Louis Reichardt

Louis Reichardt (born June 4, 1942) is a noted American mountaineer, the first American to summit both Everest and K2. He is also director of the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative, the largest non-federal supporter of scientific research into autism spectrum disorders and an emeritus professor of physiology and biochemistry/biophysics at UCSF, where he studies neuroscience. The character of Harold Jameson, U.C.S.F. biophysicist and mountaineer in the film K2 is based on Reichardt, though the events of his actual 1978 K2 attempt with Jim Wickwire bear little resemblance to the plot of the film.

Reichardt was a director of the American Alpine Club from 1977 to 1980, and served as president from 1995 to 1997.

Reichardt was awarded the Robert and Miriam Underhill Award by the American Alpine Club in 1993, The David Brower Conservation Award in 1997, and The Angelo Heilprin Citation in 2000. On April 7, 2012, the American Alpine Club inducted Reichardt into its Hall of Mountaineering Excellence at an award ceremony in Golden, Colorado.

Reichardt went to Harvard University for undergraduate work (1960–1964), was a Fulbright Scholar at St. John's College, Cambridge and received a PhD in Biochemistry from Stanford University in 1972. He was a research fellow at the University of Geneva and Harvard Medical School, before becoming a professor at The University of California, San Francisco. He has been Director of the UCSF Neuroscience program since 1994.

Reichardt was an investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute (1985–2007). He is a fellow of American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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