Thomas Earl Starzl is an American physician, researcher, and is an expert on organ transplants. He performed the first human liver transplants, and has often been referred to as "the father of modern transplantation." Starzl was born on March 11, 1926, in Le Mars, Iowa. He attended Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biology. Starzl attended Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago, where in 1950 he received aMaster of Science degree in anatomy and in 1952 earned both a Ph.D. in neurophysiology and an M.D. with distinction. In 2004, President George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential National Medal of Science.