Science that serves the common good.
Each year, world-renowned faculty from the College of Science welcome students from around the globe. Eventually, these young men and women will transform from students into scientists, many of whom, upon graduation, will spread back out to the four corners of the globe. There, these alumni will take the knowledge they learned during their time at Notre Dame and, along with a Fighting Irish spirit and a belief in service to justice, will make the world a better place. Some alumni are already doing it.
And it’s not just those outside of the University who benefit from the heart and hard work of the College’s alumni, as Notre Dame’s unparalleled alumni network is bringing their real-world experience to the College’s current students by providing them with valuable career advice as well as opportunities for research experience with alumni at universities, hospitals, and other laboratories.
Below, read about what some of our alumni are doing with the knowledge they gained at Notre Dame.
Applied and Computational Mathematics and Statistics
Paul Baranay '12
Paul Baranay earned his Bachelor of Science with a double major in biological sciences and applied and computational mathematics and statistics. During his time at Notre Dame, Baranay took advantage of many research opportunities. He worked with Steve Buechler, professor of applied and computational mathematics and statistics, on cancer gene network analysis, as well as Frank Collins, the George and Winifred Clark Chair in Biological Science, and Scott Emrich, assistant professor of computer science, on malaria research. Baranay also has worked with Michael Schatz, assistant professor, at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, to study genome assembly. In addition to his research projects, he served as Co-Editor-in-Chief for Scientia, Notre Dame’s undergraduate journal of scientific research.
Baranay is now attending Yale University and working towards a Ph.D. in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, focusing on human disease using large-scale genomics data. This area of study incorporates a variety of different approaches and disciplines, such as data mining (computer science), network models (applied math), and cellular mechanisms (biology and biochemistry). Ultimately, he hopes to integrate computational data with experimental verification to better understand the genetic risk factors underlying disease.
Biological Sciences
Dr. David Coulter '69
Look at a person with a disability, and it’s often easy to see what makes them different from others.
Dr. David Coulter can see those things in the patients he has worked with for decades. But he also sees one thing that makes them, and all humans, the same—their spirits.
Coulter says recognizing that is a lesson he got from Notre Dame, where 50 years ago he explored what it meant to be human and to be himself. He learned it through reflection, many caring mentors and the opportunity to take classes in a wide variety of fields, sometimes auditing classes in which he wasn’t able to enroll.
“I was a kid. I was searching for answers. Notre Dame gave me the space and the freedom to help find those answers. I looked everywhere I could to find those answers,” he says. “Notre Dame was always a welcoming and open space in a way no other college could be.”
Following his passion for all things tied to nature, Coulter earned a bachelor’s degree in biology in 1969. But he could also be found bouncing questions off professors and priests when he sat in on philosophy and theology courses.
Dr. Thomas Quinn '69, '70
Thomas Quinn ’69, ’70 has spent more than 30 years studying the transmission and spread of HIV/AIDS. Now a leader in his field, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health, and associate director for international research at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Quinn traces his success back to his time at Notre Dame.
“From high school onward, I was fascinated by biology,” he says. Though he completed a variety of course work as an undergraduate in the life sciences, a parasitology course taught by Prof. George Craig proved to be his career-defining moment. More...
Fil Randazzo '85
Filippo (Fil) Randazzo, Ph.D. currently serves as deputy director of global heath discovery and translational sciences at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation where he is charged with managing a broad array of programs across multiple disease areas including malaria, TB and HIV.
Since 2005, Randazzo has participated in the foundation’s phenomenal growth, from mid-startup stage of about 100 employees into its maturation stage of over 1000 employees. As a founding member of the Discovery management team, he has overseen over $1.5B in cumulative investments across six continents, and has directly managed a portfolio of over $350M in grants and contracts in areas as diverse as vaccines, agriculture, family planning, mosquito control, nutrition and ethics, social and cultural (ESC) issues.
Randazzo received his postdoctoral training at Stanford University and the University of Toronto. He earned his Ph.D. from Indiana University in 1991 and a B.S. from the University of Notre Dame in 1985 where he majored in molecular microbiology and anthropology.
