John Shepherd was a visionary Mayo Clinic physiologist. He made major contributions to understanding the regulation of the circulatory system, producing more than 300 scientific publications and four books. He received his MB, BCh, MChir and MD from Queen’s University, Belfast – joining the Department of Physiology there soon after. In 1953, he was awarded a one-year Fulbright Scholarship to the Mayo Clinic to engage in cardiovascular research, returning there in 1957. He became Director of Research there ( 1969-76), Director for Education of the Mayo Foundation, and Dean of the new Mayo Medical School (1977-83), a post which included responsibility for the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine and Mayo School of Health-Related Sciences. He then chaired the Mayo Board of Development (1983-8) and was actively involved in establishment of the Mayo Clinic campus in Jacksonville, Florida. He was president of the American Heart Association (1975-6) and a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, and of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland. In the course his career, he headed the American Heart Association, served as a NASA adviser and chaired the Committee on Space Medicine at the National Academy of Sciences (1965-74). He led US scientific exchanges with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, working on space physiology with scientific colleagues there.

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