Beryl Benacerraf

Beryl Rice Benacerraf (April 29, 1949 – October 1, 2022) was an American radiologist and professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive biology and radiology at Harvard Medical School. She was a pioneer in the use of prenatal ultrasound to diagnose fetal abnormalities, including Down syndrome. In 2021, she was recognized as a "Giant in Obstetrics and Gynecology" by the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

Early years Benacerraf was born in 1949 in New York City. She was the daughter of Baruj Benacerraf, who shared the 1980 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. She spent her early years in France and returned to New York City at age seven, attending the Brearley School and Barnard College in Manhattan. Although undiagnosed dyslexia had impaired her academic performance as an undergraduate, Benacerraf stated it was less of a handicap in medical school, where the textbooks included "a lot of graphs and images and charts". Benacerraf's advocacy of ultrasound as a less intrusive alternative to amniocentesis was initially criticized. Benacerraf also made major contributions to prenatal hearing testing

Benacerraf credited her talent in reading ultrasound as the "flip side" of her dyslexia.

Benacerraf wrote over 300 scholarly papers, From 2015 to 2017 she served as president of the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine and was the editor-in-chief of its flagship Journal of Ultrasound in Medicine from 2000 to 2010. She was also the author of the textbooks Ultrasound of Fetal Syndromes and Gynecologic Ultrasound: A Problem-Based Approach.

Personal life Benacerraf was married in 1975 to Peter Libby, who became chief of cardiology at Brigham and Women's and Mallinckrodt Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Benacerraf died of cancer on October 1, 2022, at home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She was 73. 2007, Roslyn Silver '27 Science Lecture, Barnard College

2008, Marie Curie Award, American Association for Women Radiologists 2010, Lawrence A. Mack Award for Lifetime Achievement, Society of Radiologists in Ultrasound

Selected publications