EAST LANSING, Mich. – Three individuals will receive honorary degrees from Michigan State University during fall commencement ceremonies in recognition of their outstanding achievements in science and the humanities.
Honorary degrees will be presented to:
- Dale E. Bauman, Ithaca, N.Y., a Michigan native internationally known for his research on metabolic regulation of nutrients and regulatory systems that allow for efficient animal performance while preserving animal health and well-being;
- Ahmed Kathrada, Cape Town, South Africa, a leader in South Africa’s struggle for freedom for more than 60 years; and
- Michael S. Turner, Chicago, assistant director of the National Science Foundation for Mathematical and Physical Sciences.
Bauman will receive an honorary doctor of science at the 7 p.m. Friday, Dec. 9, advanced-degree ceremony. Kathrada will receive an honorary doctor of humanities at the 10 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 10, undergraduate ceremony, and Turner will receive an honorary doctor of science at the 2 p.m. undergraduate ceremony.
“MSU is proud to recognize these individuals for their exceptional professional and personal achievements,” said MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon.
All ceremonies take place at the Jack Breslin Student Events Center, One Birch Road.
Biographies of the honorary degree recipients follow:
Dale E. Bauman
Dale E. Bauman grew up on a dairy farm in Brown City. He attended Michigan State University on a 4-H scholarship and worked at the University Farms. He earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from MSU.
He received his doctorate from the University of Illinois and served on the University of Illinois faculty for nine years. In 1979 he accepted a faculty position at Cornell University where he is the Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Nutritional Biochemistry in the Department of Animal Science and the Division of Nutritional Sciences.
Bauman’s research in the areas of metabolic regulation of nutrient use for lactation and growth led to the development of new technologies and commercial practices. His current research focus involves regulating animal metabolism to produce animal-derived food products with enhanced beneficial effects for human health.
In 1978 he spent a sabbatical leave at MSU and was successful in combining his expertise in nutrition with endocrinology, resulting in the commercialization of bovine somatotropin which today is used to increase the efficiency of milk production in the majority of dairy cows in the United States.
A teacher of both graduate and undergraduate courses at Cornell, he received the Outstanding Educator Award from the Cornell Merrill Presidential Scholar Program.
In 1988 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. He has received several honors from professional scientific societies and the United States Department of Agriculture Superior Service Award. He also has received the Alexander von Humboldt award for research “considered of greatest significance to U.S. agriculture.” He recently served as president of the American Society of Nutritional Sciences.
Ahmed K. Kathrada
Ahmed K. Kathrada has been a leader in South Africa’s struggle for freedom for more than 60 years. In 1946, at the age of 17, he left school to work full time on the passive resistance movement to apartheid, and for the next 18 years worked for a multi-racial South Africa.
On trial by the apartheid government in 1964, along with Nelson Mandela and other leaders, he was sentenced to life in prison. After serving 25 years on Robben Island and in Pollsmoor Prison he was released in 1989. He received two bachelor’s degrees in African politics and history while in prison.
From 1989 to 1999 he helped craft the peaceful transfer of power, the creation of a democratic government and the transformation of South African society.
In 1994 he was elected to the South African Parliament during South Africa’s first democratic elections. He served as parliamentary counselor in the Office of the President for Nelson Mandela’s presidency before retiring from active politics in 1999.
Over the past decade Kathrada has supported and encouraged a wide range of MSU activities within South Africa and has spoken at MSU on numerous occasions.
He donated copies of his prison letters to the MSU Libraries, and MSU Press published his first book, “Letters from Robben Island,” an edited selection of these letters. His account of his life, “Memoirs,” was a finalist for the Alan Paton Prize for Literature in South Africa.
Committed to preserving the history of the South African freedom movement, he is a founder of the Robben Island Museum and serves as the chairperson of its council.
Michael S. Turner
Michael S. Turner is the Rauner Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. He received his bachelor’s degree in physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1971 and his doctorate in physics from Stanford University in 1978.
Turner’s research focuses on the earliest moments of the universe. He helped pioneer the interdisciplinary research of particle physics and cosmology and has made important contributions to inflationary universe theory, to the big-bang nucleosynthesis theory, and to the understanding of dark energy and how galaxies and larger structures formed.
He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
He chaired the National Research Council’s Committee on the Physics of the Universe that contributed to the formulation of the federal science planning agenda. He also served on the National Research Council’s Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey Committee, which mapped out the priorities for investments in astronomy research over the next decade.
The recipient of numerous awards and distinctions, including the Helen B. Warner Prize of the American Astronomical Society and the Halley Lectureship at Oxford University, Turner is the author of several monographs and books and more than 300 research papers.
He began his association with the University of Chicago in 1978 as an Enrico Fermi Fellow and in 1980 joined the university’s faculty. He chaired the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics from 1997 to 2003 and was the co-founder of the Astrophysics Group at Fermilab.