Walter Riss was born on January 1, 1925 in New Britain, Connecticut, the seventh child of Gerasim (George Herman) Riss (b. 1888) and his wife Nadezda (Nellie) Telegina Riss (b. 1895), who emigrated to the United States from the Russian Empire in 1912 and 1913 respectively. Walter spent his childhood with his family in New Britain, Plainville, and Meriden. In 1942, during World War II, he joined the Army and served until 1946. He met Barbara in 1946 and married her in 1951. Prior to their marriage, both of them attended the University of Connecticut, and he continued on to complete a Ph.D. degree at the University of Rochester in 1953. They then journeyed with their one-year-old son to the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas, where Walter did postgraduate work in neuroscience. In 1954, after Walter accepted a teaching position at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York, they moved to Woodhaven, Queens, and a year later to Mineola, Long Island. Walter had a long and distinguished career at Downstate, during which time he founded the scientific journal, Brain, Behavior and Evolution and initiated Downstate’s graduate program in biological psychology. He and Barbara had three more children, moving to Greenvale about a year prior to the birth of the youngest. Walter was an ordained Presbyterian elder and active member of the session of First Presbyterian Church of Mineola and of Glenwood Presbyterian Church in Glenwood Landing. In 1974, he and two of his children witnessed a miracle which brought about a renewed impetus to his devotion to God and to his reading and study of the Scriptures. After retiring from Downstate in 1985, Walter became part of the faculty of Touro College on Long Island.