Downers Grove South High School has selected four alumni members to induct into the Distinguished Alumni Class of 2016:
Jill (Kroese) Aspegren (Class of 1983)
Dr. Mark Hersam (Class of 1993)
Emil Martinec (Class of 1976)
Greg Smith (Class of 1982)
The distinguished alumni will be recognized at a dinner reception on September 29 and at the all-school homecoming assembly and parade on Friday, September 30. They will also visit classrooms to share their stories with students. Greg Smith passed away last June; his parents Adelia and Jim Smith will be in attendance.
“We began this tradition of recognizing accomplished alumni with our 50 year anniversary in 2014, and our call for nominations continues to be strong,” says South High Principal Ed Schwartz. “These four alumni, as well as the six who were part of our inaugural class in 2014, all leave a clear legacy of excellence to our school, and we are so proud that each one had their start at South High.”
The members of the Distinguished Alumni Class of 2016 include:
Jill (Kroese) Aspegren, M.Ed., Class of 1983, Humanitarian and Teacher. After graduating from Downers Grove South High School, Jill Aspegren received her undergraduate degree from Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. She taught fourth grade for seven years in West Chicago District 33, and during that time earned a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction from National Louis University. Since 1994, together with her husband and three sons, Aspegren has been working on behalf of children and families in Latin America. Missionary work led to the founding in 2003 of two Casa Viva locations, an innovative solution that connects children in need with local families instead of institutional care. Casa Viva partners with local governments and churches to provide life-giving solutions for children who have been separated from their families in the developing world. Casa Viva has inspired countless stories of miracles, transformation and healing while also navigating the harsh realities of broken families and hurting children. See casaviva.org for details. Aspegren and her family live in San José, Costa Rica.
Mark Hersam, Ph.D., Class of 1993, Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University. Dr. Mark C. Hersam is a professor of materials science and engineering and director of the Materials Research Center at Northwestern University. He also holds faculty appointments in the departments of chemistry, applied physics, medicine, and electrical engineering and computer science. He earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) in 1996, a master’s in philosophy in physics from the University of Cambridge in 1997, and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from UIUC in 2000. His research interests include nanofabrication, scanning probe microscopy, semiconductor surfaces, and nanoelectronic materials.
As a faculty member, Dr. Hersam has received several awards including the NSF CAREER Award, Beckman Young Investigator Award, ARO Young Investigator Award, ONR Young Investigator Award, Sloan Research Fellowship, Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, TMS Robert Lansing Hardy Award, AVS Peter Mark Award, MRS Outstanding Young Investigator Award, MacArthur Fellowship, and six Teacher of the Year Awards. Dr. Hersam is the co-founder of NanoIntegris, which is a commercial supplier of high performance nanoelectronic materials. See http://www.nanointegris.com/ for details. Dr. Hersam is a Fellow of MRS, AVS, APS, AAAS, SPIE, and IEEE, and also serves as an Associate Editor of ACS Nano. He is currently serving as a 2016 U.S. Science Envoy to help inform the White House, the Department of State, and the scientific community about potential opportunities for international scientific cooperation.
Emil J. Martinec, Ph.D., Class of 1976, Professor of Physics. After graduating from South High in 1976, Emil J. Martinec graduated cum laude with a bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University. After graduate studies at Stanford and receiving a Ph.D. from Cornell, Martinec performed research at Princeton University. His research helped lay the foundations of string theory--our leading candidate for a unified theory of the elementary particles and fundamental forces found in nature.
Martinec has received the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow, DOE Outstanding Junior Investigator, and NSF Presidential Young Investigator awards for his work and his research has been published in numerous scientific journals. Martinec has been a member of the University of Chicago faculty since 1987, and currently serves as director of the Enrico Fermi Institute and the Kadanoff Center for Theoretical Physics.
Greg Smith, Sr., Class of 1982, Motivational Speaker. Diagnosed with muscular dystrophy at the age of three, Greg Smith, Sr. was not expected to survive beyond his teen years. He persevered and using a power chair, attended and graduated from South High in 1982. In high school, he was a play-by-play radio sports announcer. After high school, he attended Arizona State University, earning a bachelor’s degree in broadcasting. He then worked for stations in Phoenix and was host of Cardinal Talk from 1989 to 1992. He started a radio program focused on disability issues called On a Roll in 1992, which expanded to over 70 national stations over the next 11 years.
Smith also served as an activist and speaker on disability awareness and rights. In 1999, Smith spoke at the Congressional Black Caucus on disability issues for African Americans and was the lead torchbearer during the tenth anniversary celebration of the Americans with Disabilities Act (A.D.A.) in 2000. PBS featured Smith in a documentary, ON A ROLL, which was filmed between 2000 and 2004. He was profiled on CBS's The Early Show and National Public Radio's All Things Considered, as well as articles in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, Essence Magazine, and many others. He was inducted in 2002 to the National Speakers Association and served as a motivational speaker called “The Strength Coach.” See http://www.thestrengthcoach.com/. Smith passed away in June 2016 at age 52.
The Distinguished Alumni program tradition began in the fall of 2014 in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of South High School and will continue for many years to come. Recipients were selected based on the significant contributions they have made to society as well their accomplishments and affiliations that have honored the legacy of excellence at South High School. The four inductees this year, joining the six from 2014, were selected out of over fifty nominees submitted by alumni, staff, and community members.
Details about the program and a list of past recipients may be found at http://www.csd99.org/dgs/alumni.
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