Professor Tom Reilly, my friend and mentor, died on June 11th 2009. I was one of hundreds of Tom's students and colleagues whose lives were enriched by this great man. The sphere of Tom's influence was indeed large given his unique position as a leading authority in three scientific disciplines: sport and exercise science, chronobiology, and ergonomics. Tom spent a great deal of his career forging links between these disciplines, and my account of his particular contributions to chronobiology will no doubt be echoed by many other editorials and obituaries in journals relevant to his other research interests.
Tom was born on December 16, 1941, and grew up in Hollymount, County Mayo, Ireland. With his brother, he would often run the four miles to school, sometimes in bare feet, showing the first signs of his propensity for hard work and an excellent athletic ability, which he would later apply across a wide range of sports. Tom received his higher education at University College, Dublin, and later gained post-graduate qualifications from St. Mary's College and the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, London University, where in 1971 he completed his M.Sc. in ergonomics. He completed his Ph.D. thesis in 1975. In 1998, he was awarded the highest academic degree of D.Sc. for his work on chronobiology and exercise. Tom was a member of the British Chronobiology Society since 1983, before this Society was incorporated within the European Chronobiology Society. He was a member and chair of many other academic societies.
Throughout the 1970s, Tom undertook the first well-controlled studies on sleep deprivation and physical activity, including a case study in which he completed 100 hours of continuous exercise. In 1980, he worked with George Brooks at the University of California, Berkeley, where he gained valuable experience through a series of seminal studies on circadian variation in the physiological responses to exercise. Over the years, Tom published more than 900 peer-reviewed manuscripts, including more than 200 papers relevant to chronobiology and more than 30 papers published specifically in Chronobiology International. His review papers on circadian rhythms and exercise that were published in the journals Sports Medicine and Chronobiology International continue to be highly cited. Tom became the person to whom elite sports competitors, including Olympic gold medalists, turned for advice on jet lag alleviation, having co-authored two reviews on this topic in The Lancet. He also applied his knowledge about circadian disruption to occupational contexts and gained a major grant from the Health and Safety Executive to study the impact of physical activity on human circadian rhythms and their disturbance during shiftwork. He also published much research work on the influences of Ramadan and the menstrual cycle on human biological rhythms.
Tom had amazing endurance and selfless attitude in both his academic career and his life in general. Tom won championship medals for track and field athletics (running a marathon in 2 h, 37 min), cross-country running, handball, and Gaelic football, and he competed in orienteering and soccer. He would provide positive encouragement to his fellow competitors even within a race. He coached to international standard in different countries, including Olympic medalists. As many of this journal's readers know, researching human circadian rhythms is often hardest on the researcher. His stamina and good humor during 24-hour data collection periods put younger researchers to shame. He would often write review papers during such experiments and on flights to and from the many congresses at which he was invited to speak. His intellectual powers helped educate his students, especially in providing them with deep philosophical insights and the use of the English language.
He supervised more than 70 M.Phil./Ph.D. students and attracted more than 1.3 million pounds of research funding for Liverpool John Moores University (formerly Liverpool Polytechnic), where he spent the whole of his academic career, rising to become director of the University's Graduate School as well as head of the Research Institute for Sport and Exercise Sciences. Besides his obvious talent in academia, my overriding memory of Tom will be his ability to remain positive no matter what adverse circumstances confronted him. His smile will be missed by many.