We are very saddened to learn of the recent passing of Eva Gross Friedman on September 15, 2026, in Los Angeles, California.

We are very saddened to learn of the recent passing of Eva Gross Friedman on September 15, 2026, in Los Angeles, California. She was 83 years old. 

A longtime resident of Pasadena, Eva Gross Friedman was the wife of Shelly E. Friedman, who passed away in 2011. She was the daughter of Feliks and Priva Gross, and maintained a long friendship with the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America including donating archival material honoring her father and his contributions as a sociologist and humanist. Her father was a long time President of PIASA.

Eva had a distinguished career as a medical researcher. For decades she was affiliated with the USC School of Medicine and Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles. She co-authored numerous foundational studies on the metabolic disorder PKU. The long term studies proved that early, strict dietary management during the mother’s pregnancy as well as the infant’s    early childhood could help minimize birth defects and developmental delays. After retiring from her position, Eva Gross Friedman supported local cultural institutions including the Huntington Library, Art Musem Museum and Botanical Gardens. She also took up painting, enrolling in arts classes, and followed in her mother’s footsteps, who was a painter as well as Chairwoman of CUNY’s Queensborough Community College Art Department.

Eva Gross Friedman supported the celebration of her father’s academic contributions both during his life, and afterwards. She attended an American Sociological Association conference that honored her father’s 100th birthday. Following his death in 2006, she helped organize the Feliks Gross Endowment Fund, which sponsors an annual scholarship to a worthy faculty member of City University. She is survived by her cousins Augusta H. Gross, Jan T. Gross, and Jan Skapski. 

Irena Grudzińska-Gross