In Memoriam: Theodore C. Fox, Charles A. Mistretta, Paul Rathouz

Theodore C. Fox, MD ’57

On May 27, 2026, Theodore C. (Ted) Fox, MD ’57, passed away in Antigo, Wisconsin, at the age of 94.

He was born in Racine, Wisconsin, and earned his medical degree from the University of Wisconsin Medical School (now the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, or SMPH). While in medical school, he joined the U.S. Navy as an officer in 1955. Upon earning his medical degree in 1957, Fox completed an internship at Oak Knoll Naval Hospital in Oakland, California. Next, he served for two years as a general medical officer in Taipei, Taiwan.

Fox completed a general practice residency at MacNeal Memorial Hospital in Berwyn, Illinois. He practiced in Minocqua and Germantown, Wisconsin, before joining his medical school classmate, John McKenna, MD ’57, in Antigo. There, they built the General Clinic and helped it grow substantially with additional specialties. They were dedicated to caring for patients and families.

Fox was active in the State Medical Society and was a passionate member of the Wisconsin Academy of Family Physicians, for which he served as the state president. In the Wausau Family Practice Residency Program, Fox was a clinical assistant professor and taught residents. In 1985, he was named the Wisconsin Family Physician of the Year.

At the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, Fox served as the Wisconsin Medical Alumni Association’s president in 1987-1988 and was the representative for his MD Class of 1957. And for 25 years, he and McKenna were preceptors for first-year medical students from the Medical College of Wisconsin and SMPH during their summer breaks.

Charles A. Mistretta, PhD

A pioneering researcher who transformed medical imaging, Charles A. Mistretta, PhD, died on June 9, 2026, in Madison, Wisconsin. The University of Wisconsin–Madison professor emeritus of medical physics, radiology, and biomedical engineering had a profound impact on students and collaborators.

“Chuck was an inspiring colleague whose spirit of innovation knew no limits. He encouraged students to make the world a better place, and his work transformed medical imaging and human health,” says Scott Reeder, MD, PhD, chair, UW School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH) Department of Radiology.

Michael Speidel, PhD, interim chair, SMPH Department of Medical Physics, shares, “Chuck showed that when deep physical insight is combined with close collaboration with physicians, it can lead to technologies that transform clinical practice.”

After earning a PhD from Harvard University, Mistretta joined UW–Madison for postdoctoral work in physics and launched a career in research, teaching, and mentoring.

His most celebrated contribution was the development of digital subtraction angiography, which transformed vascular imaging by allowing physicians to visualize blood vessels in real time with greatly improved clarity. This visionary work helped create an imaging platform that became central to the diagnosis and treatment of vascular disease and helped enable the growth of minimally invasive, image-guided interventions. With colleagues, Mistretta also ushered in major technical advances in magnetic resonance angiography.

His discoveries resulted in patents, publications, commercial technologies, and clinical tools that changed countless patients’ lives around the world.

Paul Rathouz, PhD

Paul Rathouz, PhD, former professor and chair of the Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH), passed away on December 10, 2025, in Austin, Texas.

Following service in the Peace Corps in the Central African Republic, Rathouz earned his PhD in biostatistics from Johns Hopkins University. He held faculty and leadership positions in the University of Chicago Department of Health Studies before joining the SMPH faculty; he was the department chair from 2010 to 2017. Next, he moved his career to Austin, Texas, where he held positions of chief of the Division of Health Informatics, Data Science, and Epidemiology and founding director of the Dell Medical School Biomedical Data Science Hub.

Rathouz had gained previous experience as a public health analyst in the Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration for the Department of Health and Human Services, and a biostatistics intern in the human immunodeficiency virus branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Center for Infectious Diseases.

He was particularly interested in developmental psychopathology, epidemiology, and health services research. While at Dell Medical School, he conducted research in generalized linear models; the analysis of longitudinal, multivariate, or clustered data; outcome-dependent sampling and other sampling problems related to missing data; and cluster randomized trials.

Among other honors, Rathouz was named a Fellow of the American Statistical Association in 2015.