West Liberty University will honor two groups of alumni for professional accomplishments this weekend during Homecoming festivities.
At noon Friday, Oct. 10 an inaugural group of science alumni will be honored during a luncheon held at Campbell Hall of Health Sciences. A second group of alumni will be honored at a 9 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 11 breakfast held at the Gary E. West Event Center.
Alumni to be honored for science accomplishments include Professor Emeritus Robert Schramm ’58, Internet Pioneer Elizabeth “Jake” Feinler ’54 and biologist Dr. Philip D. Stahl ’64.Schramm passed away June 21, 2014 and the new Notable Science Alumni Wall of Honor will carry his name.
John Wm. Hoppers ’63, West Virginia Senate President Jeff Kessler ’77 and Mary Hinzman Whitman ’77 will be honored during the Saturday ceremony.
Schramm was a graduate of Linsly Military Institute and attended Carnegie Institute of Technology before graduating from West Liberty State College. He earned his graduate degree in nuclear physics from West Virginia University in 1959 and joined the faculty of WLU that same year.
He led the department of physics, mathematics and industrial technology and co-founded the WLU Regional Science Fair. He also created the WLU archives and served as a volunteer archivist for 32 years.
Following his retirement from the faculty, he worked part-time as a WLU photographer and taught photography. He wrote the words and music for the Hilltopper Fight Song in 1994.
He was designated an “Emeritus Professor” in 1997 and entered the Alumni Wall of Honor in 2002. Schramm also is the author of four pictorial histories, including “West Liberty State College,” published in 2001. His widow Jeanne resides in West Liberty.
Feinler earned a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry at WLU under Dr. Ralph Wenger and went on to do graduate work in biochemistry at Purdue University.
She joined SRI International in Menlo Park, Ca., where she pioneered and managed first the ARPANET Network Information Center (NIC) and then the Defense Data Network NIC under contract to the Department of Defense, forerunners of the Internet.
She assisted in the development of the first Internet “yellow” and “white-page” servers that served as the early Internet central information hub. Before the arrival of commercial outfits, the group administered Internet addresses and managed the Internet’s Host Naming Registry from 1972 until 1989.
They developed the first query-based network host name and address (WHOIS), as well as the top-level domain-naming scheme of .com, .edu, .gov, .mil, .org and .net.
A resident of Menlo Park, Ca., she was appointed Delegate at Large to the White House Conference on Libraries and Information Centers and was a founding member of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Feinler was inducted into the 2012 Internet Hall of Fame and received the IETF Postel Service Award in 2013.
Stahl graduated from West Liberty with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1964 and from West Virginia University with his doctoral degree in 1967 where he was a NASA Fellow. He was an Arthritis Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellow at Vanderbilt University before joining the faculty at Washington University School of Medicine.
A resident of St. Louis, Mo., he served as the E. Mallinckrodt Jr. Professor, led the department of cell biology and physiology from 1984-2011 and was director of the division of biology and biomedical sciences.
He received a MERIT award from the National Institutes of Health and the Women in Cell Biology Senior Recognition Award honoring his work supporting the advancement of women in science.
Other awards include a Fogarty Foundation International Fellowship (Oxford University), the Mayent-Rothchild Fellowship (Institute Curie, Paris) and the Carl and Gerty Cori Faculty Achievement Award (Washington University).
Notable research contributions from the Stahl Laboratory include the discovery of pathways and receptors vital to intercellular communication. His recent research focuses on human-specific genes.
Hoppers is a principal attorney with the Columbus, Ohio firm of Strip, Hoppers, Leithart, McGrath & Terlecky LPA, where he has practiced law since 1968.
He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Education in 1963 at West Liberty, then went on to earn a Juris Doctor from The Ohio State University College of Law in 1968.
He is admitted to practice before Ohio Courts, Federal District Court for Southern District of Ohio and the U.S. Supreme Court.
A member of Columbus Bar Association (CBA) and the Ohio Bar Association, he is a Fellow of the Columbus Bar Foundation and former committee chair for several CBA committees.
He is a popular lecturer at Continuing Legal Education seminars and was an adjunct professor at Capital University Law School and The Ohio State University College of Dentistry.
A resident of Columbus, Ohio, Hoppers is active in his community.
Senate President Kessler earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in both economics and political science at West Liberty, then went on to earn a Juris Doctor degree from WVU College of Law in 1981.
A founding partner in the Moundsville firm of Berry, Kessler, Crutchfield, Taylor and Gordon, he served as the city solicitor for the City of Benwood and as Municipal Court Judge for the City of McMechen.
President Kessler also served as an assistant prosecuting attorney in Marshall County from 1985 – 2000 and as a special prosecutor in Ohio and Wetzel counties.
In 1997, he was appointed to the West Virginia State Senate for the Second Senatorial District. He has been re-elected five times to the office and in 2011, was elected as the first and only Acting President in the history of the West Virginia Senate.
He was elected President of the Senate in November 2011 and January 2013, which bestows upon him the statutory title of Lieutenant Governor.
A resident of Glen Dale, W.Va., he serves on the board of directors of both the Regional Economic Development Corporation and Reynolds Memorial Hospital.
Currently senior director of medical affairs at Janssen Scientific Affairs, LLC, Dr. Whitman has received several Johnson and Johnson Standards of Leadership Awards for Publication Excellence and holds two Greenbelt Awards in Publications.
She served on committees for the International Society of Medical Publication Professionals, the Council of Science Editors and the Drug Information Association.
She is a long-term member of the Regulatory Affairs Professional Society, Society of Scholarly Publishing, and the International Society of Pharmacoepidemiology.
For more than 15 years, Whitman has served on the alumni board of directors of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences of Thomas Jefferson University and mentored more than 25 student interns in clerkships and formal research programs.
A resident of West Chester, Pa., Whitman holds a doctoral degree in biochemistry and pharmacology from the Graduate School of Biomedical Science, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, a Master of Science degree in environmental health with thesis in toxicology from the University of Pittsburgh, and a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from WLU.