Hugh Davenport Van Liew

Hugh Van Liew died peacefully on December 24, 2025.

Hugh was born on January 28, 1930, to Charles Barnes Van Liew and Gertrude Joella Van Liew, née Davenport, in Spokane, Washington, where he was raised with his older sisters, Ethel and Ruth.

Hugh’s childhood interests and hobbies included raising homing pigeons, swimming (summers as a lifeguard for Spokane public pools), and music (playing the flute in the North Central High School marching band). He graduated from North Central in 1947 and from the State College of Washington in Pullman with a BS in zoology in 1951.

Hugh received a PhD in physiology from the University of Rochester, New York, in 1956. At the U of R, he met fellow graduate student Judith Bradford Litchfield. The couple were married in Judy’s hometown of Lexington, Massachusetts, in 1959.

Hugh enlisted in the Navy in 1956, attaining the rank of lieutenant and serving as a physiologist at the Naval Medical Research Institute in Bethesda until 1959.

Hugh was a research fellow at Harvard and assistant professor at Stanford before joining the faculty in the department of physiology at the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1963. At UB, he taught medical and dental students and conducted research in respiratory physiology, with a focus on the diffusion of gas bubbles from the lungs to tissues. His research was widely published in scientific journals and, in 1999, he and his research team were awarded a U.S. patent for a method for enhancing gas transport to tissues. In the course of his research career, Hugh was an invaluable mentor to graduate and undergraduate students assisting him in his work.

Hugh and Judy raised their three children, Gregory, Andrea, and Joel, in Buffalo. His children remember fondly Hugh’s backyard ice rinks and igloos during Buffalo’s infamous winters, raising Siamese kittens and Corgi puppies, and his support and enthusiasm for any and all interests they pursued (6 a.m. hockey practices, stamp collecting, running lines for the school play).

Upon retiring from UB in 1997, Hugh was Scientist in Residence for the Navy Experimental Diving Unit in Panama City, Florida until 2000.

Hugh and Judy retired to Barnstable, Massachusetts, and enjoyed many years on Cape Cod, swimming, kayaking, and hosting family and friends at their home on Barnstable Bay. After Judy’s death in 2013, Hugh returned to his home state in 2014, moving to Seattle, where Greg and his family live. During his time there, Hugh continued to pursue his lifelong passion for music, playing the flute, recorder, ukulele, guitar, and keyboard. A lifelong learner, he continued to explore such varied topics as science, history, stoicism, and music, and enjoyed sharing what he was learning with others.

Hugh is survived by Greg (Jennifer Kerns); Andrea; Joel (John Denaro); grandchildren Sophie and Jayden Van Wilde and Willa and Arlo Van Liew; nephew John Hagelbarger, niece Ann Edens (John); and grandniece and -nephew Madeleine and Benjamin Edens.