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SLU Honors Donors, Noted Scholars at Investiture Ceremony

Saint Louis University will honor the donors whose generosity has established endowed chairs and professorships, as well as the scholars whose research, service and teaching achievements have recommended them for the notable positions.

Campus beauty shot

Saint Louis University will hold its University Investiture Ceremony, honoring donors and scholars. SLU photo

In SLU's first University-wide Investiture Ceremony, SLU will celebrate both first-time investitures and re-investitures. The ceremony will take place on Wednesday, Nov. 13.

University leaders including President Fred P. Pestello, Ph.D., and Interim Provost Chester "Chet" Gillis, Ph.D., will deliver remarks as part of the ceremony.

David Suwalsky, S.J., Ph.D., director of academic initiatives in the Office of Mission and Identity and chair of the Department of Theological Studies, will open the ceremony with its invocation.

Investiture Honorees By School

College of Arts and Sciences

Danforth Chair in the Humanities: Helen Lucretia De Cruz, Ph.D.

Helen Lucretia De Cruz, Ph.D.

Helen De Cruz, Ph.D.

Helen De Cruz is a professor of philosophy at Saint Louis University. Her publications mainly are in philosophy of cognitive science, philosophy of religion, social epistemology and metaphilosophy.

Her overarching research project is an investigation of how humans engage in thinking about abstract domains such as theology, mathematics and science, and what it means for embodied beings like us to think about these topics. Specifically, she investigates what conclusions we can draw about the metaphysics and our knowledge of these objects. For example, if animals across diverse species such as bees, dolphins and monkeys can estimate numbers, what does this mean for the reality of numbers? Her publications include the monographs Disagreement and A Natural History of Natural Theology.

De Cruz is principal investigator of the Templeton-funded project Evolution, Ethics, and Human Origins: A Deep-Time Perspective on Human Morality (2017-2020). This project examines the evolutionary origins of morality by including a crucial piece of evidence that has been neglected in the philosophical literature – archaeological evidence for care and cooperation among human ancestors.

She is also working on several projects that integrate philosophy in broader contexts including currently editing and illustrating the volume Philosophy Illustrated: 42 Thought Experiments to Broaden Your Mind (expected 2021), as well as an edited volume with stories by philosophers and science fiction authors, Philosophy Through Science Fiction Stories (expected 2020).

As part of her service to the field, De Cruz is executive editor of the Journal of Analytic Theology and serves on the editorial board of Ergo, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and Religious Studies.

From 2020 onward, she will be managing editor of Faith and Philosophy.

She is a member of the American Philosophical Association’s Committee for Public Philosophy.

Georgia K. Johnston Professorship in English: Jennifer R. Rust, Ph.D.

Jennifer R. Rust, Ph.D.

Jennifer Rust, Ph.D.

Jennifer R. Rust is an associate professor in the Department of English. She earned her doctorate in English from the University of California, Irvine in 2007, the same year she joined the SLU faculty.

Her research and teaching interests include early modern and medieval English literature; the religious culture of Reformation England; Shakespeare; political theology; and literary theory.

She has published numerous articles on religion and politics in early modern literature. Her book-length publications include The Body in Mystery: the Political Theology of the Corpus Mysticum in the Literature of Reformation England; and a co-translation of Carl Schmitt’s Hamlet or Hecuba: The Intrusion of the Time Into the Play.

During her term as the inaugural Johnston Professor, Rust plans to complete her next book project, which explores how literature participates in a larger process of governmental experimentation in the early modern era.

As Rust explains, “In the sixteenth century, the word 'government' was applied much more broadly than today: individuals practiced forms of 'government' over themselves, families were 'governed' by fathers, churches and monasteries had 'governments.' I want to demonstrate the underlying, long-term continuity between religious and secular modes of government. My big question is: how do works of imaginative literature by figures like Shakespeare, Milton and Thomas More highlight this historical process?”

About the Georgia K. Johnston Professorship in English

Georgia K. Johnston, Ph.D.
Georgia K. Johnston, Ph.D.

The Georgia K. Johnston Professorship in English was established in memory of the beloved, long-time faculty member in the English department, Georgia K. Johnston, Ph.D. The professorship will support the faculty member’s research and the honor will rotate every three years.

Johnston was a professor in the Department of English and a member of the Saint Louis University faculty since 1992. She received her doctorate in British literature from Rutgers University in New Jersey.

