Remembering Craig Lehmann, clinical chemist and Stony Brook University dean

Craig Lehmann, a clinical chemist and Stony Brook University dean, delved into bacteria-killing light bulbs, smart glasses, sensors on onesies to prevent infant deaths and other innovations.

Ahead of his time, he was indefatigable in identifying and trying to solve major health care challenges, like access to doctors and growing numbers of people aging at home, friends and colleagues said. He harnessed technology, partnering with fellow scientists or lobbying for support from corporations like Bayer, they said.

When telemedicine was new, Lehmann put health monitors at the First Baptist Church in Riverhead and with homebound seniors. The devices could send heart sounds and key vitals through secure phone lines to hospital monitoring stations, saving emergency room visits, church officials said. 

"He enabled us to help people make some behavioral changes by just taking some vital signs, teaching them how to do that on their own and being able to manage chronic illnesses," said Shirley Coverdale, who oversaw the program.

Lehmann, who served as dean of Stony Brook’s health technology and management school from 1999 to 2018 and interim executive dean of health sciences from 2006 to 2010, had been retired for six years when he died Jan. 26. The Aquebogue resident was 79.

"I think I'm testing myself all the time," Lehmann told Newsday in 2007. “ ‘You can do it. Why can't you do it?’ ”

He had gone from a polio-stricken child born in Oceanside to a telemedicine and health care efficiency expert welcomed by the White House, Windsor Castle, the World Health Organization, major drugstore chains and pharmaceutical companies, those who knew him said.  In 2007, the American Association for Clinical Chemistry handed him its Outstanding Contributions in Education Award for devising lab work standards that save time and for writing textbooks. In 2021, he was designated a fellow by the National Academy of Inventors, the highest professional distinction for academic inventors, according to SUNY.  

"Craig Lehmann was a true visionary in health care education and innovation," Dr. William Wertheim, executive vice president for Stony Brook Medicine, said in a news release. "His leadership and pioneering work in e-health technology and patient care solutions have shaped the way we train future health care professionals."

In 2004, Lehmann started annual trips to Kenya as part of a Stony Brook Medicine program.

After learning about high rates of sudden infant death syndrome in Africa, Lehmann worked with colleagues to put a sensor in baby clothing that sounded an alarm when the baby’s heart rate and breathing changed, said friend Lisa Benz Scott, executive director of Stony Brook Medicine’s program in public health.

"He had an unstoppable energy and curiosity and he was innovating all day long," Benz Scott said.

Lehmann traveled the country making presentations at health care forums to get sponsors and manufacturers for his inventions, said friend and Stony Brook respiratory therapist John Brittelli, who partnered with Lehmann on several inventions.

One of his better known ideas was the RxMonitor+, a medication management device that would light up when it was time for a pill and, if the pill was not taken, the monitor would call or email the caregiver.

As Lehmann told Newsday, his passion for progress stemmed from growing up in a family dependent on handouts. At 5, he lived six months in a hospital, swept up by the 1950s polio epidemic into a massive ward of crying kids. In his teen years at school, his squeaking leg brace drew taunts. Once, he kicked a name caller with his bad leg, shattering the brace.

He worked as a short-order cook to put himself through college, earning a bachelor’s in clinical laboratory science and medical technology and a master’s in education.

Lehmann said he never forgot how many students carry poverty, family and socioeconomic pressures into class "in their pockets." It pushed him in 2002 to create what was at one point the campus’ third-most popular major, health science, which focused on well paid, in-demand career paths like health software experts, colleagues said.

"He was just an incredibly sensitive and caring person who took the time to see people for who they are and really understand what they needed," said Carol Gomes, CEO of Stony Brook University Hospital.

He is survived by his wife, Susan Lehmann, who called him "the best," and sons Aaron and Jason, all of Aquebogue.