After 20 successful years in the music industry, with hard work and determination, the Class of 1968's Eric Jackson was able to transition to a career in chemical engineering. After earning his degree in chemical engineering from Penn State University, he began working for 3M Corporation as a project engineer, process engineer and research engineer.

During his tenure at 3M, Mr. Jackson was one of the inventors for a Solar Water purification System for Developing Countries, a co-inventor of a solar energy device, worked on heat shields for the NASA space shuttle, and was a team member that developed one of the first LED light bulbs.

He was a board member of Penn State Women in Engineering, 3M Discovery Channel Young Scientist Challenge and was the recipient of the 3M Mentornet Program Mentor of the Year Award. Mr. Jackson and his wife Loretta retired to Florida where he volunteers with Friends of the Everglades and Solar United of Florida.

Jordan Corcoran, a 2006 graduate of North Hills High School, is a nationally recognized motivational speaker, mental health advocate, author and founder of Listen, Lucy, a mental health organization that uses lived experiences with mental illness to end the stigma that has stopped so many people from receiving the help they need and deserve.

Corcoran's time is spent touring around the country speaking to college, high school and middle school students about her personal story and the importance of acceptance -- of others and yourself.  She is the author of Listen Lucy - Volume 1, Write It Out, Little Lucy and the Little Butterflies, and Little Lucy Bullies. She has been featured on Forbes, Today.com and UpWorthy for her mental health advocacy and was a keynote speaker at National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).

Ms. Corcoran, her husband Connor and their two children live in the North Hills area.

Lt. Col. Phillip Lenz, a 1989 graduate of North Hills High School, has a long and decorated career as a military police officer having served at various military installations over the years.

He is currently the Director of Public Safety at Fort Rucker, Alabama, where he oversees the police department, the physical security program, and the largest fire department in the United States Army with over 21 fire stations across lower Alabama in support of the United States Army Aviation Center of Excellence training mission. In support of this mission, Lt. Col. Lenz is responsible for the security of over $8 billion in aviation assets, management of an operational budget in excess of $1.5 million, and a military community in excess of 30,000 personnel.

He holds degrees in police administration and criminal justice from Eastern Kentucky University and the Community College of Allegheny County, and master’s degrees in military operational art and science, and business and organizational security management from the U.S. Air Force Air College and Webster University.

Lt. Col. Lenz is an active volunteer for the Special Olympics Law Enforcement Torch Run and annual Kansas Special Olympics Winter Games. He is also involved with Habitat for Humanity, the Boy Scouts of America and other family and youth support programs.

Dr. Monica (Allison) Buchanan, a 1998 graduate of North Hills High School, currently works as a Senior Medical Science Liaison for GRAIL Inc, a San Francisco-based biotechnology start-up company developing a blood-based multi-cancer early detection test. In her current role, she interfaces directly with physicians, researchers, insurers, health systems, and advocacy groups to raise scientific awareness and facilitate continued development and implementation of the genetics-based screening assay.

She attended Emory University in Atlanta from where she graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology. She later received her Ph.D. in Molecular and Human Genetics from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas.

Dr. Buchanan moved back home to Pittsburgh in 2010 and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pittsburgh Hillman Cancer Center for two years, researching the genes involved in the response of colorectal cancer to chemotherapy drugs.

An avid craft beer enthusiast, Dr. Buchanan is a majority investor and owner of Allusion Brewing Company located in Vandergrift, PA. Allusion Brewing is expected to open in the spring of 2020.

Locally, Dr. Buchanan’s passion and excitement for youth scientific education led her to pursue credentialing as a NOVA counselor for local Cub Scout Pack 283 and as a SuperNOVA mentor for the Boy Scouts of America – Laurel Highlands Council. NOVA and SuperNOVA are merit-based STEM awards with requirements above and beyond normal scouting curriculum.

Dr. Buchanan further supports development of youth in our community as a fourth grade CCD teacher at St. Sebastian Church of the Neighbors North Catholic Community.

Dr. Robert Dimeo, a member of the class of 1987, is a physicist and director of the NIST Center for Neutron Research in Maryland. The center is a national research facility that focuses on providing neutron measurement capabilities.

Dr. Dimeo is responsible for the operation and development of the NIST High Flux Backscattering Neutron Spectrometer, and his research interests include the dynamics of quantum fluids, quantum rotations in molecular solids, software development to better visualize and analyze neutron scattering data and the development of neutron instrumentation. He also served as the assistant director for physical sciences and engineering and at the Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Dr. Dimeo holds a doctorate in physics, a master’s degree in electrical engineering and a bachelor’s degree in physics from Pennsylvania State University. Additionally, he is a noted author and presenter in the community.

