Medical School’s Jocelyn Spragg, 70,
Jocelyn Spragg, faculty director of diversity programs and special academic resources in the division of medical sciences at Harvard Medical School (HMS), as well as a research scientist, educator, mentor, and tireless promoter of educational opportunities for underrepresented students, died Nov. 2 at her home in Jamaica Plain, Mass. She was 70. Spragg was born in New York and raised in Rochester. She earned her bachelor’s degree at Smith College and moved to Boston in 1962 to pursue her Ph.D. She received a master’s degree in pharmacology and a Ph.D. in bacteriology and immunology from Harvard. Spragg joined the HMS faculty in 1972, where she enjoyed a highly successful first career as a research scientist making seminal discoveries about the kallikrein-kinin system. Her former research mentor, Frank Austen, notes, “Working with Jocelyn was exciting because of her imagination. Her move into an entirely different role as career innovator … found her...