Elsworth R. Buskirk

Elsworth R. Buskirk (August 11, 1925 – March 28, 2010) was a leading environmental and exercise physiologist.

Early life, education, and career Born in Beloit, Wisconsin, Buskirk attended Beloit High School and the University of Wisconsin before serving in the United States Army in the European theatre of World War II, from 1943 to 1946. After the war, he received a B.A. from St. Olaf College in 1950, followed by a M.A. from the University of Minnesota. He entered the Physiological Hygiene Ph.D. Program, where he worked with Dr. Ancel Keys, graduating in 1954.

After receiving his Ph.D., Buskirk joined the United States Army Quartermaster Research and Development Center (later the United States Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine under the Combat Capabilities Development Command Soldier Center) in Natick, Massachusetts, where he became Chief of the Environmental Physiology Section, remaining until 1957. He then worked for the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases under the National Institutes of Health, in Bethesda, Maryland.

At Penn State, Buskirk "founded an intercollege graduate program focusing on applied physiology (1966) and constructed The Laboratory for Human Performance Research (1974)".