2026

Summer Lewis '05 (Spanish, sociology and women's studies) - International consultant and co-founder of True Roots

Ron Wasserstein '84, '87 (statistics) - Executive Director of American Statistical Association

2025

Danielle Cornejo Calhoun '08 (Journalism, Spanish minor) - Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Weber Shandwick

Eric Farmer ’97 (mathematics and computer science) - Principal Staff Mathematician at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory

2024

Adam Rack BS ’13 (theatre) - Co-founder of Revino, headquartered in Newberg, Oregon. Revino is reviving the refillable glass bottle ecosystem in the beverage industry, focusing on wine packaging.

Brad Rundquist MS ’95, Ph.D. ’00 (geography) - Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of North Dakota since 2019. With 18 academic departments and eight interdisciplinary programs, Arts and Sciences is the largest and most diverse college at UND.

2023

• Graham Garlinghouse, MA '09 (political science)
• Martin L. Spartz, Ph.D. '90 (chemistry)

2022 - Mark D. Carlson, MD, MA '77, and Nancy Siepman '81, '88
2019 - John Guinotte ’96, ’99, and Woody Leel '66
2018 - Lori T. Healey '81, '84, and Kenneth W. Sewell, Ph.D. '86
2017 - Cheryl L. Blake '81, and Peter E. Larsen, DDS, FACS '79
2016 - R. Dennis Cook '69, '70, and Susan E. Williams '79
2015 - John "J.P." Bilbrey '78, and Robert Kinders '80
2014 - Gary Sandlin '55, '57, and Patricia Seitz '68
2013 - James N. Haymaker '69
2012 - Richard L. Cate ’79, and Mark A. Chapman ’65
2011 - Michael F. Goss '81, and Honorable Henry W. Green Jr. '72
2010 - Dennis T. Myers DDS '69, and Honorable Maritza Segarra '84
2009 - Dr. William C. Deeds '77, '79, and Dr. Lynn Ying-Shiang Lin '63
2008 - Dr. Gerald W. Hart '77, and William J. Spencer '56, '60
2007 - Myron '70 and Elaine '67, '71, Jacobson, and Jerry L. Reppert '69
2006 - John D. Hofmeister '71, '73, and H. Duane Saunders '61, '81
2005 - Dr. Joe W. Gray '72, and Howard '57 & Sharon '59 Kessinger
2004 - Dr. Bernard Franklin 76, '96, and Richard Martin '72
2003 - Dr. Janet S. Butel '63, and William J. (Bill) Barrett '56, '58
2002 - Karen L. Nickel '66, '68
2001 - Paul M. Muchinsky '70
2000 - Dr. Paul W. Dlabal '71
1999 - Monte M. Miller Jr. '62
1998 - Dr. Randle S. Corfman '79
1997 - Dr. Geraldine L. Richmond '75
1996 - Margaret Grosh '82
1995 - Bunny K. Cowan Clark '58, '63
1994 - William E. Buzenberg '69
1993 - Dr. Duane L. Barney '50
1992 - Dr. James L. Spigarelli '70
1991 - Dr. John P. Langellier '72, '73
1989 - Dr. Heidi Byrnes '69
1988 - Dr. F. Charles Lamphear '62, '64, '67
1987 - Dr. Richard H. Hageman '38
1986 - Gerald Wexler '46
1984 - Melville R. Mudge '47, '49

Summer Lewis is an international development consultant and educator, with more than 15 years of academic and professional experience in the coffee value chain, fair trade, gender equity, and peace and conflict resolution. She is a graduate of Kansas State University with a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish, Sociology, and Women’s Studies (2005). Summer was selected as a Rotary Peace Fellow and completed a Master of International Studies, Peace and Conflict Resolution at the University of Queensland, Australia (2012), focusing her studies on the connection between economic development and peace.

Summer is the co-founder of True Roots, a consulting firm specializing in the planning, assessment, and impact measurement of social responsibility initiatives in the Global South. As a consultant with True Roots, Summer provides the tools and guidance for donors and nonprofit organizations to carry out community development projects effectively, efficiently, and respectfully. At present, Summer supports the Rotary Foundation and the Institute for Economics and Peace with coordination and monitoring and evaluation of programs promoting positive peace and conflict resolution. Summer also shares her knowledge and experience as a development practitioner with Kansas State University students, piloting two new online courses: “International Development” and “Women, Globalization, and Coffee.”

Since serving as a Rotary Peace Fellow, Summer has actively collaborated with Rotarians and other Peace Fellows, applying her skills to advance Rotary’s mission of world understanding, goodwill, and peace through service and humanitarian projects. She has participated in numerous Rotary events worldwide as an invited speaker, including the 2014 Rotary International Convention in Australia, the 2015 Rotary International Peace Symposium in Brazil, the 2016 Rotary World Peace Conference in the United States, and the 2017 Rotary International Presidential Peace Conference in the United States. She was also featured in the article “Cultivating Peace” in The Rotarian, the official publication of Rotary International, with a readership of 430,000 members.

Originally from Manhattan, Kansas, United States, Summer has spent more than half her life abroad—working, living, and traveling across 31 countries and 6 continents. Although Summer is currently based in Oaxaca, Mexico, she keeps her pair of ruby red slippers handy—knowing there is no place like home.

Sara Baer is currently a professor of Ecology in the Department of Plant Biology at Southern Illinois University, focusing on Ecosystems, Restoration and Grassland.

Since graduating, she launched a career that is remarkable not only for her academic achievements to date, but also for her dedication to mentoring and training students at all levels, for her community outreach and engagement activities, and for her work to promote ecological restoration and conservation efforts, regionally, nationally and internationally.

