Evelyn R. Barrack, PhD

Evelyn R. Barrack, PhD, 77, of Birmingham, Michigan, formerly of Montreal and Baltimore, died July 28, 2026. Evelyn was the daughter of Sonia Pressman and Issie Barrack, sister to Alan, David and Bathsheba, aunt to many nieces and nephews, cousin, and friend to many.

Evelyn grew up in Montreal, Quebec, and attended McGill University, earning a BSc in biomedical sciences. In 1970 she left Montreal to attend graduate school at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Department of Pharmacology and earned a PhD in 1975. She was Don Coffey’s first graduate student. After 5 years of postdoctoral training, she joined the faculty of the Department of Urology to begin a career doing prostate cancer research. She was the first woman faculty member in the Department of Urology in the history of the institution. In 1988 she moved to Detroit to join the faculty of Henry Ford Hospital Department of Urology and retired in 2014.

Evelyn was scientist, a scholar, and an advocate.

Evelyn loved to travel and visited all the continents. She was an avid student of Pilates (“she discovered her inner athlete”).
As result of her many decades of research, she synthesized the following philosophy: “What you find depends on what you look for and how you look for it.”

In honor of her parents, she established the Sonia Pressman and Issie Barrack Student Bursary at McGill University.