ALLEN W. CHEEVER (Age 83)

Born in Brookings, SD, a 55 year resident of Bethesda, MD, died August 29, 2015, at his home with family at his side after a long illness with cardiac amyloidosis. Devoted husband for 62 year of Jane Gilkerson Cheever, his high school sweetheart; supportive father of Carol Ladlow (Charles), Erik Cheever (Sharon), Laura Cheever (Thomas), and Angela Bishop (Christopher); and much cherished grandfather of his 11 grandchildren.

In high school Allen became aware of the disparities that exist between his circumstance and those of most of the rest of the world and devoted himself to doing something about it. Allen was a graduate of Carleton College and Harvard Medical School where he developed his lifelong scientific interest in schistosomiasis, a serious parasitic disease that impacts hundreds of millions of people in the tropics. He spent his entire 35 year federal career in the U.S. Public Health Service conducting research at NIH and posted for several years to both Brazil and Egypt where he did seminal work in the pathogenesis of the disease.