Alumni Association Award Recipients

President’s Distinguished Alumnus Award
For achieving national recognition for excellence in his profession and field

Robert Fischell M.S. '53, D.Sc. (Hon.) '96

After earning his degree from Maryland and spending four years with the Naval Ordnance Laboratory in White Oak, Md., Robert Fischell began a career at the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University. While designing satellite control systems, he turned to bioengineering, creating pacemakers, implantable defibrillators and more. Ever since, variety has characterized Fischell's livelihood. An entrepreneur, he developed the company AngelMed to market his creation that alerts cardiac patients to nascent heart attacks. He holds more than 200 patents, for inventions such as the internal insulin pump. He serves on boards of the A. James Clark School of Engineering and the College of Computer, Mathematical and Physical Sciences. He is also a trustee of the University of Maryland, College Park Foundation. He was named United States Inventor of the Year in 1984, and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. He was inducted into the University of Maryland Alumni Hall of Fame in 2000, and established the Fischell Department of Bioengineering at the A. James Clark School of Engineering in 2005.


International Alumnus Award
For providing significant leadership to another country’s educational, cultural, social and/or economic development

Chan-mo Park M.S. '64, Ph.D. '69

Reviewing Chan-mo Park's career is like scrolling line upon line of computer code—the unique language Park has used to make machines photograph blood proteins, circuits communicate in sophisticated networks, screens render simulated reality and much more. Row one tells of a degree in chemical engineering and early faculty positions at Maryland. Go to line 14 for a reference to Catholic University of America, where Park was a professor and, eventually, chair of the computer science department. Scroll further to see that Park became president of South Korea's Pohang University of Science and Technology in 2003. Other lines describe scores of articles and papers, professional affiliations and scholarly visits to countries around the globe: Germany, Portugal, China, Japan. The emeritus professor now serves as a technology advisor to the president of South Korea, translating the language of science into the parlance of policy.


Outstanding Young Alumnus Award
For professional and personal achievements as a recent graduate

D. Haroon Mokhtarzada '01 & Zekeria Mokhtarzada '01

Grow a site. Grow a community. This is the mantra of Webs.com, founded as Freewebs Corp. by brothers Zekeria and Haroon Mokhtarzada. Since graduating from Maryland, they have done plenty of building. Freewebs began as a hobby, a place where people could go to construct their own Web sites for free. But it kept expanding, even as Haroon finished his economics degree summa cum laude, and Zekeria capped off a double major in computer science and mathematics. Haroon traveled the world, then went to Harvard Law School; Zekeria became the first employee at WebOS, creator of the world's only Web-based operating system. During this time, Haroon ran Freewebs while Zekeria broadened its technical architecture and protected the servers located in his apartment. In 2005, with school behind them, the two turned their hobby into a calling. They raised venture capital and relaunched their company as Webs.com. Now, the community they have grown includes more than 30 million monthly visitors to personal and business-related Web sites launched and hosted through Webs.com.


Tyser Gottwals Award
For unique and significant service to the university

Alma Gildenhorn '53

The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center's Gildenhorn Recital Hall, named in honor of Alma Gildenhorn '53 and her husband Joseph, is a place where the architecture invites an audience to lean forward and engage the performance. Those who know Gildenhorn would expect nothing less. Her days have been spent leading others to connect with the life of the mind, first as a teacher, then as a prime mover in countless nonprofit organizations. She is a philanthropist, patron of the arts and co-founder of the Joseph and Alma Gildenhorn Institute for Israel Studies—a linchpin of the university's extensive Middle Eastern Studies Program. A trustee of the University of Maryland, College Park Foundation and co-chair of Great Expectations, The Campaign for Maryland, Gildenhorn has motivated fellow Terps to support the state's flagship university not only with time and ideas but with financial resources as well. She is a College of Education Outstanding Alumna, winner of its 75th Anniversary Distinguished Alumni Award, recipient of Israel's David Ben Gurion Award and one of Washingtonian magazine's 100 Most Powerful Women.


Humanitarian Award
For providing extraordinary service for the benefit of others

Jaime Flores '94, M.D.

When Dr. Jaime Flores isn't teaching medical students cutting-edge procedures at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, he is applying those techniques in remote corners of the world where modern medicine is scarce. Flores is one of few experts in bilateral superior gluteal artery perforator surgery—six complicated words that bring simple comfort to women who have endured mastectomies. A former surgical director for the nonprofit group Ecuadent, Flores spends every February in Ecuador, operating on low-income patients with cleft lips and palates, burns and scars. Through his new organization, the Healing Hands Foundation, Flores plans to link his teaching and public health pursuits, traveling around the world not only to perform procedures, but also to teach local physicians how to continue the work once he and his colleagues have departed.


Honorary Membership
For providing outstanding service to the university and the alumni association over a period of years

Nancy Kopp

Nancy Kopp, in her third term as state treasurer, wears many hats. Recently, as ambassador to America's financial rating organizations, Kopp helped ensure that our state was one of only seven to retain a AAA bond rating. The designation is of vital importance to those who would bank on Maryland's future, and it is one of many factors that will allow Kopp to continue promoting a university "great expectation": that ongoing investments in the state's flagship university will pay enduring economic, scientific and artistic dividends. Her passion for higher education in general and the Terps in particular is unsurpassed. As a member of the Board of Public Works, overseeing state contracts, she has expanded the university's skyline. As a former chair of budget and education subcommittees in the House of Delegates, she put resources behind Maryland's resolve to expand excellence across disciplines. That passion is the reason why we offer her an honorary alumni association membership along with our heartfelt thanks.