“She was an internationally recognized scholar of modern British Literature, specializing in the intersections between women’s writing, psychoanalysis and constructions of gender,” Toby Benis, Ph.D., chair of the Department of English and a longtime friend, said .

In addition to her work on behalf of the Department of English, Johnston was a tireless advocate for women’s and gender studies at SLU. She served as the women’s studies program director for two years, and mentored many undergraduate and graduate students engaged in the study of gender and literature.

Johnston was recognized by the department’s graduate students in 2012 when she received the student award for Outstanding Faculty Mentor. She served the University in many other capacities as well, including interim English department chair in 1999 and coordinator of graduate studies in English.

“Georgia was an exceptional teacher, completely committed to her students and to the subjects she taught with passion and intelligence,” Benis said. “She was a particularly effective mentor for English graduate students.”

Rust is honored to carry on the legacy of Georgia K. Johnston, Ph.D. with this professorship, noting, “Georgia was an extraordinary colleague, always deeply supportive of her junior colleagues, a wise mentor and a tenacious advocate.”

Michael and Rita Mooney Visiting Professorship in Catholic Studies: David Brown, S.J., Ph.D.; Sam Conedera, S.J., Ph.D.; Patrick Zoll, S.J., Ph.D.

David Brown, S.J., Ph.D.

David Brown, S.J., Ph.D.

David Brown, S.J., Ph.D., is a member of the UCS Province of the Society of Jesus, and is a native of New Orleans.

He attended Texas A&M University where he majored in physics and received his undergraduate degree in 1989.

In 1991, he entered the Society of Jesus and followed the standard track of formation, completing his novitiate in Grand Coteau, Louisiana from 1991 to 1993, studying philosophy at Fordham University between1993 and 1996, teaching at Jesuit High School in New Orleans from 1996 to 1999 and studying theology at the Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, Massachusetts from 1999 to 2002.

He was ordained a Catholic priest in 2002 at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama. He obtained his doctorate in astrophysics at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom in 2008.

Brown was then assigned to work at the Vatican Observatory at Rome Italy and Tucson, Arizona, in 2008.

His research in astrophysics deals with stellar evolution. In his capacity as a Catholic priest, he also helps with campus ministry, parish ministry and spiritual direction in his side apostolates.

Sam Conedera, S.J., Ph.D.

Sam Conedera, S.J., Ph.D.

Sam Zeno Conedera, S.J., Ph.D., is a postdoctoral fellow in history and Catholic studies at Saint Louis University.

He was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, and earned a bachelor’s degree in history and Spanish from SLU in 2002. While in college, Conedera worked in the University Libraries and was a member of Alpha Sigma Nu, the Jesuit honor society.

After graduation, he moved to San Diego to teach with AmeriCorps at Nativity Prep Academy and then entered a doctoral program in history at the University of California, Los Angeles.

In August 2006, he entered the Society of Jesus. As a novice, he taught at Santa Clara University in California and spent a year researching and writing his dissertation, which took him to Madrid and New York. Missioned next to Fordham University in New York, Conedera earned a master’s degree in philosophical resources before returning to Santa Clara University to teach history and serve as a dorm chaplain.

In 2014, he began studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, receiving a bachelor’s degree in sacred theology in 2017.

Conedera’s training has taken him to Uruguay, Argentina and Mexico, as well as France and Germany. He is the author of Ecclesiastical Knights: The Military Orders in Castile, 1150-1330, as well as several articles on medieval Spain and the history of the Society of Jesus.

He is currently writing a book on the biblical commentaries of Alfonso Salmeron, one of the founders of the Jesuit order.

Patrick Zoll, S.J., Ph.D.

Patrick Zoll, S.J., Ph.D.

Patrick Zoll, S.J., Ph.D., is a visiting professor of philosophy at Saint Louis University.

He was born in 1977 in Gummersbach, Germany. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1998 after finishing high school and studied philosophy and theology in Munich, Madrid and Bonn.

Zoll received his doctorate in philosophy at Rheinische-Friedrich-Wilhelms University Bonn in 2015. In his dissertation, he defended the thesis that a commitment to liberal values like liberty, equality or plurality does not oblige one to refrain from using perfectionist or religious reasons when it comes to the public justification of policies.

