Thomas M. De Fer, Nicholas Dopuch, Milorad P. Dudukovic and Beata Grant will receive Distinguished Faculty Awards at this year’s Founders Day commemoration Oct. 2 at the Adam’s Mark Hotel.
The faculty awards are bestowed by the Alumni Board of Governors, which sponsors the event celebrating the University’s founding.
|
Keynote speaker Matthews Giving the keynote address at this year’s Founders Day event is broadcast journalist Chris Matthews. The creator and host of MSNBC’s Hardball With Chris Matthews also is the star of NBC’s The Chris Matthews Show. Before joining the NBC team, Matthews reported for the San Francisco Examiner and also wrote a nationally syndicated column for the San Francisco Chronicle. Matthews is anchoring MSNBC’s election coverage during the presidential campaign and has twice won The Washington Post‘s Crystal Ball Award for successfully predicting past elections. Before his journalism career, he was a speechwriter and White House aide to President Jimmy Carter; top assistant to the late Sen. Thomas “Tip” O’Neill Jr., D-Mass.; staff assistant to the U.S. Senate Budget Committee; and legislative assistant to the late Sen. Frank Moss, D-Utah. Matthews is the author of four best-selling books: Hardball, (1988); Kennedy & Nixon (1996); Now, Let Me Tell You What I Really Think (2001); and American: Beyond Our Grandest Notions (2002). — Barbara Rea |
In addition, Lucy Lopata and Eric and Evelyn Newman will receive the Robert S. Brookings Awards, which are given by the Board of Trustees to individuals who exemplify the alliance between the University and the community.
Thomas M. De Fer
De Fer, M.D., is assistant professor of medicine, specializing in internal medicine education.
After earning a medical degree from the University of Missouri in 1985, he completed his residency at Jewish Hospital in 1992. He was appointed assistant professor of medicine in 1996 and directed the Ambulatory Care Experience for Students program.
A year later, he was named director of the third-year internal medicine clerkship at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. As such, De Fer has been instrumental in creating substantive enhancements to the curriculum, resulting in educational improvements for doctors in training, which includes placing third-year students in private practices.
De Fer also contributes to graduate and postgraduate education, including the internal medicine residency training program at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. He co-directs corporate education in the Division of Medical Education.
De Fer has worked within the school and nationally to enhance medical school curriculum. He is a member of the Clerkship Directors in Internal Medicine and has served on a number of its committees. He was recently elected a councilor of the organization.
He has served on many committees for Barnes-Jewish Hospital. In 2003, he led the development of the Medication Use Safety Subcommittee and now chairs the Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee.
In addition to being named Clerkship Director of the Year in 2003, De Fer has received the school’s Distinguished Service Teaching Award for five consecutive years.
This year, he received the Sydney S. Pearl Award for Inspirational Teaching and the Samuel R. Goldstein Leadership Award in Medical Student Education.
This spring, he was inducted as a fellow of the American College of Physicians.
Nicholas Dopuch
Dopuch, Ph.D., has been the Hubert C. and Dorothy R. Moog Professor of Accounting in the Olin School of Business since 1983.
He is widely credited with revitalizing the Olin School’s doctoral program — which he headed until recently — and for instituting high academic and research standards in the accounting program.
He earned a bachelor’s degree from Indiana State University (1957) and master’s (1959) and doctoral (1961) degrees from the University of Illinois, all in accounting. Prior to his tenure at Washington University, Dopuch taught at the universities of Chicago and Illinois and Indiana University.
Dopuch has edited the Journal of Accounting Research and has served on the editorial board of several professional publications. A prolific writer, he has published more than 30 research papers and four books and monographs.
He has received the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants Award twice and an Outstanding Auditing Educator Award, both from the American Accounting Association. In 2001, he was inducted into the Accounting Hall of Fame.
His encouragement to his colleagues to support the Campaign for Washington University resulted in 100 percent involvement from Olin School faculty during the quiet phase. In addition, he and his wife, Barbara, have sponsored the Dopuch Scholarships since 1998.
