Frances Irish Cundall Obituary Fran Irish Cundall died on September 10 at home surrounded by her family. She had been diagnosed with Parkinsons disease 10 years ago and with stage 4 metastatic bone disease over 5 years ago. She fought them both bravely and persistently until the end. Fran Irish was born in Midland, Michigan on March 17 (St. Patricks Day) 1950, to Don and Louise Irish. She grew up in an Alden Dow house next to the Dow Estate and had a marvelous childhood exploring the woods and fields. As the youngest child in her neighborhood, she spent a lot of time alone in search of small animals and plants, developing an extraordinary talent for seeing and an amazing skill for handling small things. Fran graduated from Midland High in 1968, having taken voice lessons and singing in various choral and folk groups. Thinking of majoring in music and biology, she went to Oberlin College, but quickly realized her musical abilities were not competitive, so focused on biology, graduating in 1972. While at Oberlin, she spent a summer at the Southwest Research Station of the American Museum of Natural History in Portal, AZ, learning how to pin small insects and meeting researchers from many parts of the States. Tellingly, Fran obtained her application to the research station during a lecture at Oberlin Hillel House, which Fran had joined with the idea of learning Hebrew. She hadnt realized that all the members already knew Hebrew, but a lecture on desert environments by an Israeli visitor provided the application materials for the Southwest Research Station. After graduating, she followed close friends to Chicago, married Thomas McCullough, and found a job as a museum technician in herpetology at the Field Museum of Natural History, earning the admiration of Hyman Marx, a noted authority on snakes. She and her husband left Chicago a year later and moved to Cape Cod where she waitressed off-season and then took a job as a research assistant at Brown University in Providence. Using her experience in Arizona and the Field Museum, she then applied for a job as a museum specialist in herpetology at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. Separation from her husband eventually led to divorce. While at the Smithsonian from 1975-1981, she met numerous prominent biologists, developed a number of research projects, and produced a series of excellent paintings and drawings for publication, all of which prepared her to apply to Ph.D. programs at top institutions. At Harvard, Fran studied the anatomy underlying the feeding behaviors of fish and snakes for six years in the lab of Karel Liem at the Museum of Comparative Zoology. During her graduate student tenure, she won awards for three of her research presentations, an extraordinary feat that catapulted her into the forefront of young vertebrate functional morphologists. As part of her research, she had explored the anatomy of a rare snake species from Mauritius, the only vertebrate animal to have a divided maxilla (upper jawbone). To test its function, she wanted to record its behaviour in living snakes, so invited David Cundall to collaborate on the project. That study ultimately ended in their engagement and subsequent marriage. After defending her Ph.D. dissertation in October, 87, she started a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at the American Museum of Natural History with Chuck Myers on worm-eating snakes. The second year of her postdoc was complicated by her marriage and the beginning of her first pregnancy. She devoted herself to childrearing and motherhood for the next 15 years. But Fran was never content to do one thing. During the childrearing years, she served as co-editor for general herpetology for Copeia (the journal of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists) for the first six years and continued her friendships with ichthyology and herpetology friends and colleagues at the Societys annual meetings. Fran was loved for her dry wit and insight. She completed her Penn State Master Gardener training by the time her eldest daughter was seven. She ran the publishing center at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School in Bethlehem for five years, served on the yearbook committee at Northeast Middle school for one year, and the band and orchestra parent organization for four years. As our girls got older, she served on the Board of Directors of the Bethlehem Garden Club for six years, chairing the committee maintaining the Millers House Garden in Historic Bethlehem and helping maintain the Garden of Serenity by the public library. Throughout these years she gave periodic invited lectures to many garden clubs in the area. She also served on the Board of Directors of the Bethlehem Historic District Association for five years and organized BHDAs fund-raising annual plant sale for five years. She was appointed by the Bethlehem City Council to serve on the Environmental Advisory Council in 2007 and served until 2016. Her volunteer activities were truncated as her girls reached high school. She applied for a job as a resource manager and horticulturist with the Wildlands Conservancy in Emmaus, serving for a year. She then took two adjunct teaching positions, first at Lafayette College for two years teaching comparative anatomy, and next at Lehigh University for a year teaching introductory organismal biology labs. She was then hired as a visiting Assistant Professor at Moravian College to teach comparative anatomy and a few other courses for a year, during which she applied for the tenure track position in the department to teach the same courses. After a national search, Moravian offered her the position in 2010 and she was promoted to Associate Professor in 2017, retiring in 2020. Fran loved teaching courses and advising undergraduate research studentsand thoroughly enjoyed her years at Moravian College. After a nearly 20-year hiatus, she considered herself extraordinarily lucky to return to academia in a department she found amazingly congenial and supportive. She continued to collaborate with her husband David on research they had shared for 40 years. They coauthored scientific papers on feeding mechanics in various snakes and a frog as well as a major review chapter on the skulls of snakes. Fran had an extraordinary memory and a passion for list-making and collecting all sorts of things, including books and reprints (old academics will remember those days), beer bottles, the botanical series of Portmeirion tableware, old glass museum jars, cacti and succulents, and gardening tools, among others. Though Frans persistent fervor for life was cut short, the family thanks Drs. William Scialla, Steven Perch, and their oncology teams and the late neurosurgeon Dr. Mark Li at Lehigh Valley Health Network for giving Fran another five years. Drs. Ron Julia, Hetushma Patel, and Nidhi Mehta have cared for Fran for years. We thank the wonderful LVHN hospice teams who were critical in helping the family cope with Frans final days. Drs. Laura Berman and Behrang Saminejad helped Fran deal with her Parkinsons symptoms, and Lenore Hare and OACIS palliative care all allowed her to continue her gardening until a few weeks before her death. Fran was many things--a brilliant academic, devoted mother and wife, a kind and encouraging teacher--and is very sorely missed by all who knew her. Survivors: Her husband David, daughters Robyn and Gillian and stepdaughter Riva, brother James and sister-in-law Peg Irish of Exeter, NH, brother and sister-in-law Martin and Anne Cundall of Beaconsfield, Quebec, nieces Meghann Cundall of St. Lazare, Quebec and Catherine Cundall of Edinburgh, Scotland, and nephew Alan Cundall of Pointe Claire, Quebec. Her closest cousins are Margo Reed of Charlottesville, VA, and Harry and Margee Smith of Midland, MI.