Andrew Serazin '03
Andrew Serazin is the senior program officer in the global health discovery division at the Gates Foundation, where he leads a team in developing new scientific approaches and technologies for maternal, neonatal, and child health. He founded and led Grand Challenges Explorations, an early-stage medical research fund that has attracted ideas from over 20,000 scientists in over 100 countries and has resulted in over 400 projects.
Serazin graduated from Notre Dame with a degree in biological sciences. After graduation, he attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar and received his doctorate for his work on developing new genomic technologies to accelerate design of new drugs and vaccines against malaria. He has been a member of the Science Advisory Council at Notre Dame since 2008.
Chemistry and Biochemistry
Charles Lancelot '62
Charles Lancelot, Ph.D. has spent almost his entire career in the plastics industry, and is recognized as an expert in the field of plastics recyclability and biodegradability.
Lancelot worked for more than three decades in research and development and also commercial development at Ansell International, Rubbermaid and Mobil Chemical before starting his Atlanta-based firm XCaliber Associates, Inc. His company provides consulting as well as contract research and development to plastic material suppliers and end users. Lancelot works closely with a number of organizations that perform all of his clients’ testing and analysis, including the Georgia Institute of Technology. More...
Robert K. O'Leary '62
Robert K. O'Leary, Ph.D. founded TRANS/SCITECH, INC., a biomedical technology consulting company in 1997 in order to assist the small but growing industry of orthobiologics and tissue banking. With more than 37 United States patents and 40 publications in tissue related science, he consulted for six years as a human tissue banking expert for the Lifenet Tissue Bank in Virginia Beach, Virginia. There he worked on projects dealing with tissue sterilization, debridement, and demineralization, for which six patents were issued. One of these patents, Plasticized Soft Tissue Grafts, improves the preservation of human tissue to be used for surgical replacement of body parts. More...
John E. Macor '82
John E. Macor, Ph.D., earned his B.S. degree summa cum laude from the University of Notre Dame in 1982 and his Ph.D. degree in organic chemistry at Princeton University in 1986. Macor’s career has spanned four decades and three pharmaceutical companies with significant contributions in each of them. He began his career at Pfizer in 1986, where he was engaged in a variety of CNS drug discovery efforts, moved to Astra Arcus in 1994 focusing on cholinergic drug discovery, and then moved to Bristol-Myers Squibb in 1997, starting in cardiovascular and moving to neuroscience in 2001, and then immunosciences in 2013. More...
Ann E. Weber '82
Ann E. Weber, Ph.D., is currently senior vice president of drug discovery at Kallyope Inc., a New York City-based biotechnology company focused on harnessing the potential of the gut-brain axis. She retired in November 2015, from Merck and Co, where she was most recently vice president of lead optimization chemistry at Merck Research Laboratories (MRL). In this role, she was responsible for the discovery of innovative therapeutic agents across disease areas. She joined MRL as a senior research chemist in 1987. More...
Environmental Sciences
Mark Kozak '93
Mark Kozak counts helicopter ski guide, avalanche forecaster, executive director of a science research center, and start-up entrepreneur among the various titles he has amassed over the course his career, since graduating from Notre Dame in 1993 with a B.S. in environmental science. “There is a perception,” he said, “that when you leave college you have this one career, but you don’t [necessarily have to have just one].” He added, “While you want to be an expert in one thing, it is possible to take your skills and experience and apply them to other things and another career.” More...
Mathematics
Helga Schaffrin Huntley '99
Helga Schaffrin Huntley was an honors mathematics major and member of SUMR. Upon graduation she chose to spend two years helping Africa and taught in Zambia. She also set up a program to help young Zambian girls pay for their school books.
Schaffrin Huntley earned her Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics and Oceanography from NYU. She is now a research specialist at University of Delaware, interested in the mathematical modeling of ocean currents.
Sami Assaf '01
Sami Assaf never realized she would pursue a career in mathematics until she came to Notre Dame. She originally began her undergraduate career as a program of liberal studies major. Her sophomore year, she took Linear Algebra class and realized how much she loved mathematics, so she registered for all of the core sophomore honors mathematics classes the next semester. “After taking classes with Peter Cholak and Frank Connolly my sophomore year, I was so enthralled with the beauty of mathematics that I changed my major,” explained Assaf. She was admitted into the honors mathematics program her junior year.
