LSU College of Science Hall of Distinction Honorees
2022
The LSU College of Science’s Hall of Distinction recognizes individuals who have distinguished themselves in their endless pursuit of excellence and fervent dedication to scientific leadership. Through their extraordinary achievements, outstanding characters, and commitments to their communities, the college’s honorees have established lasting legacies of excellence in their individual fields.
Join us as we recognize the exceptional accomplishments of the College of Science’s 2022 Hall of Distinction honorees.
Dr. O. Carruth McGehee, Professor Emeritus, LSU Department of Mathematics
Dr. O. Carruth McGehee has led an impactful life as an excellent scholar, researcher,
administrator, and philanthropist of LSU. A native of Baton Rouge, Dr. McGehee received
his bachelor’s in mathematics from Rice University and his doctorate from Yale University.
He was an assistant professor at Berkeley University before returning home to Louisiana
in 1971 to join the LSU faculty as an associate professor. Dr. McGehee was promoted
to full professor and served two terms as chair of the LSU Department of Mathematics.
In 1984, he was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science for his research in Fourier Analyses. From 1986 to 1990, he was dean of the
Division of Academic Services and served on numerous committees for the American Mathematical
Society, the Mathematical Association of America, the LSU Mathematics Department,
and the LSU Faculty Senate, among others. From 2002 to 2003, he was vice president
of the LSU Faculty Senate and served as its president from 2003 until 2004. Dr. McGehee
directed three doctoral dissertations at LSU. For his teaching, he was awarded the
LSU AMOCO Award for Teaching in 1980 and the LSU “Hub” Cotton Award in 2004. His,
arguably, most important research paper appeared in 1981 in the Annals of Mathematics,
where he and his collaborators proved a generalization of Hardy’s inequality, and
a third printing of his book, “An Introduction to Complex Analysis” was recently announced.
Dr. McGehee retired in 2004, and in his honor, an award for tenured associate professors
was established through an initiative of the LSU Faculty Senate.
Dr. John W. Fleeger, Professor Emeritus, LSU Department of Biological Sciences
A dedicated educator and a remarkable citizen of the LSU community, Dr. John W. Fleeger
is well-known nationally and internationally for his research on small marine benthic
organisms known as meiofauna. His work spanned a broad spectrum of questions, including
competitive interactions among and between species, and his last—and perhaps most
impactful—project was on the ecological impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill
in the Gulf of Mexico. During his tenure at LSU, Dr. Fleeger’s research was supported
by more than $21 million in funding, and he served as major professor for 13 MS and
12 PhD students, in addition to serving on the committees of 98 other graduate students.
His work has resulted in more than 160 publications in peer-reviewed journals and
books and has been cited more than 9,000 times; his H-Index is a remarkable 51. In
addition to serving on several national review panels, Dr. Fleeger was elected chair
of the International Association of Meiobenthologists and served as president of the
Gulf Estuarine Society. Dr. Fleeger held the George C. Kent Distinguished Professorship;
was named an LSU Distinguished Faculty; and served on several committees and councils,
including the Graduate Council, the University P&T Committee, the General Education
Committee, the Program Review Council, and the Faculty Senate. He received his bachelor’s
in biology from Slippery Rock University, his master’s in zoology from Ohio University,
and his doctorate in marine science from the University of South Carolina. Immediately
after receiving his PhD, Dr. Fleeger joined the then-LSU Department of Zoology & Physiology
and was promoted to professor in 1988.
Dr. Mark S. Hafner, Former Director, LSU Museum of Natural Science; Professor Emeritus, LSU Department of Biological Sciences
A catalyst in science research and education at LSU, Dr. Mark S. Hafner was a curator
of mammals and former director at the LSU Museum of Natural Science, as well as a
professor of biological sciences, whose research investigated how speciation and molecular
evolution of obligate parasites tracked the patterns of speciation and molecular evolution
on their hosts. Dr. Hafner’s arrival at LSU in 1979 brought a level of scientific
rigor to the Museum that had been previously lacking. He was the first curator to
advocate for the importance of obtaining federal grants to support research, and he
set an outstanding example of obtaining significant and continuous funding from the
National Science Foundation. Through his major grants, he set the stage for LSU’s
remarkable program in molecular genetics and now genomics of non-model organisms.
