Faculty Directory

Kenneth M. Heilman, M.D., a founder of the field of behavioral neurology who impacted generations of young neurologists worldwide and served the University of Florida College of Medicine for over 50 years, died July 15, 2024. He was 86 years old.

Behavioral neurology is a subspecialty focused on memory and cognitive disorders, and under Heilman’s leadership, UF developed one of the earliest fellowship programs in the field. To date, nearly 100 trainees have completed UF’s fellowship program and then spread across the world to practice and pass on the lessons to up-and-coming physicians.

A researcher in disorders involving attention, emotion, motor programming, language, and memory, Heilman left a prolific literary legacy, writing or editing 22 books, more than 115 chapters, and over 670 journal publications, with more than 67,000 citations.

“His work and that of his trainees extended to almost all areas of neurology. His studies of cognition in dementia, Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, and stroke were huge contributions to the field,” said Steven T. DeKosky, M.D., deputy director of UF’s McKnight Brain Institute who was a medical student and then a resident under Heilman. “He was one of the first to establish correlations of cognitive and behavioral changes with brain changes using new, non-invasive imaging techniques, aiding our understanding of brain-behavior relationships in living patients. We owe him a great debt.”

In 1998, Heilman was in the first group of UF faculty members to be named a distinguished professor and remains one of only five in the history of the UF College of Medicine to receive the honor.

“Behavioral neurology fellows today all train on Dr. Heilman’s textbook,” said Michael S. Jaffee, M.D., chair of UF’s Department of Neurology and a specialist in behavioral neurology. “My personal copy is worn and still displayed in a prominent spot on my shelf 30 years after my training. Throughout my career, he has been a personal role model to me.”

A native of Brooklyn, New York, Heilman enrolled at the University of Virginia and after just three years was accepted to medical school, skipping a bachelor’s and going on to graduate with his medical degree in 1963. He trained for two years in internal medicine at Cornell University Medical Center.

During the Vietnam War, he joined the U.S. Air Force and, at the rank of captain, deployed as chief of medicine at a NATO hospital in Izmir, Turkey. After discharge, Heilman completed a neurology residency and fellowship at Harvard, then joined the UF faculty in 1970 as an assistant professor. Over the years, he became a full professor and endowed chair, the James E. Rooks Jr. Professor of Neurology.

For many years, he served as chief of the neurology service at the Gainesville VA Medical Center, now named the Malcom Randall VA Medical Center, and as director of the behavioral neurology-neuropsychology program and UF’s Center for Neuropsychological Studies.

Heilman was in the inaugural group of UF Research Foundation Professors in 1997 and again awarded the professorship in 2005. He received both the UF College of Medicine’s Lifetime Achievement Award and Clinical Research Award.

Upon winning the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008, Heilman reflected on his career and journey. He described an experience as a medical student observing a patient who had suffered a stroke, and though tests showed the patient had full visual fields, he could not see food that was on the left side of his plate. Heilman was intrigued to understand how the brain pays attention — and how that process could change amid injury or disease.

“The two things I hate the most are death and suffering,” he said in an interview with UF at the time. “The only way to make war against them is to do research and take care of patients.”

Among other notable honors, Heilman received the Society for Behavioral and Cognitive Neurology Outstanding Achievement Award; American Academy of Neurology Wartenberg Award; International Neuropsychology Society Distinguished Career Award; and National Academy of Neuropsychology Lifetime Achievement Award.

Buna Joe Wilder, M.D., a longtime faculty member and advocate for the College of Medicine, passed away at age 94. Affectionately known as B.J., Dr. Wilder’s career at UF spanned more than four decades, and throughout that time he impacted the lives of countless faculty, staff, residents and patients, leaving a profound legacy.

Born in Birmingham, Alabama, but raised in Gainesville from age 5, Dr. Wilder earned his undergraduate and medical degrees from Duke University, where he met and married Evelyn Vance, his wife of 67 years. After graduating from Duke, he served two years in the U.S. Army Medical Corps and completed surgical residency training at the Coral Gables Veterans Affairs Hospital.

In 1962 he returned to Gainesville, where he began his neurological training at UF and later joined faculty, quickly rising to the rank of full professor. During his more than four decades at the College of Medicine, he directed laboratories and developed therapies for neurological diseases, played a crucial role in shaping the department of neurology and served as chief of neurology at the Veterans Administration Hospital for 20 years. He was among the first to develop a method for measuring anticonvulsant drug levels in patients, and his seminal research changed how seizures and epilepsy have been managed to the present day.

Along with his wife Evelyn, he founded the B.J. and Eve Wilder Family Foundation, which has given generously to support research and care for epilepsy, and in more recent years, Alzheimer’s disease. The foundation has funded three endowed professorships at UF, established the B.J. and Eve Wilder Center for Excellence in Epilepsy Research at the Evelyn F. and William L. McKnight Brain Institute and supported the UF Neuromedicine Human Brain and Tissue Bank.

Colleagues of Dr. Wilder speak warmly of his generosity, love of life and loyalty to friends and family. His dedication to the college through his education, research, patient care and philanthropy has left a long-lasting impact that will be felt for years to come.

Dr. Melvin Greer, the iconic first chair of the department of neurology at UF, died May 19, 2010. He was 80. Swaggering but kind, direct but tactful, confident yet humble — Greer embodied qualities that endeared him to his students and colleagues, according to his friends at the Health Science Center. He was the department chair who would go the extra mile for his faculty, the physician who would fill in for residents, and the father who considered students, faculty and residents as part of his own family.

Greer joined the College of Medicine faculty in pediatrics and neurology in 1961. He became the first chair of the department of neurology when it was created in 1974 and remained chair until 2000.

In that time, he trained about 150 residents and countless medical students in his field. For many years, he was the area’s only pediatric neurologist, colleagues say. He also was board-certified in adult neurology.

Dr. Greer graduated with a bachelor’s degree with honors in 1950 from the College of Arts and Pure Science at New York University, where he would go on to earn his medical degree in 1954. He served his internship and residency at Bellevue Hospital in New York and was a fellow in neurology at the New York Neurological Institute of the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center.

He received several teaching awards from UF, including the 1970 Hippocratic Award and the 1975 and 1979 Award for Clinical Teaching Excellence as well as a Lifetime Achievement Award for his 49 years of service.