John Welsh

John Henry Welsh (August 25, 1901 – November 26, 2002) was an American physiologist who pioneered early work on serotonin as a neurotransmitter in invertebrates. He also studied circadian rhythms, neurosecretion, and neuropharmacology. Welsh was born August 25, 1901, in Boothbay, Maine. He graduated from Berea College in Kentucky in 1922, followed by a M.A. (1922) and Ph.D. (1928) at Harvard University. Welsh was on the staff of Harvard from 1927 until his retirement in 1970. He was Chairman of the Biology Department from 1947-1950, and served important roles at the Bermuda Biological Station for Research during his career. He taught summer courses in invertebrate physiology at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole for nearly 40 years. He was also important in the locating of the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in Boothbay, Maine. Early life Welsh was born in Boothbay, Maine, in 1901, the son of a dairy farmer, and the grandson of a sea captain. Welsh attended Berea College, in Kentucky, attracted by an aunt who was teaching there following missionary work in Africa. Following his degree in 1922, and needing money, he returned to Boothbay as the principal of the high school for a year, started graduate school at Harvard, and then served as science master of the Berkshire School in Sheffield Massachusetts. Years at Harvard Welsh became a full time graduate student of G. H. Parker, beginning in 1927; his thesis research on the photoresponsiveness of shrimp eyes was published in 1930, the year after he had received his Ph.D. (and an M. A. in 1928). Welsh was immediately offered an instructorship in Biology, under G. H. Parker and later Alfred C. Redfield