologist.
Aird's father, Dr. John Aird, founded the Aird Clinic in Provo, Utah. The facility was the only hospital in the Provo area for many years. His grandfather and grandmother, William Aird and Elizabeth McLean, were Scots immigrants and the family was proud of its heritage, thus the name "Robert Burns" Aird, after the famous Scots poet. His uncle, Henry McLean Aird was a prominent educator in Utah.
After education at Cornell University, Harvard Medical School, and Deep Springs College Aird founded the department of Neurology at the University of California at San Francisco in 1947 and was Professor and Chairman until 1966. In addition to conducting his own research (Flynn Aird syndrome bears his name), Aird developed the department into a leading academic center for study of the brain sciences, drawing future Nobel laureate Stanley Prusiner as a resident late during Aird's tenure. From 1958 to 1959 he served as president of the American Epilepsy Society (AES) and received its Lennox Award in 1970.
Aird also wrote a history of modern neurology, and coauthored 2 textbooks on epilepsy.
A lifelong musician, Aird was president of the Cornell University Glee Club as an undergraduate, and during his tenure as neurology chairman at UCSF wrote a musical about the life of Joshua A. Norton (ca. 1815-1880), the mentally ill self-proclaimed Emperor of the United States and Mexico. In addition, he was a successful real estate speculator in the San Francisco area.