ALUMNI AWARD

John Ziegler '56
John Ziegler '56

Since 1931, the Hotchkiss Alumni Association has honored 76 alumni with the Alumni Award. Selected by the Nominating Committee of the Board of Governors of the Alumni Association, each recipient, through personal achievement, has brought honor and distinction to him or herself and Hotchkiss.

THE 2008 HONOREE: JOHN L. ZIEGLER ’56 M.D., M.Sc.

John Ziegler has had a long and distinguished career in medicine that has included practice and research in pediatrics, immunology, epidemiology, tropical medicine, HIV/AIDS, and global health. He has made significant contributions to the understanding of Burkitt’s lymphoma, a common cause of cancer in African children, and of the link between malignant lymphoma and Kaposi’s sarcoma as HIV-associated cancers.

In the early part of his career, Dr. Ziegler served for 15 years in various roles at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and National Institutes of Health, including in Kampala, Uganda. There, he founded the Uganda Cancer Institute at Makerere University, the first dedicated cancer treatment clinic in sub-Saharan Africa. He later established the Pediatric Oncology Branch and directed the Clinical Oncology Program at NCI before joining the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) as a professor of medicine and Chief of Staff for Education at the VA Hospital.

In 1985, Dr. Ziegler became the Founding Director of the UCSF AIDS Clinical Research Center, participating in the early research on the AIDS epidemic. He returned to Uganda in the 1990s to continue his research on HIV and cancer, first as a Visiting Fulbright Professor and later as a senior scientist for the World Health Organization.

During the past ten years, Dr. Ziegler has directed the UCSF Cancer Risk Program at the Comprehensive Cancer Center, now one of the leading genetic counseling and testing centers for hereditary cancer in northern California. In 2007, he was named Director of the Global Health Sciences Graduate Program, crafting a curriculum for a first ever masters degree in global health at UCSF.

Over the course of his career, Dr. Ziegler has received many awards, including the Albert and Mary Lasker Award (1972) and The Paul P. Carbone Award in International Oncology (2002). The Lasker Awards, among the most respected science awards in the world, recognize major advances in the understanding, diagnosis, treatment, cure, and prevention of human disease by individuals in the sciences, medicine, and public service.
The Paul C. Carbone Award is given for “outstanding contributions to oncology or cancer research in one or more developing countries by an individual from a resource-rich country.”

Dr. Ziegler holds a B.A. in English Literature from Amherst College, an M.D. from Cornell University Medical College, and a masters degree in epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Nominations

For information on how to nominate an alumnus/a for the Alumni Award, visit the Alumni Recognition page of the web site.

