Robert G. Shulman, Sterling Professor Emeritus of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry in Yale's Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) and Yale School of Medicine (YSM), died on Jan. 11, 2026. He was 101.
Shulman was a key figure in the development of NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) techniques for use in live subjects, for the purpose of studying metabolic pathways in human subjects and animals.
At Yale, where he joined the faculty in 1979, Shulman founded and then directed the Magnetic Resonance Research Center (MRRC) at YSM, making the university one of the early leaders in magnetic resonance (MR) spectroscopy and functional imaging technology. He also served as director of the Division of Biological Sciences in FAS.
His research collaborations offered major insights into the role of metabolism and bioenergetics in medical science, including diabetes, neurological, and psychiatric disorders. His use of magnetic resonance technology in studying the brain's activity demonstrated that it could trace metabolic functioning in the brain
He also made fundamental contributions to the basic understanding of metabolism itself, through the discovery of the glycogen shunt and its role in allowing metabolism to adapt to sudden challenges by stabilizing multiple metabolic pathways.
"What's always driven him is his quest to really understand, first materials, then biology, then cognition, evolution, adaptation - always fundamental questions," Douglas Rothman, a frequent Shulman collaborator who is the co-director of the Magnetic Resonance Research Center (MRRC) at YSM, a professor of radiology and biomedical imaging and of biomedical engineering, said in 2023.
Shulman was also one of first fellows at the Whitney Humanities Center (WHC), which was established in 1981 as a hub for research and scholarly exchange.
"I realized very quickly that this was one very smart man and not just in his field of biology - he knew lots of things outside of his field, and he was very much interested in the humanities," said Peter Brooks, Sterling Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature and founding director of the WHC. "The center was in its fledgling state, and it needed people like Bob to believe in it and to make it happen. He was very important in defining its mission and its structure."
Owen Fiss, Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law, who was a fellow at WHC at the same time as Shulman, underscored the point. "He worked as a scientist, and was supremely rigorous in all his investigations, but his heart was in philosophy," said Fiss. "As a result, he became a towering presence at the Whitney Humanities Center during its founding years."
The WHC later established the Shulman Lecture Series, named in his honor, which coordinates lectures on topics bridging science and the humanities, organized in conjunction with an undergraduate seminar course.
Shulman retired from Yale in 2002, but continued to produce research. In 2013, he published the book "Brain Imaging: What it Can (and Cannot) Tell Us About Consciousness," which examined the technical capabilities and limitations of functional magnetic resonance imaging to study cognitive process such as memory and behavior.
He also continued to co-author numerous papers that advanced the understanding of metabolism and other physiological processes, including how cells convert glucose to ethanol and lactate, commonly known as the Warburg effect, which had long been a mystery of metabolic science. Most recently, he was working on a paper with Rothman and another colleague, Peter Moore, Sterling Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, to summarize decades of research using magnetic resonance spectroscopy to re-define the role of metabolism in gene expression.
Born March 3, 1924, Shulman graduated from Columbia University with a B.A. in 1943 and, after serving in the U.S. Navy, earned his Ph.D. in physical chemistry, also from Columbia, in 1949. In 1961, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship, during which he worked with Francis Crick and Sidney Brenner on frame shifts of the genetic code. He was an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine.
Before Yale, Shulman worked for many years at Bell Laboratories, where in 1961 he founded and headed the Biophysics Research Department. His work there pioneered the use of MR to study biology, including protein structure and function, and metabolism, as well the basic biophysical understanding that led to medical MRI contrast agents.
His family described him as "an intense and romantic explorer of ideas" that he thought were worth pursuing. He would lose himself in opera, in the letters of John Keats, or in talking about oysters. He often said how grateful he was that he lived in a time when great institutions - including the Bell Labs and Yale University - gave people like him enormous freedom to explore directions that they believed mattered.
Shulman is survived by his wife Stephanie Spangler, vice provost for health affairs & academic integrity at Yale, as well as two sons, Mark and James, and three grandchildren. He was predeceased by his first wife, Sara Lee Shulman, and their son Joel.
A memorial service will be planned for the spring at Yale. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Fund for Guggenheim Fellowships.
