Olof Lippold (1923-2016) was born in London to parents of Swedish and German ancestry. He studied medicine at University College London during WW2, qualifying in 1946. He became a member of The Physiological Society in 1953. After initial clinical work, he joined the Physiology Department at UCL where worked until 1983, then moving to Royal Holloway as Head of Department. He researched in areas as varied as tetanus toxin action and muscle spindle excitation, the latter led to work on the effects of Direct Current on long-term brain function. He observed that the EEG alpha rhythm originated from ocular muscle activity rather than the underlying cortex. And he worked on Parkinsonism.

Olof was also a renowned teacher, revealed to a wider audience through successful textbooks such as ‘Human Physiology’ (a title taken over from Winton & Bayliss), ‘Respiratory Physiology’, ‘Neurophysiology of the Cerebral Cortex’ (with Lynn Bindmann) and ‘Physiology Illustrated’ (with his daughter, Barbara Cogdell). Amongst his many accomplishments, Olof was also a talented painter and pianist.

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