James F. Crow - Public Service

Public Service

Crow chaired the Department of Medical Genetics for five years and the Laboratory of Genetics (Genetics plus Medical Genetics) for a total of eight years. He also served as Acting Dean of the UW Medical School for 2 years. He was President of the Genetics Society of America and the American Society of Human Genetics. He was the co-editor-in-chief of the journal GENETICS and edited its perspectives section from 1987 until 2008. Crow served at the national level as a member of the General Advisory Committee to the Director of NIH and of the executive council of the National Committee on Radiation Protection, chaired the NIH Genetics Study Section and the NIH Mammalian Genetics Study Section, and chaired several committees for the National Academy of Sciences including a committee to study forensic uses of DNA fingerprinting.

In addition, Crow for many years played viola for the Madison Symphony Orchestra and served as President of the Madison Civic Music Society and of the Madison Symphony Orchestra. He led a fund-raising drive to establish an endowment for the Pro Arte String Quartet.

Crow was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, The American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the World Academy of Art and Science. He was an honorary Fellow of the Japan Academy and a Fellow of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. He died of congestive heart failure in 2012.