A pioneer in oculomotor neuroscience, Edward L. Keller identified key elements of the brainstem circuits that produce eye movements and provided the foundation for decades of research on neural control of gaze. He passed away on 4 July 2025.

A native of Rapid City, South Dakota, Ed graduated with distinction from the US Naval Academy in 1961. His active duty included serving as missile officer on the USS Dahlgren during the Cuban Missile Crisis and then later in the Navy reserve. He earned his PhD in biomedical engineering from Johns Hopkins University (1971), where he trained with the 'pope' of oculomotor science (David A. Robinson), which ostensibly makes Ed a 'cardinal'. He joined the faculty in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California (UC), Berkeley, and remained there until his retirement as emeritus professor in 1994. He was also an integral part of the joint UC Berkeley-UC San Francisco Bioengineering Graduate Group, including serving as its chair. In 1979, Ed expanded his research program to the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute as a principal scientist and, over time, senior scientist and associate director, until his retirement in 2010. Ed was selected as an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers fellow. A 2010 satellite meeting at the Neural Control of Movement conference honored his scientific achievements.