Currently, Zoll is working on his habilitation – a second doctorate in order to become a professor in Germany – in which he is defending the thick Thomistic thesis that to be is more than to exist against thin theories of existence, which are currently dominant in analytic as well as continental philosophy.

School of Medicine

Lichtenstein Chair in Cardiology: Steven Smart, M.D.

Steven Smart, M.D.

Steven Smart, M.D.

Steven Smart is an associate professor of medicine and director of the Echocardiography Laboratory at Saint Louis University.

He earned his medical degree and completed his residency at the Washington University School of Medicine. Smart completed his cardiology fellowship at Indiana University at the Krannert Institute of Cardiology with specialized training in research and echocardiography.

He is a fellow of the American Society of Echocardiography, the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology. Smart is a recognized expert in all aspects of echocardiography with special expertise in structural heart disease, big data, data analytics, mathematical modeling, standardized reporting and quality.

Smart has an avid research interest in the field of artificial intelligence and its use in cardiovascular diseases and echocardiography, and he is a member of the Saint Louis University Artificial Intelligence Big Ideas Committee. He is passionate about teaching clinical cardiology, predictive analytics, critical thinking, physical exam skills and cardiac imaging to students, residents and fellows.

Smart is a manuscript reviewer for several prestigious scientific journals including the American Heart Journal, Lancet, Journal of the American College of Cardiology and the Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography. He intends to apply for several U.S. patents for innovations in echocardiography technologies.

Mid-America Transplant/Jane A. Beckman Endowed Chair in Transplantation: Krista Lentine, M.D., Ph.D.

Krista L. Lentine, M.D., Ph.D.

Krista Lentine, M.D., Ph.D.

Krista Lentine, M.D., Ph.D., is medical director of Living Donation and co-director of clinical research at the Saint Louis University Transplant Center.

Lentine earned her medical degree and completed medicine residency, nephrology fellowship and a master’s in epidemiology at Stanford University. She did additional fellowship training in transplantation at Washington University in St. Louis, and earned a doctorate in health services research at Saint Louis University.

Lentine’s professional service includes robust involvement in the OPTN/UNOS Living Donor Committee. She co-chaired a "Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes" (KDIGO) work group on living donor evaluation and care, and is first author of the 2017 guideline publication.

She serves on an American Society of Transplantation (AST) Community of Practice executive committee and the American Society of Nephrology (ASN) Quality committee. She was co-chair and first author of an American Heart Association (AHA) scientific statement on cardiac evaluation in kidney and liver transplant candidates and serves on multiple AHA, KDIGO and AST work groups related to transplant recipient care.

Lentine has directed the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) Spring Clinical Meeting (SCM) transplant physicians’ program and kidney transplant course, where she received the NKF Shaul G. Massry Award in 2018. She is actively involved with the St. Louis NKF and serves on its Medical Advisory Board.

Lentine has broad research experience working with national transplant registry data, including constructing novel linkages to study topics in transplant outcomes, economics and policy. Current projects supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Mid-America Transplant relate to reducing organ discards and improving recipient and living donor outcomes. She is co-principal investigator of one of 13 NIH "APOLLO" U01 clinical consortia, and co-principal investigator of the "Living Donor Extended Time (LETO)" ancillary R01.

Lentine’s work is motivated by the awe-inspiring altruism of organ donors and the courage, hope and gratitude of those who seek and receive transplants.

About the Mid-America Transplant/Jane A. Beckman Endowed Chair in Transplantation

For 45 years, Mid-America Transplant has facilitated and coordinated organ and tissue donation, and now serves 84 counties covering eastern Missouri, southern Illinois and northeast Arkansas that together are home to 4.7 million people. It saves lives by providing expert and compassionate care for organ donors, donor families and recipients, and transforms the clinical processes required to recover and transplant organs and tissues.

Mid-America Transplant is federally designated as one of 58 such organizations in the U.S. and is the first organ and tissue procurement organization to be recognized as a recipient of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for Performance Excellence.

The organization is committed to supporting researchers and clinicians pursuing innovative research in donation and transplantation. Mid-America Transplant provided funding for the chair to advance research that leads to saving lives through organ and tissue donation.

Jane Beckman is a St. Louis native and communications director at the Saint Louis Crisis Nursey. Her call to transform the lives of others through organ donation began when she was sitting at her kitchen table and read a newspaper article about a man who donated a kidney to a stranger.

