Profile

Samuel was born in Johannesburg to Dorik and Genia Ludwin, who came to South Africa from Moscow and Vilna respectively. His father was a general practitioner at Baragwanath Hospital and his mother was principal of a pre-primary school in Yeoville. Besides Samuel, Dorik and Genia had three other children: Haia, the eldest, and twins David and Tamar.

Samuel was introduced to his future wife, Vivien, by mutual friends who arranged a blind date. The two had quite a bit in common. Both grew up in relatively typical South African Jewish families, for example, attending synagogue, studying Hebrew, and having fun at Zionist camps. Samuel considers it a tribute to their friends’ good judgment that they have been married almost fifty years.

In 1970, the couple moved to California in order for Samuel to train as a pathologist at Stanford University, specializing in neuropathology. It was at Stanford that Samuel began his career in research, first in brain cancer and later in multiple sclerosis. While living in California, Samuel and Vivien had two sons: Derek and Raymond.

Initially Samuel and Vivien intended to live in Britain after Samuel completed his training, but instead they ended up in Canada, arriving in 1975. Samuel took a job as a neuropathologist at Queen’s University and Kingston General Hospital. In addition to his clinical and teaching duties, he continued his research on multiple sclerosis, with some work on cancer of the nervous system. Apart from a short spell at the University of Western Ontario and a sabbatical at the National Institutes of Health in Washington, Samuel has stayed in Kingston for over forty years. He is now retired.

Vivien, who had been a French teacher in South Africa, became a librarian, and was for many years the head of the Bracken Health Sciences Library at Queen’s University. She was an expert in information technology education for health professional students, and established regional and medical school information network linkages. She is now happily retired, volunteering for African and Indigenous Canadian charities.