Memorial Awards & Obituaries

In Memoriam: Kenneth R. Warren, PhD

Kenneth Warren, known for his intelligent, funny, selfless, and compassionate personality, left us on August 21, 2024 after a brief bout with cancer. Ken was 81 years old and lived a life filled with service to others, especially among the alcohol research community. Ken was a biochemist, having received his Ph.D. from Michigan State, and after two postdocs and a stint at Walter Reed went to work at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. He rose through the ranks and served as Acting Director from 2008 to 2014. He retired as Deputy Director in 2015.

Ken played a major pioneering role in the developing field of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD). He was instrumental in formulating public health policy regarding FASD, authoring the first U.S. Government health advisory on alcohol and pregnancy and was the chief architect for the Surgeon General’s advisory that added warning labels about alcohol consumption now found on beverage containers. Ken was also the “unofficial” historian of the area, writing about legal, medical, and public policy issues from a historical perspective and was influential in developing international and national collaborations in the alcohol field, such as the Collaborative Research on Addiction at NIH — CRAN. Ken was at the helm of NIAAA when forces were trying to reorganize the NIH. He was the recipient of the 1982 Public Health Service’s Superior Service Award, the 1994 Research Society on Alcohol (RSA) Seixas Award, the 2002 Henry Rosett Award, and the RSA Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014.

But Ken was more than an outstanding administrator and scientist. He played the saxophone professionally as a young man, and many of us were duly impressed when he serenaded us at the opening of an International Society for Biomedical Research on Alcohol (ISBRA) meeting in Japan. He was known as someone who enjoyed the simple pleasures of life, who loved his family, work, travel, and colleagues. He has left an enduring legacy and will be sorely missed.