Harry Guess MD PhD, age 65, died at his home in Chapel Hill, NC on January 1, 2006, following a courageous battle against lung cancer.

Dr. Guess was the third UNC CERTs Principal Investigator, guiding CERTs research and education from 2003 until his death. He followed former Dean of Pharmacy William H. Campbell PhD and Pediatrics Chair Alan Stiles MD in the role.

Dr. Guess ended an illustrious career at Merck as Vice President of Epidemiology at Merck Research Laboratories. During his time at Merck, he was an Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology here at UNC, and many students and colleagues were accustomed to beating a path to his office each Monday for invaluable research guidance.

Upon his retirement from Merck in 2003, he joined UNC full time, becoming Professor of Epidemiology and Pediatrics, and Director of the GlaxoSmtihKline Center of Excellence in Pharmacoepidemiology at UNC. Drs. Campbell and Stiles seized the opportunity of having Dr. Guess in Chapel Hill full time to enlist him as the leader of the CERTs.

“No one in the world could have been better equipped to lead the CERTs into its next phase,” said Bill Campbell. “Harry was a pediatrician and a leading figure in pharmacoepidemiology, with zeal to teach the clinical and research communities about better therapeutics use, especially for children. We could not have been luckier to have him take over the CERTs.”

All of us working in the UNC CERTs knew that, in Harry, we had gained the commitment, energy, and phenomenal intelligence of one of the world's best pharmacoepidemiologists. Harry also brought us the most wonderful capacity to be a completely interested and engaged colleague. For Harry, no problem was too small or seemed too unimportant; he gave every question his fullest attention, and his colleagues never failed to come away from talking to Harry with solutions. Few scholars knew more about methodology, or understood the techniques and perspectives of a larger number of academic disciplines and fields of inquiry. Whether a CERTs project involved clinical trials of medical devices or the measurement of children's health-related quality of life, and everything in between, Harry contributed practical research strategy and intellectual insight.

He was born in New York, to Harry A. Guess and Vista Brabham Guess. Following his mother's death shortly after his birth, he was adopted by his aunt Dorothy Brabham Guess who had married his father. After his father's death in 1946, Dr. Guess lived with his adoptive mother in Bamberg, SC.

He attended Georgia Tech on a Navy ROTC scholarship and graduated in 1964 with both a B.S. and a M.S in Applied Mathematics. He served in the United States Navy for five and a half years on Admiral Rickover's staff at the Atomic Energy Commission, Division of Naval Reactors. After completing his military service, Dr. Guess attended Stanford University where he received a Ph.D. in Mathematics and a M.S. in Operational Research in 1972.

He earned his medical degree from the University of Miami, and completed his residency training in pediatrics at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was board certified in pediatrics and in public health and general preventive medicine.

Dr. Guess co-authored more than 150 publications and served on the editorial consultant boards of Epidemiology and Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. He was recently awarded the Sustained Scientific Excellence Award by the International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology.

Harry was known as the consummate teacher, training and advising many graduate students, and fostering the development of both junior and senior scientists at Merck, UNC, and elsewhere. He brought his curiosity and spirit of inquiry to everything. His colleagues enjoyed talking with him about everything from naval history and college basketball to travel and feminist poetry, which he read because one of his two daughters is a poet. He and his wife Gerry were the most hospitable and generous of hosts, welcoming friends and colleagues often to their home for good food and good conversation.

“Harry Guess was a wonderful leader with a balanced vision for establishing safe and effective use of therapeutics in children,” said Alan Stiles, Pediatrics Chair, North Carolina Children's Hospital Physician in Chief, and CERTs Co-PI. “He was insightful, respected as an international scholar in pharmacoepidemiology, a valued collaborator, and a thoughtful teacher and mentor for his students and young faculty. He will be greatly missed by our UNC CERTs and by me personally.”

Dr. Guess was also the principal investigator of the UNC Primary Research Site in the National Institutes of Health Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) network, part of a large NIH roadmap initiative to study the dynamic assessment of patient-reported chronic disease outcomes.

Dr. Guess is survived by his wife, Geraldine Graflund Guess; two daughters, Carol Guess of Seattle, WA, and Alison Guess Fitton, son-in-law Bruce Howard Fitton, and one grandchild Jacob David Fitton of Burke, VA.