Joan Cox Gill, a retired pediatric hematologist and former professor of pediatrics and medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, died on May 9 after a year-long battle with cancer. She was 74 years old.
Dr. Gill and colleagues were among the first researchers to identify immune abnormalities in hemophilia patients in the early 1980s. These abnormalities were later designated as AIDS. She was the leader of the first team of researchers to receive a grant from the National Institutes of Health to study AIDS.
A native of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, Dr. Gill was a graduate of St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin, and earned her medical degree at the Medical College of Wisconsin in 1976. She completed her internship and residency at the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.
Dr. Gill was a founding member of the Hemostasis and Thrombosis Research Society (HTRS) and the society established an award in her honor. In 2013, she was the first recipient of the Dr. Joan Cox Gill Award for Outstanding Service to HTRS.