Jane Beckman
Jane Beckman

Beckman thought about all the good luck she’d had in her life including healthy children, the good health she and her husband of 30 years enjoyed, a satisfying 30-year career at a local TV station, and a rewarding second career at the Crisis Nursery. She wanted to share some of the good luck that she had experienced. She wondered, “What if I could help someone else catch a break.”

Because her brother and sister-in-law work at SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital, Beckman was familiar with SSM Health and called the SLU Transplant Program. The phone call began, in her words, a lifelong partnership with “the most incredible transplant team in the world.”

Beckman’s left kidney was safely removed and successfully transplanted into a patient on the waiting list on May 28, 2018. Although she did not know her recipient before surgery, she now knows the recipient is a father and grandfather who had been on dialysis for three years, and that the recipient's own father had died of kidney failure.

When this patient received Jane’s kidney, the patient’s wife, who was biologically incompatible to donate to her husband, donated her kidney to another patient, saving two lives through kidney paired donation.

Since surgery, Beckman is driven to spread the word about her experience with living kidney donation, and has appeared on KMOV-TV Ch. 4, KTVI-TV Ch. 2 and KDNL-TV. Ch. 11.

Louis and Marguerite Privat and Marguerite Hard Professorship of Experimental Pathology: T. Scott Isbell, Ph.D.

T. Scott Isbell, Ph.D.

Scott Isbell, M.D.

T. Scott Isbell obtained his doctorate in pathology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He then completed a fellowship in clinical chemistry and laboratory medicine at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine.

Isbell is certified by the American Board of Clinical Chemistry and is a member of the AACC Academy (formerly known as the National Academy of Clinical Biochemistry).

Following his training Isbell served as the director of medical and scientific affairs for North America at Nova Biomedical, overseeing research investigating the analytical and clinical performance of various point of care testing devices.

He is currently an associate professor of pathology and pediatrics at Saint Louis University School of Medicine and serves clinically as the medical director of clinical chemistry and point of care testing (POCT) at SSM Health St. Louis University Hospital.

He is an active member of the AACC, the American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP), and the Academy of Clinical Laboratory Physicians and Scientists (ACLPS). Isbell is a past chair of the AACC Critical and Point of Care Testing Division and the current president of the AACC POC Professional Certification Board.

In addition to POCT, Isbell’s research interests include clinical pathology informatics, laboratory testing stewardship and clinical decision support.

About the Louis and Marguerite Privat and Marguerite Hard Professorship of Experimental Pathology

Richard C. Hard, M.D., was a 1958 graduate of the School of Medicine. After finishing medical school and his internship at SLU, Hard went on to have a successful 34-year career at the Medical College of Virginia as a research pathologist and professor of pathology.

During the Vietnam War, Hard served as a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army Medical Corps and was awarded a Bronze Star.

Upon his passing in 2017, Hard left a very generous bequest to the Department of Pathology at SLU.

Combined with support from department faculty, staff, alumni and friends, Hard’s estate gift established the Louis and Marguerite Privat and Marguerite Hard Professorship of Experimental Pathology.

Paul C. Reinert, S.J., Chair in Pediatric Neurosurgery: Philippe Mercier, M.D., Ph.D.

Philippe Mercier, M.D., Ph.D.

Phillipe Mercier, M.D.

Philippe Mercier, M.D., Ph.D., FRCSC, was born in Montreal, Canada in 1972 and was raised in the Toronto suburbs. He completed a Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Toronto in 1994 with honors in molecular biology.

For the next two and a half years, Mercier worked in university labs as a technician, and volunteered at a school for developmentally challenged adults, where he met his wife, Megan Mckee, the school nurse and teaching assistant. In January of 1997, he accepted a position as a graduate student at the University of Saskatchewan in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology.

He completed his doctoral work, "Regulation of Head Shock Transcription Factor 1," in 2003.

By the time he began medical school in 2004 at the University of Saskatchewan, he and his wife had welcomed three boys, in 2001, 2002 and 2003. He completed medical school in 2008 and matched to neurosurgery residency at the University of Calgary, after which he began practicing pediatric neurosurgery in Memphis at the University of Tennessee at LeBonheur/St. Jude.

