Obituary Ronald L. Hayes

In loving memory of a visionary scientist, mentor, friend, and free spirit.

Ronald L. Hayes, Ph.D. DHC, was a long-time friend, mentor, leader, and scientist for many of us. He was one the most reputed scientist in TBI research all over the world, both in the laboratory and in the clinical settings.

Co-founder and president of Banyan Biomarkers, Inc., he was director of Banyan’s Clinical Programs and Banyan Laboratories. His academic career started at the Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond VA, where he directed the Richard Ronald Reynolds Neurosurgical Research Laboratories. Then, he moved to Houston, TX, at the Division of Neurosurgery, The University of Texas Medical School at Houston, and finally to Gainesville, FL, where he was director of the University of Florida’s Center for Traumatic Brain Injury Studies. There he established a research laboratory which focused on preclinical studies of basic mechanisms of traumatic brain injury and development of novel therapies to treat deficits following brain injury including disturbances in memory and attention.

Dr. Hayes had 35 years of experience studying brain injury. He was the past president of The National Neurotrauma Society and was on the Scientific Advisory Boards of the International Brain Injury Association and the International Neurotrauma Society. Dr. Hayes has published more than 300 peer-reviewed papers and more than 50 book chapters. He has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for more than 30 years and by both the NIH and the Department of Defense.

Ron's “Sicilian connection” began in 1979. Then, he was Visiting Professor of the University of Messina at the end of the 1980. His Pannonian experience started as visiting professor, and peaked in 2016 as honorary doctor at the University of Pecs, Hungary. He was also Honored Guest on European Association of Neurosurgical Societies 2017, Congress in Venice.

He was a truly unique individual, with a special character, whose absence is keenly felt in the monotony of ordinary weekdays. He embodied principles, an open mind, and an unfailingly positive attitude, proactive, and open in scientific collaborations. Dozens of researchers and clinicians all over the globe benefitted from his lectures, presence during site visits, participation in congresses, and engagement in formal and informal discussions. He generously allowed people coming from all the world to spend time listening to him and his ideas, running experiments, writing grants, preparing slides for presentation. He hosted us, as many during the years, in his laboratory, in his house, in his hearth, playing with motorbikes, cars, gym, ribs, and beers. On a meeting, he divided the room and even the bed with one of us: he came with two suitcases, a small one for clothes, the other much larger one for vitamins. This was Ron!

Ron was always on our side—an altruistic collaborator, an outstanding lecturer, an open-minded, honest adviser and a great friend and company with outstanding humor, deeply interested in philosophy while also closely following the global trends of polarization and populism with great concern Fig. 1.

Fig. 1

Ronald L. Hayes, In loving memory of a visionary scientist, mentor, friend, and free spirit

We will miss you, Ron: may the earth be light on you wherever you are now.