Purdue Department of Foods and Nutrition honors four alumni
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The Purdue Department of Foods and Nutrition named four alumni and department head Connie Weaver into their Hall of Fame, which recognizes Purdue alumni and others who have contributed to the growth and prominence of the department.Provost Sally Mason presented the honor to Weaver, head and distinguished professor of the Department of Foods and Nutrition, at a reception May 11.
Weaver is an internationally recognized expert on calcium and bone health. She was a member of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, which gave recommendations to the U.S. Department of Agriculture to produce the most recent "Dietary Guidelines for Americans." She is director of the National Institutes of Health Botanicals Research Center for Age Related Diseases and past president of the American Society for Nutritional Sciences.
The other 2006 inductees are:
• Virginia Hartmuller, who received a master's degree in foods and nutrition at Purdue in 1971. She went on to complete another master's degree at Johns Hopkins University in 1988 and a doctorate in health education at the University of Maryland in 1999. She is program director for diet and nutrition epidemiology research in the analytic epidemiology research branch of the epidemiology and genetics research program, which is part of the division of cancer control and population sciences at the National Cancer Institute in the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. She is also a diabetes educator in the Diabetic Care and Education Center in Pikesville, Md.
• Karen Jameson, who completed a bachelor's and master's degree in foods and nutrition at Purdue in 1964 and 1966, respectively. She began her tenure as faculty at Purdue in 1966, retiring in 2004. She received numerous teaching awards, including the Amoco Teaching Award, the Mary L. Matthews Teaching Award, the Phi Tau Sigma Award, the Gamma Sigma Delta Award of Merit and has been placed on the permanent list of Outstanding Teachers in Purdue's College of Consumer and Family Sciences. She was inducted into the Teaching Academy in 1997, and her name was included in the Book of Great Teachers in 1999.
• Judith Roepke, who earned her doctorate at Purdue in 1981. She received her bachelor's degree at the University of Manitoba in 1955 and her master's degree in 1972 at Ball State University. She is dean emerita of the School of Continuing Education and Public Service and professor emerita of the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences at Ball State University. Her area of expertise is nutrition during pregnancy, lactation and infancy. She is also an international expert in breastfeeding education. Since 2003, she has served as the American Dietetic Association representative to the United States Breastfeeding Committee. She also is the American Dietetic Association liaison to La Leche League International.
• James Thomas, who received his doctorate at Purdue in 1981. He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees from Texas Tech University in 1976 and 1978, respectively. He is vice president of process and analytical sciences for Amgen Corp., where he currently oversees process and analytical development of molecule therapeutics from research to commercial stage. His area of expertise is gene expression and molecule therapeutics.
More information on each honoree is on the foods and nutrition Web site.
Writer: Maggie Morris, (765) 494-2432, maggiemorris@purdue.edu
Source: Marlene Troyer, (765) 494-1340, troyera@purdue.edu
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu
To the News Service home page