The family moved to St. Louis where he took a position as a pediatric neurosurgeon at SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital. Mercier is now the interim director of the Division of Neurosurgery for SLU and director of the surgical epilepsy program.

Mercier’s current research interests include microglia function in epilepsy and brain tumors. He is a principal investigator on two spine clinical trials and has several other clinical research projects under way.

Tenet Chair in Cardiovascular Surgery: Giovanni Speziali, M.D.

Giovanni Speziali, M.D., FECTS

Giovanni Speziali, M.D.

Giovanni Speziali, M.D., is an associate professor of surgery and director of cardiac surgery at Saint Louis University.

Speziali earned his medical degree from the University of Pavia School of Medicine and completed his residency at the University of Verona in Italy. He completed fellowships in pediatric cardiothoracic surgery at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in Philadelphia, cardiothoracic surgery at Hahnemann University and cardiothoracic surgery and transplantation at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota.

Speziali is a member of the International Society of Heart and Lung Transplantation, the Society of Thoracic Surgeons and the European Association of Cardiothoracic Surgery.

He is the author or co-author of over 100 peer reviewed articles and presentations to national and international conferences, and holds several U.S. patents for innovations in heart valve repair technologies.

Harlene and Marvin Wool Endowed Professorship in Cardiology: Tarek Helmy, M.D.

Tarek Helmy, M.D., FACC, FSCAI

Tarek Helmy, M.D.

Tarek Helmy is an interventional cardiologist, professor of medicine and director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory at SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital. He is also the director of the Cardiovascular Diseases Fellowship Program.

Helmy earned his medical degree from the University of Cairo-Egypt, completed his residency and cardiology fellowship at the University of Texas Medical School at San Antonio and completed an interventional fellowship at New England Medical Center Tufts University in Boston.

His publications include over 80 peer reviewed articles.

He is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology and the Society of Coronary Angiography and Intervention.

Helmy serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Invasive Cardiology and the Journal of the American College of Cardiology Interventions.

His research interests include new innovations in the treatment of coronary artery disease and management options in acute coronary events. He has been voted one of St. Louis’s "Top Doctors" for the past five years.

Richard A. Chaifetz School of Business

Mary Louise Murray Endowed Professorship of Management: Jintong Tang, Ph.D.

Jintong Tang, Ph.D.

Jintong Tang, Ph.D.

Jintong Tang, Ph.D. is a professor of entrepreneurship and management in the Richard A. Chaifetz School of Business. She has appeared in 50 referenced journal publications and close to 70 conference proceedings at leading entrepreneurship and management conferences.

Tang has been invited by universities both in the United States and abroad, including China, France, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, to present her research findings and to advise junior faculty and doctoral students.

She has served on three editorial boards, as an outside evaluator for the Austrian Science Fund, and as a co-director for several International Entrepreneurship Research and Pedagogy Conferences held in Asia and Europe.

Tang has received numerous national and international awards for her research such as the Academy of Management Best Paper Award, United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship Best Empirical Paper Award and Emerald Literati Network Highly Commended Paper Award.

Her teaching has won her multiple distinctions and awards at SLU such as the Sister Shirley Kolmer Memorial Grant, Innovative Teaching Fellowship and the Inaugural Teaching Innovation Award in the Chaifetz School of Business.

James J. Pierson Endowed Chair in Marketing: Brad D. Carlson, Ph.D.

Brad D. Carlson, Ph.D.

Brad Carlson, Ph.D.

Brad D. Carlson is a professor of marketing in the Richard A. Chaifetz School of Business. He joined the faculty at Saint Louis University in 2008 after serving on the faculty at Texas Tech University for three years.

Carlson has received multiple awards for excellence in research, teaching and service to the university and the marketing discipline.

His research interests center on consumer-brand relationships, the frontline employee-customer interface, sports marketing, branding issues, and consumer behavior. His research is highly cited and has been published in multiple top journals.

He is actively involved with students at all levels in the Chaifetz School of Business, teaching a variety of courses in the undergraduate program, in the full-time and part-time MBA programs including study abroad, in the Executive Master of International Business program and the school's doctoral program.

Throughout his career, Carlson has remained highly active in service to the University, the academic profession and to the community. He is currently director of the doctoral program in international business and marketing, and is involved with a variety of committees.

