Stephen Evan Malawista, professor of medicine at Yale, was born in New York City and graduated from Harvard College (1954) and the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University (1958). He completed his residency training at Yale. After a brief stint in the Public Health Service, he was invited back to Yale in 1966, where he became chief of Rheumatology in the Department of Internal Medicine in 1967. As chief for 21 years, he built up the section to a major center for rheumatology. Malawista was known for his creativity in the laboratory, his observational skills as a clinician, and his wit as a colleague. His research focused on inflammation, especially neutrophils, and he made many important contributions. He developed the first screen for the prenatal diagnosis of chronic granulomatous disease. But Malawista will be especially remembered as the co-discoverer in 1975 with Allen C. Steele, of Lyme disease. In addition to his previous areas of research, Malawista continued to investigate Lyme disease through the remainder of his career. He and his colleagues researched the causal mechanisms, diagnosis, etiology, and the treatment of Lyme disease, and the prevention of Lyme disease by a vaccine. All Malawista's sabbaticals were spent in Paris collaborating with various French colleagues. Malawista received several major awards, among them the Gold Medal of the American College of Rheumatology, the Ciba-Geigy/International League Against Rheumatism Prize with Allen Steere, and the degree of Docteur Honoris Causa from the Universite de Paris.