List of Famous people who died at 80

Roger Wolcott Sperry was an American neuropsychologist, neurobiologist and Nobel laureate who, together with David Hunter Hubel and Torsten Nils Wiesel, won the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for his work with split-brain research. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Sperry as the 44th most cited psychologist of the 20th century.

Herbert Sander Gutowsky was an American chemist who was a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Gutowsky was the first to apply nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) methods to the field of chemistry. He used nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to determine the structure of molecules. His pioneering work developed experimental control of NMR as a scientific instrument, connected experimental observations with theoretical models, and made NMR one of the most effective analytical tools for analysis of molecular structure and dynamics in liquids, solids, and gases, used in chemical and medical research, His work was relevant to the solving of problems in chemistry, biochemistry, and materials science, and has influenced many of the subfields of more recent NMR spectroscopy.

Sir John McEwen, was an Australian politician who served as the 18th Prime Minister of Australia, holding office from 19 December 1967 to 10 January 1968 in a caretaker capacity after the disappearance of Harold Holt. He was the leader of the Country Party from 1958 to 1971.

Heiko "Ko" Wierenga was a Dutch politician and member of the Labour Party (PvdA). He served as the Mayor of the municipality of Enschede from September 1977 until April 1994. Under Wierenga, artwork by Joop Hekman, called Het ei van Ko, was installed near Enschede's town hall in 1984.

Alexander Nikolaevich Nesmeyanov was a prominent Soviet chemist and academician (1943) specializing in organometallic chemistry.

Sir Richard van der Riet Woolley OBE FRS was an English astronomer who became Astronomer Royal. His mother's maiden name was Van der Riet.