BATON ROUGE - The LSU College of Science honors a group of outstanding individuals who have distinguished themselves in their endless pursuit of excellence and fervent dedication to scientific leadership. Join us in celebrating the contributions of our honorees to our College, University, and the STEM fields.

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. Mark S. Hafner Video.

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