In addition to her mathematics courses, Assaf was also a member of the Seminar for Undergraduate Mathematics Research (SUMR), a program for the most gifted mathematics students at Notre Dame who intend to do post-graduate work in the mathematics series. She graduated from Notre Dame in 2001 with a double major in honors mathematics and philosophy. She went on to earn her Ph.D. from the University of California Berkeley in 2007. Assaf is now the Gabilan Assistant Professor of Mathematics at the University of Southern California and her current research program is focused on developing the theory of dual equivalence graphs, which provide a combinatorial tool for establishing the symmetry and Schur positivity of a function expressed as a sum of quasisymmetric functions. More...
Physics
Charles Misner '53
Misner is professor emeritus of physics at the University of Maryland, where he started teaching in 1963. In 1993, a collection of papers in his honor, Directions in General Relativity, was published. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.Charles W. Misner entered Notre Dame with the Class of 1953, earned his Bachelor of Science in Physics in three years, and did four-fifths of his graduate coursework on campus the next year before going to Princeton for his Ph.D. His landmark book Gravitation, written with Ph.D. advisor John Wheeler and fellow student Kip Thorne, was first published 40 years ago, has never gone out of print. His work provided early foundations for the study of quantum gravity and numerical relativity. He wrote “The dynamics of general relativity,” a summary of papers on a formulation of general relativity, with Richard Arnowitt and Stanley Deser. That pivotal work on formalism, published in 1962, is cited in the field with their initials ADM.
Jeff Drocco '04
At Notre Dame, Drocco won a Goldwater Scholarship, the most prestigious award in the U.S. conferred upon undergraduates in the sciences. He then moved to Princeton for his Ph.D. work, where he also held a Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship. A biological physicist, he completed his dissertation on pattern formation in development, working in the laboratories of his advisor David Tank and Nobel laureate Eric Wieschaus '69.Jeff Drocco is a physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). His affiliation with LANL began early: as an undergraduate, he joined a collaboration between Notre Dame physics professor Boldizsar Janko and LANL scientists Cynthia Olson Reichhardt and Charles Reichhardt, working on computational studies of vortices and granular matter.
In 2011, Drocco returned to Los Alamos as a Director's Fellow in the Physics of Condensed Matter and Complex Systems Group. His most recent projects include modeling the dynamics of swarming microorganisms, as well as studying the effect of nanoparticle aggregation on toxicity to human tissue.
"Notre Dame planted the seeds of scientific curiosity in my mind and introduced me to the art of using the principles of physics to study diverse aspects of the natural world," Drocco says. "My experiences there inspired me to pursue a career in science after graduation."
Stephanie Morrison ’07
Stephanie Morrison, a 2007 physics Ph.D. alumna, has been active in the Montana alumni community after graduation. In addition to alumni group leadership and fundraising, she has founded a successful annual outreach event, Chicks in Science, for grade- and middle-school-aged girls. More...
César Hidalgo, Ph.D. ’08
César Hidalgo, who earned a Ph.D. in Physics at Notre Dame in 2008, has started an online video series of scientists, “Cambridge Nights: Conversations About a Life in Science.” The series is produced at the M.I.T. Media Lab that he joined last year. Hidalgo is the ABC Career Development Professor at The Media Lab and a faculty associate at the Center for International Development at Harvard University. More...
Preprofessional Studies
Mark Hoyer '81
Dr. Mark Hoyer ’81 enjoys a rewarding career as a pediatric cardiologist and Director of Cardiac Catheterization and Interventional Cardiology for Riley Hospital for Children at Indiana University Health.
In this Q&A, he shares how his passion and drive for medicine was cemented during his undergraduate experience at Notre Dame and beyond. More...
Paul Tschirhart '63
Alumnus Paul Tschirhart graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1963 with a Bachelor of Science, majoring in pre-professional studies. Tschirhart began his studies at Notre Dame as a chemistry major. Upon reflecting on his aptitude as a chemist during his junior year, however, he made the decision with his organic qualitative analysis professor, Dr. Pasko, to change his major to pre-professional studies.
Upon graduating Tschirhart was commissioned through the National Reserve Officers Training Corps to the United States Navy and served two years of active duty, after which he remained in the Navy Reserve for over 20 years. Subsequently, he attended Wayne State University law school, where he gained a Juris Doctor degree in 1968, and began his legal career with the Federal Maritime Commission in Washington, D.C., the same year. More...
