Ronald Whittam FRS (21 March 1925 – 16 August 2023) was an English research scientist in the field of cell physiology.

He conducted important studies on the mechanism of active transport of ions across animal membranes and its relation to cellular metabolism.

Whittam was the inaugural Chair in Physiology at the University of Leicester, where he was subsequently an Emeritus Professor.

Ronald Whittam was born in Chadderton, within the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, Lancashire, on 21 March 1925.

He voluntarily attended educational evening classes and at the age of 16 had day release to the Municipal Technical College, Oldham.

[3] Whittam reached the age of 18 during World War II in 1943 and joined the Royal Air Force.

[6] He gained an early insight for research with Professor Herbert Stanley Raper and Alfred Alexander Harper.

[3] Whittam founded the Labour Student Club in the Faculty at the University of Manchester and was a member of the executive of the newly formed National Association of Labour Students Organisations,[7] along with Fred Jarvis, Dick Mabon and Bill Wedderburn.

[20][21][16][18] Whittam proved the pacemaker effect of the sodium pump on metabolism with red blood cells.

[22] He spent over half of 1958 at Columbia University, New York, working with David Nachmansohn on electrophysiology with single cell electroplaques and the electric eel.

"[26] During 1965, he became a Bruno Mendel Fellow of the Royal Society conducting research at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel.

[1] Early in his academic career, Whittam was a member of the Manchester University Mountaineering Club.