Sheila Moriber Katz, celebrated pathologist, former dean of Hahnemann School of Medicine, author, and entrepreneur, has died at 80

Sheila Moriber Katz, 80, of Gladwyne, celebrated pathologist who first identified the cause of Legionnaires’ disease, former dean of Hahnemann University School of Medicine, innovative business owner, author, lecturer, and mentor, died Sunday, Sept. 10, of complications from Parkinson’s disease at her home.

An assistant professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Hahnemann in 1976, Dr. Katz is cited as the first person to actually see the deadly bacteria that causes what came to be known as Legionnaires’ disease. Her groundbreaking work with a microscope in a darkened room on the fifth floor at Hahnemann Hospital, during which she also contracted the disease, led to an understanding of the mysterious malady and earned her, among other honors, inclusion as one of Newsweek magazine’s 100 New American Heroes in 1986.

She told The Inquirer that year that she remembered an “intuitive thunderbolt kind of thought, like lightning” when she first recognized the abnormality in the slice of lung tissue. “I knew I was looking square in the eye of the cause.”

And that was just the beginning of her medical contributions. Dr. Katz went on to spend the 1980s and ‘90s as a professor at Hahnemann, vice provost of the university, dean of the medical school, cofounder of the university’s School of Public Health, and senior associate dean.

She was also executive director of a 1999 White House medical commission under President Bill Clinton and medical consultant to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the National Institutes of Health. She was a member, trustee, and on the board of directors of many medical organizations and firms, and founded her own company, NewMedicine, in 2000.

She won a dozen awards, and her work on Legionnaires’ disease was chronicled in detail by The Inquirer, the New York Times, and other publications around the world. She never really retired. “My secret is that I’m a laser,” she told The Inquirer. “I focus. I tune into one thing at a time.”

“The actual act of performing science is awesome, and the way to describe that is through a metaphor. You can’t describe it ... entirely through data and numbers. And that’s where artists who are scientists can make breakthroughs in human thought.”

As dean of the Hahnemann medical school in 1993, Dr. Katz oversaw dozens of departments, thousands of faculty, students, and support staff, and answered directly to the university president. As vice provost from 1987 to 1992, she helped direct the university’s overall strategic planning, financial budgets, and academic affairs.

She joined Hahnemann in 1974, became associate professor in 1977, professor in 1981, and senior associate dean in 1993. She was an expert in transplantation, immunology, and renal diseases, and lectured widely for more than 30 years.

She obtained millions of dollars in grants, organized seminars, published two volumes on Legionnaires’ disease, and contributed to more than 150 scholarly papers. “She was interested in figuring things out,” said her son Jonathan. “She was always looking for causes.”

Sheila Susan Moriber was born Feb. 1, 1943, in Brooklyn. She devoured encyclopedias and science books as a girl, graduated high school at 16, and was 19 when she earned a bachelor’s degree in premed at Cornell University in 1962.

She attended medical school at the University of Chicago, met intern Julian Katz, and they married in 1963. She went on to study at medical schools at Duke and Yale Universities, and earned her medical degree from Duke in 1966. She also received a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School in 1990.

Dr. Katz and her husband lived in Gladwyne and had son Jonathan and daughter Sara. She was a published poet and credited her husband with supporting her eclectic career outside the home. He died in 2014.

Dr. Katz followed baseball and the New York Yankees when she was young, practiced gymnastics after school, and was captain of the drum majorette team at Cornell. She doted on her grandchildren, was a mentor to many, and was as interested in her family and friends as she was in her career.

“She was warm and accepting,” her daughter said. “She loved to hear about people’s lives.”

As for dealing daily with deadly diseases for decades, Dr. Katz said in 1986: “Well, it makes me more sensitive to life. It makes me cherish not just my life but the lives of others. And I don’t fear death. It’s something that happens. I’m not afraid.”

In addition to her children, Dr. Katz is survived by six grandchildren, a brother, and other relatives. A sister died earlier.

Services are to be held at 11 a.m. Friday, Sept. 15, at West Laurel Hill Cemetery, 225 Belmont Ave., Bala Cynwyd, Pa. 19004.

Donations in her name may be made to the Julian and Sheila Katz Scholarship Fund at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, Sheila Katz Memorial, 5235 S. Harper Court, 4th Floor, Chicago, Ill. 60615.