His service to the marketing discipline is substantial and provides significant visibility for the Chaifetz School of Business and SLU. He is the current vice president for programs of the Academy of Marketing Science and has previously served in a variety of roles within the organization.

Carlson is heavily involved within the community, volunteering with Rockwood School District and Future Business Leaders of America, as well as coaching youth basketball, baseball, flag football and soccer. He has three children, Cole, Ella, and Cooper, with his wife, Paige.

About the James J. Pierson Endowed Chair in Marketing

James J. Pierson graduated from Saint Louis University in 1984 after attending night school to obtain his business degree in marketing, at the encouragement of August Busch III. Originally from Pittsfield, Illinois, Pierson was raised on a farm, but came to St. Louis to work for Anheuser Busch in marketing and distribution.

After his retirement, he stayed very active traveling the United States and taking regular walks to Humphries on SLU’s campus for lunch. He was passionate about the opportunities that his SLU degree gave him and left a bequest to the university to establish the James J. Pierson Endowed Chair in Marketing.

Trudy Busch Valentine School of Nursing

Patricia and James R. Hemak Endowed Professorship in Maternal Child Health: Denise Côté-Arsenault, Ph.D.

Denise Côté-Arsenault, Ph.D., R.N., CPLC, FNAP, FAAN

Denise Cote-Arsenault

Denise Côté-Arsenault, Ph.D., holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and a master’s degree in childbearing family nursing and nurse education from Syracuse University. She received her doctorate in nursing from the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in women’s health research at the University of Washington, Seattle.

She has clinical background in childbearing family nursing with years of experience in childbirth education, labor, delivery, postpartum and neonatal areas, lactation consultation and perinatal loss.

Côté-Arsenault’s research over the past 25 years has focused on women’s experiences of pregnancy after prior perinatal loss, couple’s experiences of continuing pregnancy with a life-limiting fetal condition and perinatal palliative care. She has nearly 50 published articles, and with her research colleague, Erin Denney-Koelsch, M.D., has just completed their new book, Perinatal Palliative Care: A Clinical Guide, which will be available from Springer Publishing in the coming months.

Recently awarded a Fulbright Scholar Award. The award will support Côté-Arsenault’s research over three months in 2020 at the Edinburgh Napier University where she will conduct an ethnographic study of bereavement care in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Irene Riddle Endowed Professorship in the Doctor of Nursing Research Program: Verna Ferguson, Ph.D.

Verna Ferguson, Ph.D., R.N., FPCN, FAAN

Verna Ferguson, Ph.D.

Verna Ferguson, Ph.D., has an established track record of published palliative and end-of-life care research and a respected program of funded research, including National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding. Her major research contribution has been to further the science regarding clinician-parent communication about early palliative and end-of-life care support to parents of children with a high-risk cancer.

Ferguson obtained her doctorate in nursing in 2001 from Rush University in Chicago. Her dissertation received the first place award. She completed a three-year NIH-funded T32 post-doctoral fellowship at Indiana University, which led to several funded grants, including her first NIH funded grant.

She recently received a five-year Multiple Principal Investigator NIH RO1 grant award from the National Cancer Institute, "Evaluation of the Communication Plan Early through End-of-Life (COMPLETE) Intervention." The award will run through 2024.

Ferguson has made impressive published contributions to the scientific knowledge of her field. To date, she has over 50 publications including articles, a textbook and two book chapters, and has completed numerous presentations at national and international research conferences.

She has received national awards, including Distinguished Scientist Award and Best Research Manuscript Award by the Midwest Nursing Research Society’s Palliative and End-of-Life Research Interest Group; Project Death in America: Nurse Leadership Award in Palliative Care by the Hospice and Palliative Nursing Association; two research writing awards from the Journal of Pediatric Oncology Nurses; the Pearl Moore Making a Difference: Emerging Leadership Award from the Oncology Nursing Society; and the Palliative Care Nurse of the Year Award from the Missouri March of Dimes.

Due to her scholarly contributions to pediatric palliative and end-of-life care, she was inducted as a fellow by the American Academy of Nursing and the Hospice and Palliative Nursing Association.

About the Irene Riddle Endowed Professorship in the Doctor of Nursing Research Program

Irene Riddle, Ph.D., was an alumna of the Saint Louis University School of Nursing and a faculty member for 38 years. Riddle received her undergraduate degree in nursing at SLU in 1956 and a master’s degree in 1959.

