In Memoriam: William E. Ribelin PhD’57
William Ribelin passed away November 14, 2022 in Spanish Fort, Alabama. Bill was born October 1, 1924, in Oxnard, California and grew up in in Riverside, California. After an early interest in all things biological, he earned a degree in veterinary medicine at Iowa State University and a master’s degree in veterinary pathology at Washington State University. In 1957 he earned a PhD in pathology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also taught pathology in both the college of agriculture and in the school of medicine, and he edited two books on animal pathology and authored several journal papers.
He had long been concerned with the proper use of animals in biological research. He was a lifelong member of the American Association of Laboratory Animal Science, was a founding member of the Northern California chapter, and was the founder and first director of the Research Animals Resources Center of the University of Wisconsin.
Bill and his late wife, Frankie, retired to Gulf Shores, Alabama, in 1994 where he was a co-founder of The Friends of the Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge.
He spent three years in the infantry in World War II and worked two years in the Netherlands as a researcher for the USDA. He was also a senior pathologist in the toxicology laboratories of the USDA, the American Cyanamid Company, and the Monsanto Company.