Previous Recipients

  • ALUMNI AWARD
  • 2007 - No Award
  • 2006 - Roswell H. Rudd Jr. '54 - Jazz Trombonist
  • 2005 - Jon Lovelace '44 - Chairman Emeritus and President, Capital Research and Management Company
  • 2004 - Ambassador Clark T. Randt, Jr. '64, P'09, U.S. Ambassador to China
  • 2003 - Bishop Peter J. Lee '66, P '92
  • 2002 - John Shedd Reed '35, P '73, '81, GP '85, '88, '05 - Railroad Executive, Philanthropist
  • 2001 - Lewis Henry Lapham II '52, P '99 - Journalist, Harper's Magazine
  • 2000 - George Cooley Hixon '55, P'90, '98 - Environmentalist
  • 1999 - Howard Cary Bissell '55, P'82 - Manufacturing
  • 1998 - Porter Johnston Goss '56, P'84, '88 - U.S. Representative from Florida
  • 1997 - Donald Boyd Easum '42 - Ambassador to Nigeria
  • 1996 - Strobe Talbott '64 - Journalist and Diplomat
  • 1995 - Charles Newton Schenck '40 - Lawyer, Long Wharf Theatre patron
  • 1994 - Zeph Stewart '39 - Classics Professor, Harvard
  • 1993 - John O'Hea Crosby '44 - Santa Fe Opera Company
  • 1992 - Edgar Meyer Cullman '36, P'64, GP'84 - Cullbro
  • 1991 - Francis Thomas Vincent, Jr. '56, P'85 - Baseball Commissioner
  • 1990 - George Francis Cahill, Jr. '44 - Medical Research Scientist
  • 1989 - Winston Lord '55 - Ambassador to China
  • 1988 - C.S. Harding Mott '25 - Philanthropist
  • 1987 - Woods McCahill '33, P'61,'69 - Lawyer
  • 1986 - Robert Arthur Bryan '49 - Archbishop of Maritimes
  • 1985 - Malcolm Baldrige '40 - Secretary of Commerce
  • 1984 - Eli Whitney Debevoise '17 - Lawyer, Debevoise & Plimpton
  • 1983 - Michael MacCracken Stewart '53 - Physician and Educator
  • 1982 - William Block '32, P'62,'71 - Newspaper Publisher
  • 1981 - David Lincoln Luke III '41 - President, Westvaco
  • 1980 - Jon Ormond Newman '49 - Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals
  • 1979 - William Elfers '37, P'67 - Venture capitalist
  • 1978 - John Henry Hammond, Jr. '29 - Discoverer of Dylan, Springsteen
  • 1977 - Frank Arnott Sprole '38, P'65,'73,'78, GP'89,'91,'01,'02,'03 - Vice Chairman, Bristol-Meyers
  • 1976 - John Miller Musser '26 - Philanthropist
  • 1975 - Gaylord Donnelley '27, P'60 - Chairman, RR Donnelley
  • 1974 - Peter Matthiessen '45 - Naturalist Author
  • 1973 - Joseph Frederick Cullman III '31, GP'82 - Chairman of Phillip Morris
  • 1972 - Dan Wende Lufkin '49, P'80,'82,'88 - CT Environmental Commissioner
  • 1971 - William Gelon McKnight, Jr. '30, P'58,'61 - Prominent lawyer
  • 1970 - Thomas Pearsall F. Hoving '49 - Director, Metropolitan Museum of Art
  • 1969 - Arthur Howe, Jr. '38, P'66,'72,'75 - President, American Field Service
  • 1968 - Atholl McBean 1900 - Founder, Stanford Research Institute
  • 1967 - Paul Henry Nitze '24, GP'82,'92,'96,'97 - Secretary of the Navy
  • 1966 - Charles Woodruff Yost '24, P'56,'64 - Diplomat, Ambassador to the UN
  • 1965 - Arthur Kittredge Watson '38, P'76,'78, GP'00 - Chairman of IBM, Ambassador to UK
  • 1964 - Albert William Olsen, Jr. '39 - Headmaster
  • 1963 - William Warren Scranton '35, P'65,'67 - Gov. of Pennsylvania, Ambassador to the UN
  • 1962 - Roswell Leavitt Gilpatric '24, P'56 - Deputy Secretary of Defense
  • 1961 - John Hersey '32 - Pulitzer Prize, Fiction
  • 1960 - Ernest Gruening '03 - Senator, Governor of Alaska
  • 1959 - Potter Stewart '33 - US Supreme Court Justice
  • 1958 - Robert Chapman Sprague '18 - Industrialist (executive)
  • 1957 - James Alexander Linen III '30, P'56,'62,'65,'68, GP '83,'84 - Executive Committee, TIME
  • 1956 - Livingston Talmadge Merchant '22 - Ambassador to Canada
  • 1955 - Dickinson Woodruff Richards, Jr. '13, GP'91 - Nobel Prize in Medicine
  • 1954 - Richard Lyon Bowditch '19, P'48 - Steamship Executive
  • 1953 - Henry Ford II '36, P'68 - President, Ford Motor Company
  • 1952 - Walter Phelps Hall '01, P'43 - Professor of History
  • 1951 - John Edward Bierwirth '13, P'42, GP'65, GGP'99,'00 - President, National Distillers
  • 1950 - Alfred Whitney Griswold '25, P'62 - President, Yale University
  • 1949 - Everett Needham Case '18 - President, Colgate University
  • 1948 - Edwin Foster Blair '20, P'55 - “Mr. Yale”, Instructor at Yale Law
  • 1947 - Erdman Harris '16 - Prominent Educator, Clergyman
  • 1946 - Douglas Stuart Moore '11 - Composer, Pulitzer Prize in Music
  • 1945 - No Award
  • 1944 - Artemus Lamb Gates '14 - President, NY Trust; Under Secretary of Navy
  • 1943 - Arthur Morris Collens 1899, P'30,'34 - President, Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance
  • 1942 - Archibald MacLeish '11 - Poet Laureate, Pulitzer Prize Winner
  • 1941 - Henry Lockwood de Forest 1893 - Lawyer
  • 1940 - Allen Lawrence Chickering 1894, GP'61 - Lawyer
  • 1939 - Arthur Lehman Goodhart '08, P'44 - Elite Professor, Oxford University
  • 1938 - William Mansfield Clark '03, GP'63 - Physiological Chemistry professor
  • 1937 - Charles Edison '09 - Gov. of New Jersey, son of inventor
  • 1936 - Harold Stanley '04, P'52,'55 - Investment Banker (Morgan Stanley)
  • 1935 - Henry Robinson Luce '16, GP'68 - Founder of TIME
  • 1934 - George Van Santvoord '08, P'37, GP'65,'71 - Headmaster
  • 1933 - Lawrence McCully Judd '06 - Governor of Hawaii
  • 1932 - Arthur Howe '08, P'38,'42, GP'66,'72,'75,'75 - President, Hampton Institute
  • 1931 - Henry Knox Sherrill '07 - Episcopal Bishop