Dominick P. Purpura

After World War II, Purpura served in the United States Air Force.

[3] In 1948, Dr. Purpura married Florence Williams and eventually had four children: Craig, Kent, Keith, and Allyson.

After being recruited in 1967, Purpura served as the Scientific Director of the Einstein's Rose F. Kennedy Center for Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities from 1969 to 1972.

Purpura is duly recognized as "the longest-serving dean of any medical school in the United States"[6] after serving a total of 22 years at Einstein.

[2] During his time as president, Dominick Purpura oversaw the Long-Range Planning Report which helped define the structure, policies, and programs of the Society.

Dominick Purpura's research centered on intellectual disability, developmental neurobiology, brain waves, and epilepsy.

In 2009, Purpura along with colleague Mark F. Mehler researched the relationship between an unregulated noradrenergic system during development and Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Their hypothesis resulted in further research in the field in an attempt to discover ways to target this system to help those with autistic disorders.

Purpura also researched the relationship between brain wave activity and temperature using golden hamsters.

His research in this area resulted in the discovery that hamsters show no brain waves below a bodily temperature of 19 degrees Celsius.

As he was the Dean of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University, he came to know many other neuroscientists such as Bernard Cohen (Mt.