SIX RECEIVE SPECIAL COMMENCEMENT HONORS AT OHIO STATE

   COLUMBUS -- The achievements of a researcher, a former prime minister, two scientists, a former Ohio State administrator and a retired Ohio State professor will be recognized with special honors during The Ohio State University’s winter quarter commencement Friday (3/19) in St. John Arena.

   Honorary doctorates will be presented to scientist Richard D. Klausner, former Prime Minister of the Republic of Korea Lee Yung Dug, and scientists Chung-Hsin Chung and Eugene P. Odum.

   The Distinguished Service Award will be presented to Gay B. Hadley and Vern R. Cahill.

   Klausner has been director of the National Cancer Institute, a component of the National Institutes of Health, since 1995. He is recognized as one of the 20 most highly cited scientists in the world in the field of biology and biomedical research. His primary research interests include the molecular basis of iron metabolism in humans, the mechanisms of gene regulation, tumor suppressor genes and receptor biology.

   Klausner began his service with the National Institutes of Health in 1979 as a research associate, becoming senior research investigator at the National Institute of Arthritis, Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases in 1983.

   In 1984, he was named chief of the Cell Biology and Metabolism Branch of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, a post he held until 1997.

   He earned his bachelor’s degree in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale University and his medical degree from Duke University, and completed his medical training in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard.

   Klausner won the Young Investigator Award from the American Federation of Clinical Research, the William Damashek Prize for Major Discoveries in Hematology and the Distinguished Service Medal from the U.S. Public Health Service. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1993 and chaired the Executive Editorial Committee of the academy’s National Committee on Science Education Standards and Assessments, the first comprehensive attempt to describe a vision of scientific literacy for all students in America.

   Former Prime Minister of the Republic of Korea, Lee was a leader in the movement to reform secondary education in Korea. Now professor emeritus of education at Seoul National University, Lee earned his undergraduate degree from Seoul National University in 1952 and his master’s and doctorate in education from Ohio State. He joined the education faculty at Seoul National University in 1959, remaining there until his 1991 retirement.

   During his 32 years as a professor of education, he played an important role in national educational policy as president of the Korean Educational Development Institute and the Korean Society for the Study of Education and as a member of the Metropolitan Seoul Board of Education.

   From 1984 to 1991, Lee served as vice president of the Republic of Korea National Red Cross and was chief delegate to the South-North Red Cross Talk focusing on reunification. Following his retirement from Seoul National University, he became president of Myungji University for one year before being called upon by President Kim Yong-Sam to serve as deputy prime minister and minister of national unification. During 1994, he served as prime minister of the Republic of Korea.

   Lee has received civilian decorations from the government of the Republic of Korea and the Red Cross Order of Voluntary Service Merit in Gold.

   Chung is retired professor of botany and ecology and founder of the Institute of Spartina and Tidal Land Development at Nanjing University in China, where, for nearly 40 years, he taught and carried out research in salt-marsh restoration, plant geography and physiology, and advanced ecology.

   A native of Tianjin, China, Chung received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern California in 1931, and a master’s and doctorate in botany from Ohio State in 1932 and 1935, respectively. He returned to China in 1935 and taught plant biology and physiology at five major Chinese universities before joining the faculty of Nanjing in 1952.

   Widely recognized as the father of coastal restoration in China, Chung was responsible during the 1960s for planting hundreds of acres of China’s ravaged eastern coastline with spartina, a salt-marsh grass, reclaiming these wetlands for the production of food and fiber and protecting the mainland from typhoons and other natural disasters.

   Chung has authored several widely distributed books and more than 100 scholarly papers. He began publishing his work in Western journals during the 1980s, and his work in wetlands ecology is now internationally recognized. He has received a number of awards in China for his coastline restoration work, and in 1992, he was the first international person to be given the Honorary 100 Award by Ohio State’s School of Natural Resources. In 1996 he was named an international fellow and lifetime member of the Society of Wetland Scientists.

   Odum is Callaway Professor Emeritus of ecology, Alumni Foundation Distinguished Professor Emeritus of zoology, and director emeritus of the Institute of Ecology at the University of Georgia in Athens. His pioneering work in the field of ecosystem ecology has spanned many decades and is recognized throughout the international scientific community.

   Odum received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of North Carolina in 1934 and 1936 and his doctorate from the University of Illinois in 1939. He joined the University of Georgia faculty as an instructor in the zoology department in 1940, becoming a full professor in 1954. From 1957 to 1961, he was instructor-in-charge of the Marine Ecology Summer Training Program at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass.

   He was named Alumni Foundation Distinguished Professor of Zoology at the University of Georgia in 1957 and became director of the university’s Institute of Ecology in 1960. He was named Callaway Distinguished Professor of Ecology in 1977. During his tenure at the university, he was responsible for the establishment of the Marine Institute at Sapelo Island and the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory.

   Hadley retired from Ohio State in 1995 after 13 years of exemplary service in both administrative and academic positions. At the time of her retirement, she was assistant vice president in the Office of Human Resources.

   Hadley received a bachelor’s degree in American history from Western College for Women in 1952 and, after raising her family, came to Ohio State, where she earned an interdisciplinary master’s degree in education, psychology and comparative literature in 1976. That same year, she founded OPTIONS Inc., a community-based educational and career counseling agency for adults, and served as its director until 1981.

   In 1982, she received her doctorate in education from Ohio State, joining the faculty as an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Educational Policy and Leadership and serving as associate director of the Department of Credit Programs in the Office of Continuing Education.

   In 1986, she was named associate executive officer for career development in the Office of Human Relations and, from 1991 to 1992, she served as acting associate vice president for human relations. In 1992, she was named assistant vice president of human resources.

   During her tenure at Ohio State, Hadley worked tirelessly to raise the status of women, minorities and nontraditional students. She developed the first orientation program at Ohio State for women re-entering higher education, and she played a leadership role in establishing the Critical Difference for Women program, which offers financial support and career enhancement programs to women working on graduate or professional degrees.

   Hadley also created and implemented the Office of Continuing Education’s BRIDGE Program to provide academic and counseling support to university staff members pursuing a college degree and the Career Development Office for faculty and staff, which has become a national model.

   Cahill was named professor emeritus of animal sciences in 1988 after a half-century of service in Ohio State’s College of Agriculture -- now Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

   Cahill began his service to Ohio State working part-time in the Department of Animal Sciences’ Meat Laboratory as an undergraduate. He received his bachelor’s degree in 1941, followed by a master’s and doctorate in 1942 and 1955, respectively.

   Following service in the U.S. Army during World War II, Cahill returned to Ohio State as an instructor in animal sciences. In 1955, he was named assistant professor, becoming a full professor in 1961. As a faculty member, he was especially active in working with international students and faculty with international interests. His service to Ohio State includes membership on numerous university, college and department committees. He served as coordinator of meat science programs from 1972 to 1986, and for many years was faculty adviser to the Saddle and Sirloin Club, the undergraduate student organization in the Department of Animal Sciences.

   Following his retirement, he served as a Fulbright Senior Lecturer at the University of Campinas in Brazil in 1989. He has long been sought after for his expertise in the field of meat processing and has consulted throughout the world, including Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand, the Dominican Republic and Eastern Europe.

   Cahill’s research has included numerous projects sponsored through the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center dealing with the physical and chemical properties of meat and meat preservation.

Contact: Tracy Turner, University Communications, (614) 688-3682