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Given Limb Foundation's Monserrate to Address Annual Founders' Day Ceremony Friday

Trustee Kohn, physicist Meyer to receive University Medal

Duke trustee Martha L. Monserrate, an engineering alumna who heads a foundation that’s improved the lives of amputees, will address the annual Founders' Day Convocation Friday, Sept. 19, in Duke Chapel.

In addition, University Medals will be presented to Professor J. Horst Meyer, one of the cornerstones of the Duke physics faculty, and Cookie Anspach Kohn, a Duke alumna who has continued to serve the university through decades-long work with the Board of Trustees and the Library Advisory Board. 

Founders' Day celebrates the founding of the university and provides an opportunity each year for the school to reflect on its history and heritage, and recognize major contributions by students, faculty, administrators, employees and alumni. 

The ceremony is at 5:30 p.m. and will include recognition of faculty, staff and students who have won other university awards. The public is invited to attend.

Monserrate graduated from the Pratt School of Engineering in 1981 and received a master's degree from Duke in 1982. She is president and founder of the consulting firm Environmental Excellence Engineering, PC, which specializes in site remediation and insurance cost recovery.

She started the Given Limb Foundation after being inspired by her brother-in-law, who served in Iraq, and by biomedical engineer and Marine reservist Jon Kuniholm, who was injured in Iraq and now works on prosthetics development.

The foundation's initiatives have helped amputees, including both members of the U.S. military and victims of landmines around the world. It supports research advancing prosthetic technology -- a field too small to attract traditional investment -- and also attempts to find low-cost solutions at a time when millions of amputees cannot afford prosthetics or have no access to them.

Elected to the Board of Trustees in 2009, Monserrate is vice chair of the Medical Center Academic Affairs Committee and is a member of the Facilities and Environment Committee.

The University Medals to be presented to Kohn and Meyer are Duke's highest honor for distinguished service.

Kohn graduated with a B.A. in history from Duke in 1960 and almost immediately began a career of service to the university. She received one of the first Charles A. Dukes Awards for Outstanding Volunteer Service. She has served as chair of the Duke Annual Fund's Executive Committee and has been a member of the Chicago Regional Council for Duke and the Alumni Admissions Advisory Committee. She also has served two terms on the Trinity College Board of Visitors.

Elected to the Board of Trustees in 1997, Kohn served on the board for 12 years before taking emerita status in 2009.

She currently is a member of the Duke University Library Advisory Board.  Cookie and Henry Kohn recently donated her family’s collection of mid-century travel literature to the Duke Libraries, where it has been curated as the Anspach Travel Bureau Collection of Tourism Literature. 

Meyer, the Fritz London Professor emeritus, is one of the world's leading authorities on experimental condensed matter physics, particularly the properties of fluids near their liquid-vapor critical point. 

Meyer earned his B.Sc. in 1949 and Ph.D. in 1953 in physics at the University of Geneva.  After beginning his academic career by teaching at Oxford and Harvard, he joined the Duke faculty in 1959.  He was named the Fritz London Professor of Physics in 1984 and became an emeritus member of the faculty in 2004.  A beloved teacher and mentor in physics, Meyer has mentored 12 fellows of the American Physical Society, two members of the National Academy of Sciences and one Nobel Prize winner -- the late Robert Richardson.

Beyond his research, Meyer has been the unofficial historian of the Duke physics department, writing on a variety of topics, such as the career of Hertha Sponer, the first woman on the Duke physics faculty. He also has served on the advisory boards of the Sarah P. Duke Gardens and the Duke University Chamber Arts Society. 

The Distinguished Alumni Award will go to Gerald Bard Tjoflat LL.B.'57, judge of the U.S. Court of the Appeals, 11th Circuit.  He is currently the longest serving federal appeals court judge still in active service.  In 1995, the Duke Law Journal published a tribute to Tjoflat that included articles by three members of the U.S. Supreme Court. In his long tenure as judge, he has hired more than 60 Duke Law School grads as clerks.