Riddle was a strong advocate and scholar of nursing research, was the first SLU faculty member to receive a Ph.D. in nursing and developed and became the first director of SLU School of Nursing’s doctoral program in 1990.

Riddle left a generous bequest to the School of Nursing which established the Irene Riddle Endowed Professorship in the Doctor of Nursing Research Program.

The position continues the legacy of Riddle’s life work and her dedication to the advancement of the nursing profession through the scholarly pursuit of learning and research at the doctoral level.

Center for Advanced Dental Education

Dr. Lysle Johnston Endowed Chair in Orthodontics: Ki Beom Kim, DDS, MSD, Ph.D.

Ki Beom Kim, DDS, MSD, Ph.D.

Kim Ki-Beom, DDS

Ki Beom Kim, DDS, MSD., Ph.D., currently serves as an associate professor and program director in the Department of Orthodontics at Saint Louis University's Center for Advanced Dental Education (CADE).

Kim has been at SLU since 2005 and has contributed significantly to CADE and the University as a faculty member. While at SLU, he has brought and instituted state of the art techniques with his residents, including his multi-layered knowledge of 3D image technologies, temporary skeletal anchorage devices, orthodontic treatment on patients with temporomandibular disorder and digital orthodontics.

Kim’s outstanding leadership, instruction, and vision has produced SLU orthodontic graduates who are of the highest quality and who are regarded as skilled doctors in the profession.

Kim is originally from Seoul, South Korea, and served as an army captain in the Korean military for more than three years. He received his dental training from Dankook University, finished three years of oral medicine training and later received his doctorate in orofacial pain. Kim received three years of Orthodontic training from Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

He and his wife, Jeong Min Yoo, DDS, met during their dental school, have been married over 24 years, and moved to the United States with their two children in 2001.

Kim’s dedication and expertise to the orthodontic field has awarded him the honor of being a diplomat of the American Board of Orthodontics as well as a diplomat of the American Board of Orofacial Pain. He has been the esteemed lecturer at many international and national meetings and conferences and has published more than 80 peer-reviewed articles and multiple book chapters.

He has participated in more than 120 master thesis projects and has written two textbooks.

Kim’s current project “Comprehensive Management of Obstructive Sleep Apnea: Evidence-Based Guidelines” is expected to publish soon.

About the Dr. Lysle Johnston Endowed Chair in Orthodontics

Lysle Johnston
Lysle Johnston

Lysle E. Johnston, Jr. is professor emeritus of orthodontics at Saint Louis University and was chair of the orthodontics department from 1976 to 1991. He received his dental degree and graduate degree in orthodontics from the University of Michigan in 1961 and 1964. He studied anatomy at the Queen’s University of Belfast from 1961 to 1962, and received a doctorate in anatomy from Case Western Reserve University in 1970, where he also served as chair of the orthodontic department from 1971 to 1976.

At the University of Michigan, where he is now professor emeritus of dentistry, he chaired the Department of Orthodontics and Pediatric Dentistry and served as director of the graduate orthodontic program. In all, he has contributed to the education of approximately 600 orthodontic specialists in the United States.

For nearly 50 years, he has studied the differential effects of various orthodontic treatments, the mechanisms of facial growth, and the nature of the interaction between growth and treatment. He has lectured widely and is the recipient of numerous honors, most notably the Albert H. Ketcham award of the American Board of Orthodontics and the 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Association of Orthodontists.

A fellow of both the American and International colleges of dentistry and a fellow in dental surgery by election of the Royal College of Surgeons in England, Johnston has served on the editorial boards of a number of journals and was a member and chair of the Oral Biology and Medicine Study Section of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Johnston has been married to his wife, Agnetta, for 56 years and has two children, Ann-Christine and Michael.

The Johnston Chair was established to honor his legacy at SLU through generous contributions from Johnston, faculty, staff, alumni and friends of Saint Louis University.

Saint Louis University is a Catholic, Jesuit institution that values academic excellence, life-changing research, compassionate health care, and a strong commitment to faith and service. Founded in 1818, the University fosters the intellectual and character development of more than 13,000 students on campuses in St. Louis and Madrid, Spain. Building on a legacy of now more than 200 years, Saint Louis University continues to move forward with an unwavering commitment to a higher purpose, a greater good.