Stanley Kerr

Who is Stanley Kerr?

Stanley Elphinstone Kerr was an American humanitarian, clinical biochemist and educator. He was the father of Malcolm Kerr, former president of the American University of Beirut and the grandfather of NBA player Steve Kerr.

A clinical biochemist at Walter Reed Hospital, he left the United States in 1919 to serve as a volunteer for Near East Relief. He began his service in Aleppo during an Armenian refugee crisis when many of the survivors of the Armenian Genocide had escaped.He worked as a medical and sanitary officer. He also worked to recover Armenian children from the Kurdish and Turkoman families into which they had been forced. He published The Lions of Marash that describe his work there.

In 1921 Stanley and his wife, Elsa Reckman Kerr, joined the staff of a Near East Relief orphanage for Armenian children at Nahr Ibrahim, Lebanon. The orphanage was abandoned in 1923 due to outbreaks of malaria.

After earning his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, Stanley and Elsa returned to the Middle East where he accepted the position of chairman of the Department of Biochemistry at the American University of Beirut. Elsa Kerr also served on the AUB faculty as Dean of Women students. They had four children: Marion, Dorothy, Douglas, and Malcolm Kerr.