Paul Patterson (1943–2014) completed his undergraduate studies at Grinnell College. He earned a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University, where he worked with William Lennarz. As a postdoc at Harvard Medical School, Patterson conducted pioneering research on neural plasticity with Edwin Furshpan and David Potter. He then became a faculty member at Harvard, before moving to Caltech in 1983. Patterson explored links between the immune system and the nervous system—he became known as a “neuroimmunologist”—and developed mouse models of schizophrenia and autism. He was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.