It is with the greatest sadness that we announce that Dr. Virginia Livolsi, Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, has passed away.  Dr. LiVolsi was a unique and dearly beloved colleague, friend and mentor.  

We don’t believe that anyone practicing medicine can mention the word “thyroid” without thinking of Dr. LiVolsi and this will still be true for many years to come. Her contributions to the field of pathology are immense, spanning her research, teaching, and dedication to improving pathology organizations, but she is perhaps most cherished for her incredible mentorship.

If you spoke with Dr. LiVolsi, she would emphasize that she grew up in a “four letter word” area known as “The Bronx.” By the end of her second year of medical school at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, she decided to pursue a career in pathology. Her love of thyroid gland pathology began early in her residency in Anatomic Pathology at Columbia, where she trained under renowned surgical pathologists such as Drs. Karl Perzin, Raphael Lattes, Nathan Lane, and Marianne Wolff.

Her academic career began in 1974 at Yale University, where she soon distinguished herself as an excellent surgical pathologists with particular expertise in thyroid pathology. She joined the University of Pennsylvania faculty in 1983 as the Director of Surgical Pathology. While she played a pivotal role in developing and organizing an extremely strong surgical pathology service at Penn, she most importantly served as a dedicated and revered mentor to future academic anatomic pathologists around the world.

Dr. LiVolsi was an icon in the field of endocrine pathology - describing new subtypes of papillary thyroid carcinoma, delineating benign lesions mimicking thyroid neoplasms, and increasing our understanding of thyroid entities with clonality studies of thyroid proliferations. For decades, she was a leading expert in pathologic classification and management of thyroid neoplasms, serving on the pathology panel of the Chernobyl Tumor Bank for more than 20 years.  She received numerous awards throughout her illustrious career, including the USCAP Mostofi Award, Maude Abbott Lecturer, University of Tokyo Medal of Honor, Scanno Prize in Medicine, ASCP Merit, Distinguished Service and Master Pathologist Award, and the Arthur Purdy Stout Society President's Medal. She served as President of the Arthur Purdy Society, Endocrine Pathology Society, ADASP, Pathology Society of Philadelphia and USCAP. Dr. LiVolsi was recently honored with the 2022 Endocrine Pathology Society Lifetime Achievement Award for her extraordinary contributions to pathology-based study of endocrine disease.

Beyond her interest in pathology, Dr. LiVolsi was very fond of her cats, Italian opera, and needlepoint. She was an active member of her church choir and practiced for months for their annual Christmas Concert, which most of us at Penn have had the privilege of attending.

In May 2009, the late Dr. Juan Rosai wrote the following statement to Pathology Society of Philadelphia to accompany the best educator award for Dr. LiVolsi “Recipe for the Virginia Livolsi Dish – Excellence in Surgical Pathology, life-long devotion to the specialty, sharp diagnostic eye, thorough knowledge of the literature, original thinking, generous amount of common sense, healthy respect for conventional morphology, cautious approach to the significance of the newer and flashier molecular biology claims, unwavering intellectual honesty, fortitude to stand up to surgeons, administrators, and other assorted bullies – mix together, shake and heat. Divide in equal portions and serve to the medical community as a delicacy to be savored slowly.”

Dr. LiVolsi was an esteemed and beloved colleague, diagnostician, mentor, and role model. Her insights into the field and her legacy of mentorship will continue to impact future generations. It is hard to put into words how much we will miss her, but we are all extremely grateful for the essential lessons she taught us and for the incredible impact she had on our lives.

George J. Netto MD  
Simon Flexner Professor and Chair of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania