Mark R. Willcott III

Mark R. Willcott III, 78, a nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) expert, died on July 27 from complications following a stroke.

He earned a B.A. in chemistry in 1955 from Rice University, followed by an M.S. in 1959 and a Ph.D. in 1963, both in chemistry from Yale University. From 1955 until 1958, he also served in the Navy.

Willcott began his career as an assistant professor of chemistry at Emory University in Atlanta. He moved to the University of Houston in 1965, becoming a professor of chemistry there in 1973. In 1982, he served as the head of the biomedical NMR laboratory at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. He then left academia briefly to serve as president of NMR Imaging in Houston.

From 1989 until 1994, Willcott was a research professor of radiology at Vanderbilt University, before becoming a professor in the department of radiology at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston until 1999. He was an adjunct professor of chemistry at Rice University from 1980 until this year and served as an NMR consultant throughout his entire career.

Willcott was a Guggenheim Fellow and an Alexander von Humboldt Senior Scientist. He was also an emeritus member of ACS, joining in 1965.

He is survived by his wife of 56 years, Earline; daughters, Julie Bell, June Derby, and Ashley Scott; son, Mark IV; and 10 grandchildren.