By Amy Blakely.
Matthew Walker III was a Renaissance man—a renowned biomedical researcher who developed drugs to treat cardiovascular diabetes, cancer, and obesity; a music lover who served on the board of the Boston Symphony Orchestra; a man of faith who was proud of his family’s legacy; and a lifelong learner hailed as a superb mentor and teacher.
“He had such a penchant for the creative as well as academia,” said his widow, Anna. “He was a person of extreme diligence and excellence and had an uncanny sense of recall. Yet he was a person who loved connecting with people, mentoring, and giving back. He loved his son and his family beyond measure, and he enjoyed lifelong friendships.”
Walker (BS ’87) passed away in April 2021 at the age of 56. He was inducted into the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Biomedical Engineering’s Hall of Fame on April 25.
Walker was born in Newark, New Jersey, into a family of African American leaders. His grandfather, the late Matthew Walker Sr., was a prominent physician and founder of the Matthew Walker Comprehensive Health Center in Nashville. His father, the late Matthew Walker Jr., was a civil rights leader and Freedom Rider.
Walker grew up in Nashville and attended Whites Creek High School. A good student, he played saxophone, enjoyed swimming, and worked as a lifeguard. He pledged a high school fraternity and was active in his church.
After graduating from UT, Walker worked as a mechanical-biomedical engineer with NASA in Houston. He earned his doctorate in molecular physiology and biophysics from Tulane University’s School of Medicine in 1999.
Around this time, Walker married his first wife, Kellye Walker, and they had a son, Matthew Walker IV.
Walker spent three years as a United Negro College Fund Merck Medical Research Fellow in cardiovascular physiology and biophysics at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. He then spent seven years as a senior cardiovascular researcher at Merck Research Laboratories, where he led the novel technologies adoption team and helped develop several drugs including Vytorin, Januvia, and Candesartan. He also co-founded the Association of Underrepresented Minority Fellows.
In 2010, while visiting Nashville for the holidays, Walker, who was by then divorced, ran into Anna Parker, a neighborhood friend from his youth. Parker had gone away to college and then lived in California for a number of years before moving back to Nashville.
The connection was immediate; Anna calls it “divine intervention.”
Within months, Walker had moved back to Nashville, accepted a position at Vanderbilt University, and married Anna.
At Vanderbilt, Walker held dual appointments as professor of practice for biomedical engineering and professor of radiology and radiological sciences and served as the associate director of Vanderbilt’s Medical Innovators Development Program. The American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering named him a fellow in 2020.
At the time of his death, Walker was working on a book about the intersection of technology and personalized medicine.
Upon Walker’s passing, Vanderbilt issued a statement praising him as “a genuine man of debonair style and sophistication [who] lifted the tides around him with every conversation.”