Dr. Ralph P. Pennino '75
Dr. Ralph P. Pennino, a 1975 Notre Dame graduate, is among those, who in 2010, organized a major Notre Dame relief effort in Leogane, the site of the ND Haiti program and an area near the epicenter of the Jan. 12, 2010, Haitian earthquake.
Pennino is a Rochester, New York, surgeon and president of InterVol, a nonprofit providing medical care organization that brings supplies to the needy and the underserved worldwide. More...
Dr. Michael Kron '76
Michael Kron, M.D., M.Sc, F.A.C.P., graduated from Notre Dame in 1976 with a Bachelor of Science in Preprofessional Studies. He is currently a professor of medicine in the Infectious Disease division and a member of the Biotechnology and Bioengineering Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin. In March 2013, he was selected as one of 12 Jefferson Science Fellows by the National Academy of Sciences. As a Fellow, he will work with the U.S. Department of State to establish a new model for engaging the American science, technology, engineering, and medical academic communities in the formulation and implementation for U.S. foreign policy. He is only the third physician to be selected as a Fellow in the program’s entire history.
Dr. Kron is also the director of the Global Health Pathway at the Medical College of Wisconsin. His research focuses on the treatment of immunopathogenesis of neglected tropical diseases. He has ongoing collaborations with the medical community in the Philippines and has coordinated trips for medical students to practice medicine in the Philippine health system.
Dr. Carol Lally Shields '79
Carol Lally Shields, M.D., is a world-renowned ocular oncologist and the associate director of oncology service at Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia. She is the author or co-author of five textbooks, over 700 articles in major journals, and more than 140 textbook chapters. Dr. Shields was the first woman to receive the Donders Medal (in 2004), presented by the Netherlands Ophthalmologic Society every five years to an ophthalmologist of world fame and outstanding merit. She received her medical degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1983.
Dr. Shields completed a degree in preprofessional studies while at Notre Dame. She was also a member of the first women's varsity basketball team and was the first female student-athlete to receive the Byron Kanaley Award for excellence in academics and leadership, the highest honor given to Notre Dame student-athletes. She has been a member of the Science Advisory Council at Notre Dame since 1989 More...
Dr. Patricia Curtin White '80
While speaking about her most recent trip to Haiti this summer, Patricia Curtin White, M.D., felt a lump in her throat. “What a meaningful week,” she mused, “it’s always hard to leave, and when you do, that week just stays with you.” From June 18 to June 25, 2016, Dr. Curtin White, a dedicated Haiti Program volunteer, led a team of 20 physicians, nurses, students, and non-medical professionals—including the families of alumni physicians—on a service trip to Haiti.
The work began months before their arrival in Leogane, as the volunteers secured donations of funds, medications, medical supplies, and reading glasses from volunteers and benefactors including healthcare networks, schools, and corporations. Then, over the course of seven days in Haiti, the team completed numerous inventory checks, restocked their supply kits multiple times, visited two orphanages, and set up four mobile clinics. More...
Dr. George Fantry '80
George Fantry, a 1980 graduate in preprofessional studies, moved this year to become associate professor of medicine and associate dean for student affairs and admissions at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson, Arizona. Fantry, who received his MD at SUNY Upstate Medical University, trained in internal medicine and gastroenterology at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. Subsequently, he joined the faculty at the University of Maryland School of Medicine where he held numerous roles including clinical director of the gastroenterology division, gastroenterology fellowship program director and assistant dean for student research and education during in his 26-year tenure. More...
Dr. Dayne Nelson '97
As an undergraduate student, Dayne Nelson, M.D., knew early on that a career in medicine would be a good fit for him. The preprofessional studies major loved science, especially biology and chemistry, and spent his free time volunteering at St. Joseph Regional Medical Center observing doctors, working in the ER, and preparing rooms for patients. After graduating from Notre Dame in 1997, Nelson attended the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Washington D.C. as part of the U.S. Army’s Health Professions Scholarship Program. Nelson chose the program because of the opportunities it would be provide him, which included full tuition to medical school, a salary and benefits, and access to top resident and internship programs after medical school. More...