Arturo Rosenblueth

Arturo Rosenblueth was a Mexican researcher, physician and physiologist, who is known as one of the pioneers of cybernetics. He began his studies in Mexico City, then traveled to Berlin and Paris where he obtained his medical degree. Returning to Mexico City in 1927, he engaged in teaching and research in physiology. In 1930 he obtained a Guggenheim Scholarship and moved to Harvard University, to the department of Physiology, then directed by Walter Cannon. With Cannon he explored the chemical mediation of homeostasis. Rosenblueth cowrote research papers with both Cannon and Norbert Wiener, pioneer of cybernetics. Notably he was the lead author for the 1943 article 'Behavior, Purpose and Teleology' that was co-written by Wiener and Julian Bigelow and which was published in Philosophy of Science. Rosenblueth was an influential member of the core group at the Macy Conferences. In 1944, Rosenblueth became professor of physiology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Eventually he became head of the Physiology Laboratory of the National Institute of Cardiology, head of the Physiology Department and, in 1961, director of the Center for Scientific Research and Advanced Studies (Cinvestav) at the National Polytechnic Institute. Between 1947 and 1949, and again between 1951 and 1952, using grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, he returned to Harvard to further collaborate with Wiener. Arturo Rosenblueth died on September 20, 1970, in Mexico City. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physiology in 1952 and received the National Prize of Sciences of Mexico in 1966. He was also a member of El Colegio Nacional and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.