Famous Quotes

“Fishy, fishy, in the brook, fishy, fishy, Evonuk.”

“Put it on paper.”

“Rules are meant to be circumvented.”

“Never be so narrow as to lose sight of the big picture.”

Early History

Eugene Evonuk, a native Oregonian, was born in Springfield, Oregon, on October 11, 1921. He served in the US Army Air Corps from 1942 through 1945 after which he attended the University of Oregon. He married Clarissa Marie Kann on September 7, 1946.

Education

Eugene Evonuk received his BS in 1952 and his MS in 1953 from Oregon and was an Instructor at the University until 1955. He earned his PhD from the Iowa College of Medicine in 1960 and shortly thereafter joined the Aerospace Medical Research Division as a Research Physiologist at the Arctic Aeromedical Laboratory in Fort Wainwright, Alaska. From 1963 to 1967 he served as Chief of the Physiology Branch of the Arctic Aeromedical Laboratory.

Arctic Biology Symposium

In conjunction with the Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska, Dr. Evonuk organized a Symposium on Arctic Biology and Medicine and Physiology of Work in Cold and Altitude held in Fort Wainwright in May of 1966. Symposium participants included Drs. Clark Blatteis (US Army Research Institute, Natick, MA), Ralph W. Brauer (US Naval Radiological Defense Lab, San Francisco, CA), Elsworth R. Buskirk (The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA), Hugo Chiodi (Columbia University, New York, NY), David B. Dill (Indiana University, Bloomington, IN), Robert F. Grover (University of Colorado Medical Center, Denver, CO), John P. Hannon (US Army Medical Research & Nutrition Laboratory, Denver, CO), Steven M. Horvath (Institute of Environmental Stress, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA), Baltazar Reynafarje (Institute of Andean Biology, University of San Marcos, Lima, Peru), Bengt Saltin (University of Texas, Southwestern Medical School, Dallas, TX), and Wolf H. Weihe (High Altitude Research Station, Jungfraujoch, Bern, Switzerland),

Return to Oregon

Dr. Evonuk was Director of the University of Oregon’s Applied Physiology Laboratory from 1967 to 1984. In this capacity, he mentored his many students with great sensitivity and selfless devotion. He was known for his brilliant command of physiology, infectious curiosity, strong sense of justice, inexhaustible cheerfulness, and unfailing encouragement to students. His delight in the varying interests and research endeavors of his students and his capacity to converse and advise on a wide variety of topics demonstrated his conviction that one should not become so narrow as to lose sight of the larger picture. He valued and cherished cooperation and mutual support among students in the physiology laboratory, inspiring such ideals by his own willingness to work alongside his students.

Contributions to the Field of Physiology

Dr. Evonuk is recognized as a significant contributor to the field of physiology. He wrote more than 50 research articles in the areas of cardiovascular, environmental, work, and stress physiology. In his earliest work, involving the study of peripheral blood flow and measurement of cardiac output in small animals and humans, he developed a technique used throughout the world in research and clinical medicine. 

Dr. Evonuk served on special study sections and committees with the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation in applied physiology, bioengineering, and aerospace medicine. He was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Human Biology Council, and the Arctic Institute of North America, and was an active member of the American Physiological Society, the International Physiological Congress, Sigma Xi Honorary Scientific Society, the Undersea Medical Society, and the Aerospace Medical Association. Dr. Evonuk’s final trip to the People’s Republic of China was in 1984 as a member of the People to People Medical Education Delegation with the Citizen Ambassador Program. The picture illustrated was taken during this last scientific expedition during the Delegation’s visit to Beijing Medical College.