Milorad P. Dudukovic
Dudukovic, Ph.D., holds the Laura and William Jens Professorship of Environmental Engineering, chairs the Department of Chemical Engineering and directs the Chemical Reaction Engineering Laboratory, all in the School of Engineering & Applied Science.
A native of Serbia (former Yugoslavia), he earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Belgrade and master’s and doctoral degrees from the Illinois Institute of Technology, where he also taught reaction engineering.
After a brief stint at Ohio University, Dudukovic joined the Washington University faculty in 1974 as associate professor of chemical engineering.
Early in his tenure, Dudukovic developed the Chemical Reaction Engineering Laboratory as an interface for transferring technology from academia to industry.
His unique approach and emphasis on creating environmentally benign processes while developing improved models and producing new materials created such a favorable response from the industry sector that industrial sponsorship grew from three companies in 1975 to 20 by the 1990s. His techniques have led to worldwide recognition and research support from government and private sources in five continents.
Dudukovic has been a director of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ (AIChE) St. Louis chapter and director of the Reaction Engineering and Catalysis Division of the national AIChE.
He has published more than 250 articles in journals and also served as associate editor for Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research.
Among his many awards, he has been recognized with two NASA certificates of excellence for research on silicon crystal growth and with the AIChE’s R.H. Wilhelm Award.
Dudukovic has been named Engineering Professor of the Year five times.
Beata Grant
Grant, Ph.D., is professor of Chinese language and literature in the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages and Literatures and director of the Religious Studies Program, both in Arts & Sciences.
She earned a bachelor’s degree (1976) in Oriental studies from the University of Arizona and master’s (1981) and doctoral (1988) degrees in Chinese language and literature from Stanford University.
After graduation, she held a Rockefeller Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley, and in the fall of 1989 she joined Washington University as an assistant professor in the Asian and Near Eastern languages and literatures. She became a full professor in 2003 and just retired from her post as department chair.
Grant’s area of specialization covers Buddhism and Chinese literature. Her first book, 1994’s Buddhism in the Life and Writings of Su Shih (1036-1101), was followed in 2003 by Daughters of Emptiness: Poems of Chinese Buddhist Nuns. Introducing the nuns’ poems to the English-speaking world, Daughters highlights their poetry, which was written between the fourth and 20th centuries.
In the years between her books, Grant published a number of articles on the relatively new area of women’s writing in pre-modern China. She has also collaborated with a colleague on a comprehensive survey of pre-modern Chinese women’s writings in The Red Brush: Women Writers of Imperial China.
Her teaching ranges from women’s literature of pre-modern China to gender and religion in Chinese literature, as well as introductory courses in Buddhism and East Asian religions. She received the 1999 Governor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching from the Coordinating Board of Higher Education, and also two Kemper faculty grants to improve learning.
Lucy Lopata
Born in Germany in 1914, Lopata was educated in Germany and Switzerland before immigrating to the United States in 1934. She came to St. Louis, where she met and married Stanley Lopata, a 1935 Arts & Sciences alumnus.
In 1945, the couple founded Carboline Corp., a corrosion-resistant, fireproof and waterproof coatings company, with the first headquarters located in their basement. True partners, he manufactured and sold the products, while she managed the office. They sold Carboline in 1979 to Sun Oil Refining and Marketing Co.
Every school at the University has been a recipient of their support, and several campus buildings bear their name: the School of Engineering & Applied Science’s Lopata Hall; three Lopata courtyards, in the schools of engineering, business and social work; and Lopata Classroom in McDonnell Hall.
All eight schools offer Lopata scholarships, and professorships in chemical and biomedical engineering bear their name. In 2001, the Lucy and Stanley Lopata House in The Village was dedicated, and the Lopata Classic basketball tournament is an annual celebration of NCAA Division III scholar-athletes.