Throughout his 34-year career, Dr. Hafner trained more than 25 advanced degree recipients,
and for his teaching efforts, he received the Southwestern Association of Naturalists’
Robert L. Packard Outstanding Educator award and the American Society of Mammologists’
Joseph Grinnell Award for Excellence in Education, among others. He served on the
Boards of Directors for the Organization of Tropical Studies, American Society of
Mammalogists, and the Louisiana Marine Mammal Stranding Network. Dr. Hafner was also
a program officer at the National Science Foundation and served as associate editor
for the Journals of Mammalogy and Systematic Biology.
Dr. Kenneth R. Hogstrom, Former Director, Medical Physics Program (LSU/Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center); Professor Emeritus, LSU Department of Physics & Astronomy
Throughout his 40-year career, Dr. Kenneth R. Hogstrom provided LSU and the medical
physics profession with outstanding service as an educator, mentor, and colleague.
His work has made a major impact on the field of radiotherapy and in radiation oncology.
For his lifetime achievements as a physicist and educator, Dr. Hogstrom has received
the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) Marvin M.D. Williams Award
and the AAPM’s William D. Coolidge Award. In addition, he is a Fellow of the AAPM,
the American College of Medical Physicists, and the American Society of Therapeutic
Radiology and Oncology. Dr. Hogstrom came to LSU to lead the Medical Physics program
in 2004 after leading the same program at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer
Center from 1995-2004. At LSU, he was the inaugural Dr. Charles M. Smith Chair of
Medical Physics, and he led the LSU Medical Physics program until 2011, when he officially
retired from LSU. In the same period, he was the Chief of Physics for the Mary Bird
Perkins Cancer Center in Baton Rouge, and as program director, Dr. Hogstrom led the
university’s medical physics program through the Commission on Accreditation of Medical
Physics Education Programs accreditation process. He was also instrumental in developing
the hub-and-spoke model residency program at Mary Bird Perkins, and participated in
a variety of institutional service and committee work at LSU. He was on 23 MS committees
and 2 PhD committees at LSU. In 2015, he established the Kenneth R. Hogstrom Superior
Graduate Student Scholarship Fund.
Dr. Alice Baker Holoubek (1914-2005), Alumna (posthumously)
The late Dr. Alice Baker Holoubek, affectionately known as “Dr. Alice,” was a pioneering woman physician, medical educator, civic leader, and humanitarian. Dr. Holoubek defied social convention and pursued a career in medicine, when, in the 1930s, women were considered “poor” candidates for the profession. A true servant to the state of Louisiana, Dr. Holoubek persevered, despite grave illness, and launched a lifetime of service to the ailing and the less privileged. The eighth woman to graduate from LSU School of Medicine in New Orleans, she interned at Charity Hospital; completed graduate training at LSU; and worked as an assistant professor of medicine during World War II, teaching medical students preparing for wartime service. Relocating with her husband and children to North Louisiana, she became the third woman admitted to the Shreveport Medical Society. Dr. Holoubek practiced internal medicine for more than 40 years and authored or co-authored 25 articles in medical and religious journals and chapters in four books. Dr. Holoubek, along with her husband, Dr. Joe Holoubek, led a 20-year push for graduate medical education in Shreveport that culminated in the founding of LSU School of Medicine-Shreveport in 1965, where she served as clinical assistant professor of medicine for 20 years and on the admissions committee for six years. Dr. Holoubek was a member of the local and state medical societies, Louisiana Heart Society, American Heart Association, American Medical Association, the American College of Physicians, and the National Federation of Catholic Physicians Guilds. In 1993, she was named one of Shreveport’s “Women Who Have Made a Difference” in recognition of her lasting contributions. Pope John Paul II named her Pontifical Domina of the Order of St. Gregory the Great for service to the Catholic Church in 1997, and she was also appointed Lady of the Grand Cross of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre. The Alice Baker Holoubek M.D. Professorship of Medicine was established at her alma mater in 2008. In 2012, Drs. Alice and Joe Holoubek’s youngest child, Martha H. Fitzgerald, edited and published a selection of her parents’ nearly 800 courtship letters in, “The Courtship of Two Doctors: A 1930s Love Story of Letters, Hope & Healing.”
Dr. Alice Baker Holoubek Video