Lewis D. Blake III, A.M.'78, will receive the Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award. The eighth Duke alumnus to receive Duke Alumni Association's teaching award, Blake served as supervisor of first-year instruction (SFI) in the Department of Mathematics for 26 years and, as such, was one of the most important teachers that new math students met. Blake stepped down from the SFI position in May 2011, and returned to full-time teaching.

Other faculty awards cited at Founders' Day include:

Graduate School

Dean’s Award for Excellence in Mentoring: Charles Becker, David Kirsch and Ann Marie Rasmussen

 

Trinity College of Arts and Sciences

Award for Excellence in Advising: Kelly Cottrell

Award for Excellence in Teaching Writing: James Berkey

David and Janet Vaughan Brooks Distinguished Teaching Award: Mine Cetinkaya-Rundel

Dean’s Leadership Award -- Spanish Language Program's Civic Engagement Initiative: Eileen Anderson, Joan Clifford, Rebecca Ewing, Bethzaida Fernandez, Lisa Merschel, Joan Munne, Liliana Parades, Maria Romero, Melissa Simmermeyer, Rosa Solorzano, Graciela Vidal and William Villalba

Howard D. Johnson Distinguished Teaching Award: James W. Roberts

Richard K. Lublin Distinguished Award for Teaching Excellence: Erdag Goknar

Robert B. Cox Distinguished Teaching Award: Rebecca Bach

Teaching and Technology Award: Denise Comer

 

Pratt School of Engineering

Capers and Marion McDonald Award for Excellence in Mentoring and Advising: Charles Parker

Capers and Marion McDonald Award for Excellence in Teaching and Research: Lori Setton

Dean’s Award for Leadership in Program and Operational Excellence: Mark Walters

Klein Family Distinguished Teaching Award: Rebecca Simmons

Lois and John L. Imhoff Distinguished Teaching Award: Elizabeth Bucholz

Stansell Family Distinguished Research Award: Nenad Bursac

University Scholar/Teacher of the Year: Warren Grill

 

Faculty and staff also will be honored for university service awards, including:

Presidential Award

Candy Durant, Stan Paskoff, James Roberts, Stuart Wells and Philip Wright

 

Meritorious Service Award

Kathy Buarotti, Tanya Exum Coston, Ilene Farkas, Jennifer Lynn Horan, John Daniel James, Terry Jones, T. Russell Lippard, Jacqueline Looney, Elias Mercado, Matthew Roman, Chris Seawell and Frederick Swann

 

Diversity Award

Martha Absher, Stephanie Barnes, Narda Borda, Hai Ly Burk, Lakisha Carroll, Dwight Coleman, Kay Green, Jill John, Denise Lush, Shawn MacDuff, Karen McGowan, Diane Mitchell, Chris Muhlhammer, Kathy Parker, Nisha Patel, Barbara Upchurch, Marnie Rhoads, Laura Shuler, Connie Simmons, Lupita Temiquel-McMillian, Jenny Yu and Tyson Zlockie

 

Teamwork Award

Duke Health Technology Solutions Maestro Care Team: Lisa Berry-Setliff, Victor Collins, Kathryn Lytle, Matt Marchione, Leland Myers, Matthew Roman, Greg Smith, Steve Wilfong, Peter Woods and La Donna Worrell

Library Service Center: Earl Alston, R. David Beal, Michelle S. Bowditch, Andre Crooke, Patrick Daniels, Dexter McCrea, Emmanuel Senga, Marvin Tillman and Daniel J. Walker

Others to be honored during the Founders' Day service include Angier B. Duke Scholars, Benjamin N. Duke Scholars, Karsh International Scholars, James B. Duke Graduate Fellows, Reginaldo Howard Scholars, University Scholars, Robertson Scholars, Faculty Scholars, the MasterCard Foundation Scholars, The Duke Endowment Fellows and many other undergraduate and graduate scholars.