For her extraordinary generosity, Lopata received the University’s highest honor — an honorary doctorate of humanities — in 2002. She is a Life Member of the William Greenleaf Eliot Society’s Danforth Circle. Active in University life, she is a past member of the Alumni Board of Governors, former chair of the Alumni Travel Program and a founding member of the Friends of Music’s Executive Advisory Committee.
As a couple, Lucy and Stanley Lopata were inducted into the University’s Athletic Hall of Fame, and they received the Dean’s Medal Award from the George Warren Brown School of Social Work.
Lopata’s generosity does not stop with Washington University. She has held leadership positions with the Jewish Federation, the Jewish Community Centers, the Jewish Federation Women’s Division, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, the Churchill School, Jewish Family and Children’s Services, the Center of Contemporary Arts and The Sheldon.
In addition, she helped found the Miriam School and the Sophia M. Sachs Butterfly House in Faust Park.
Among her many community honors are a Woman of Achievement Award, the Shining Star Award and the National Society of Fund Raising Executives’ Outstanding Philanthropist Award.
Eric Pfeiffer Newman
Eric Newman was born in St. Louis in 1911. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1932 and a juris doctoris from WUSTL in 1935.
After practicing law for 52 years, he retired from Edison Brothers Stores in 1987 and now serves as president of the Harry Edison Foundation.
As one of America’s foremost numismatists, Newman is renowned for his scholarly contributions to the subject and for his exceptional private collection of U.S. and Colonial American coins and paper money. The avocation began more than eight decades ago, when his grandfather gave him an 1859 U.S. copper-nickel cent.
Selections from his collection will soon be displayed in the University’s Newman Money Museum, which will occupy 3,000 square feet in the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at the Sam Fox Arts Center.
He is a member of the American Numismatic Association (ANA) and the American Numismatic Society (ANS) and has received a number of awards from these organizations, including each of their highest honors: the ANA’s Farran Zerbe Memorial Award and the ANS’s Huntington Medal.
He was inducted into the ANA Numismatic Hall of Fame in 1986, and 10 years later he was named Numismatist of the Year.
Most recently, Newman received the Burnett Anderson Memorial Award for Excellence in Numismatic Writing.
He holds an honorary doctor of humane letters degree from the University of Missouri.
Over the years, he and wife Evelyn have been active members in the University community.
Through a family foundation, the Eric P. Newman Education Center at the School of Medicine was established, and support for scholarship funds and professorships has been provided.
Newman served on the University Libraries’ national council for many years. He was given a Distinguished Alumni Award in 1992 and the School of Law Alumni Award in 1994.
Evelyn Edison Newman
Evelyn Newman was born in 1920 in Atlanta but moved with her family to St. Louis in 1929. She attended Goucher College and Washington University.
Her marketing concepts firm, the Evelyn E. Newman Group, primarily assists not-for-profit clients in their mission and revenue-producing efforts.
She is the creator of several unique fund-raising projects that are now considered local traditions, among them: the Greater St. Louis Book Fair to benefit the Nursery Foundation of St. Louis; the Scholarshop for the Scholarship Foundation of St. Louis; the Little Shop Around the Corner for the Missouri Botanical Garden;
the Camelot Auction to benefit the Arts & Education Council; Gypsy Caravan for the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra; the Country Store and Flea Market for the Missouri Historical Society; the Wishing Well for Barnes-Jewish Hospital; and Red Cross Buns for the American Red Cross.
Many St. Louis landmarks have benefited from her professional expertise. In the 1980s, her firm helped revitalize St. Louis Union Station.
More recently, she has served as executive director of Forest Park Forever, an organization leading the march for its rehabilitation and preservation.
In addition, Newman conceived, raised funds for and directed the construction and operation of the Sophia M. Sachs Butterfly House in Faust Park.
Newman received the St. Louis Woman of Achievement Award in 1959 and was the first person to receive the Arts & Education Council’s Award for Lifetime Achievement.
In 1981, she was awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters from the University of Missouri and last year received the Spirit of Philanthropy Award by the Association of Fundraising Professionals of St. Louis.