David Hull, 75, the Bertha and Max Dressler Professor in the Humanities Emeritus at Northwestern, died Aug. 11 of pancreatic cancer in his Chicago home.

Hull taught at NU from 1985 until his retirement in 2000. Before this, he taught biology and philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for 20 years.

His career’s work focused on understanding how biology worked, and he is credited with popularizing research that became the “philosophy of biology.”

Published in 1988, Hull’s most well-known and controversial work was “Science as a Process: An Evolutionary Account of the Social and Conceptual Development of Science.” In 2009, Hull donated a collection of books and reprints, including out-of-print books, from his personal library to the Arizona State University Center for Biology and Society.

Hull held an undergraduate degree from Illinois Wesleyan University and received a Ph.D. from Indiana University, where he was the recipient of the program’s first Ph.D. in the history and philosophy of science.

A memorial service is being planned for October.