She is involved in several areas of genetic variation, plant-soil interactions and ecosystem function, including collaborative USDA-funded research with scientists from the Ecological Genomics Institute at K-State. She has been funded by the prestigious Mellon Foundation to expand her research to the grasslands of Africa, and she continues to lead the restoration ecology aspects of the Konza Prairie LTER program. These projects and related research that she has conducted since graduating, has led to growing national and international visibility in the field of restoration ecology, for both Sara and for K-State.

With a reputation as a dedicated and talented teacher and mentor to students at all levels, Sara is a highly talented and hard-working scientist who is well on her way to an exceptional scientific career. She has developed a multi-faceted research and outreach program that addresses both basic and applied questions in ecosystem ecology, and she is breaking new ground in the growing field of restoration ecology.

Damon Hininger earned his bachelor’s degree in Sociology from K-State in 1991 before going on to earn an MBA from the Jack Massey School of Business at Belmont University. Today he is the President and Chief Operating Officer of Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), which is the nation’s largest provider of partnership corrections to federal, state and local government, operating more than 60 facilities, including more than 40 company-owned facilities, with approximately 90,000 beds, in 19 states and the District of Columbia. In addition to providing the residential services for inmates, CCA facilities offer rehabilitation and educational programs, including education, vocation, religious services, life skills and employment training and substance abuse treatment.

In 2011, Hininger was named among America’s “20 Most Powerful CEOs Age 40 or Under” by Forbes Magazine. The list features the nation’s leading group of young top executives of the country’s biggest publicly traded companies.

Damon and his wife Carrie met at K-State and reside in Nashville, Tennessee with their two children, Robert and Millie. They are committed K-State fans and support the academic mission of the university, who have funded two scholarships in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work: one for a sociology major with a criminology specialty and one for a sociology major.

April West is a 2001 Psychology Alumna and McNair scholar who has launched an amazing career in a very short time.

April earned her bachelor’s degree in Psychology with a Secondary major in Gerontology from K-State before going on to earn her Master’s degree in Industrial/Organizational Psychology at the California School of Professional Psychology in San Diego. In 2006, April earned her Ph.D. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology at Alliant International University in San Diego, becoming K-State's first McNair scholars program participant to earn her doctorate.

Today, April is recognized as one of today's top young trainers in human resources. In the 12 years since she earned her psychology degree at K-State, she has quickly risen in her career field.

Her résumé speaks of enviable locales: leadership development specialist for MGM Grand University in Las Vegas, director of human resources for the Mirage Casino and Hotel, also in Vegas, and her current job as director of human resources for the Ritz-Carlton on Maui.

In addition to her professional accomplishments, April has established a strong record of community service, both in Nevada and Hawaii. In Las Vegas, she was instrumental in establishing a site-based Big Brothers/Big Sisters program at an at-risk school in an economically disadvantaged neighborhood. The program she helped established is now sponsored by the Mirage and all participating Big Brothers and Big Sisters are Mirage employees.

In Hawaii, she participates in a tutor program at a local junior high school where she works with at-risk children on history and algebra once a week during the school year. She leads the Ritz-Carlton’s community involvement program in beach/highway clean ups, charity fund raising events and an in-depth program with the high school to support students who are specializing in a hospitality management curriculum. And, we’ve also learned that she has been asked to coach a junior-high girls’ softball team next spring. We are proud to award April West with the Arts & Sciences Young Alumni Award.

Vickie Choitz, a 1998 bachelor's graduate in political science and secondary education with a secondary major in women's studies, received the 2012 Young Alumni Award. Choitz went on to complete a master's degree in public policy from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government on a Truman Scholarship.

Choitz, a native of Salina, Kan., is a senior policy analyst with the Center for Law and Social Policy in Washington, D.C. She analyzes and advocates for federal and state workforce and postsecondary education policies that help low-income, lower-skilled adults access education, postsecondary credentials and family-sustaining careers. She regularly authors publications about strategies for helping low-income individuals access education and better jobs and makes frequent presentations to groups and associations on these topics.

She was nominated for the Young Alumni Award by Michele Janette, then-head of K-State's women's studies department.

"Women's studies is a discipline devoted to educating students so that they can influence the world for greater equality of opportunity, achievement and happiness," Janette said. "Vickie's career success exemplifies the quality and commitment of our students, and the work she does exemplifies our departmental objective of putting those talents and passions to work to improve the lives of the disadvantaged in our communities."

While at K-State, Choitz received a research internship in London at the Institute for Public Policy Research, where she conducted comparative research on U.S. and U.K. welfare reforms and workforce development. She authored an official summary document on that subject for an institute book on welfare reform. She now lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband, Theodore Poppitz, also a K-State alumnus.

Jeff Fabrick earned a bachelors and Ph.D in Biochemistry from K-State in 1995 and 2003, respectively. He is currently a research entomologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s arid-land agricultural research Center in Maricopa, AZ.

“Jeff has made significant contributions to the area of insect immunity. Jeff has excelled as an independent scientist, continuing to work on basic studies of insect biochemistry with important implications for agriculture, particularly in insect pests of cotton,” said Mike Kanost, University Distinguished Professor and head of K-State’s Department of Biochemistry, who nominated Fabrick.

Lisa Casey earned a bachelors in Applied Music in 1993 before going on to hear masters degrees from the University of Idaho and the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Currently, she is a professor of music at Missouri State University in Springfield, MO.

“As an undergraduate performance major in horn at K-State, no single student had more to do with the rise in quality of the brass ensemble at K-State than Lisa. In her dedication I saw the type of commitment that would eventually lead her to achieve the rank of full professor up to seven years earlier than expected,” said Gary Mortenson, head of K-State’s department of Music, who nominated Casey.