Peter Satir

Dr Peter Satir is a microbiologist who has spent his career studying the basis of motion by studying the cilium. He is a native of New York, graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1952, received his Ph.D. from the Rockefeller Institute in 1961 and currently works at the Department of Anatomy and Structural Biology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

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His interest in biology came from the first day in high school biology when he looked in a microscope, saw a Paramecium and asked his teacher how its cilia move. He says, "At the age of fourteen, I had asked the question which still dominates my research interests. Of course, I still had a long way to go to be a biologist."

After high school, he went to Columbia University where he was the only zoology major. An unusual decision at the time, he also decided to go to graduate school. He met his wife Birgit while studying in Denmark. After their marriage, they moved to Chicago, where they worked in Biology and Zoology at the University of Chicago. While not permitted to work under the same supervisor, they were permitted to work in the same department.

In 1967, Satir was appointed Associate Professor of Anatomy in Berkeley bringing experience in electron microscopy and modern cell biology to the department. He and his wife were the first couple in history to work in the same department. They went to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine because it offers individual faculty positions to spouses.

In 2005, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Copenhagen.