Rev. Kimberly Greway, a member of the class of 1995, has spent her career involved in humanitarian work. Currently, she is the executive director and chief operating officer for the Foundation of Hope and the director of chaplaincy services for the Allegheny County Jail and Shuman Juvenile Center. The Foundation of Hope offers inmates and ex-offenders counseling, religious services, practical resources and referrals, life skills education and mentoring.

At the Allegheny County Jail and Shuman Juvenile Center, Rev. Greway provides chaplaincy services for inmates, staff members and volunteers, and she recruits volunteer chaplains to ensure all religions are represented.

Rev. Greway was previously a pastor in Dorset, England, and a Peace Corps volunteer in Zimbabwe where she helped found The Nyadire Connection that provides community services. She holds a bachelor’s degree in French from Allegheny College and Master of Divinity from Duke University.

Don Goebel, a member of the Class of 1980, is a lawyer who serves as the chief legal officer and chief tax officer for Maxim Crane Works, the nation’s largest provider of cranes and related lift and logistics services. He has been in the legal realm for nearly three decades and has diverse legal, business, tax and financial experience. Over the years, he has held leadership positions in large, international accounting firms, super-regional law firms and large, sophisticated businesses. He holds a legal degree from Ohio Northern University College of Law, a graduate legal degree in taxation from the University of Florida College of Law and an undergraduate degree from the University of Pittsburgh in economics and political science.

He is an active participant on the district’s Academy of Business and Finance Advisory Board and a frequent guest lecturer in the high school’s economics and finances courses. As well, he has been integral in establishing scholarships for North Hills High School students on behalf of Maxim Crane Works and his family.

Julia Santucci, a member of the Class of 1998, is a senior lecturer in Intelligence Studies and director of the Hesselbein Forum Leadership Program in International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs.

Prior to her collegiate career, she worked for the U.S. State Department as a senior advisor to the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues, as a leadership analyst at the CIA and as the Director of Egypt for National Security Council Staff at the White House.

She holds a master’s degree in Near Eastern Studies from the University of Arizona and a bachelor's degree in history from the University of Dayton. She has completed Intensive Arabic Language Programs in modern standard Arabic and the Egyptian dialect from Middlebury College and the American University in Cairo. She was actively involved in advancing U.S. policy toward Egypt that included a strong focus on human rights as she provided assessments and support to President Barack Obama and senior decision makers during the Arab Spring in 2011.

Ms. Santucci and her husband recently purchased a home in West View and look forward to finding new ways to serve our community.

North Hills School District graduates Carolyn Green and Dr. Jerry Yee were the 2017 Distinguished Alumni Award recipients. Green was a member of the North Hills High School Class of 1983, and Yee is a member of the North Hills High School Class of 1977.

Carolyn Green started her professional career as a student teacher in chemistry at North Hills High School and went on to serve as the Director of Strategic Investments for Pfizer’s Worldwide Research and Development. In her role at Pfizer, she was responsible for a strategic venture capital fund that invested in early-stage biotechnology companies and served on the company’s leadership team of external research and development innovations. She devoted her career to translating emerging scientific ideas into innovative therapies to address unmet medical needs as a female scientist, biotech entrepreneur and successful venture capital investor. She supported diversity and the advancement of women in these fields through her involvement with Springboard, a national organization which backs women entrepreneurs in biotech industries, as a coach and mentor in the Women in Bio Boardroom Ready Project, as a co-host of BioPharma Executive Council’s Increasing Diversity event and as the Catalyst Award winner for mentoring from the Science Club for Girls.

Prior to joining Pfizer, she was an executive-in-residence and co-founder of Morningside Ventures; president, COO and co-founder of the biopharmaceutical company Logical Therapeutics and founding director of a translational research and commercialization center at Pitt and UMPC that identified promising scientific discoveries. She served on the boards of NextCure Inc., Metabomed LLC and Harvard’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. She received her bachelor’s degrees in education, chemistry and mathematics from the University of Pittsburgh and was an Entrepreneurial Fellow for the Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence at Pitt’s Katz Graduate School of Business. She passed away in spring 2017 and was honored posthumously.

Since 2011, Dr. Jerry Yee has been the head of the Department of Medicine, Nephrology and Hypertension at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. Additionally, he also serves as a clinical professor of medicine in the department of medicine at Wayne State University and as the editor-in-chief of Advances in Chronic Kidney Disease, a publication of the National Kidney Foundation. He received his medical degree from Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University and completed his categorical medicine residency at Brooke Army Medical Center in Fort Sam Houston, Texas, while serving in the U.S. Army where he held a rank of major. He advanced his studies with a nephrology fellowship at Temple University Hospital and completed an additional researched-based National Institutes of Health Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania.

Throughout his more than 30 years in medicine, Dr. Yee has focused on chronic kidney disease. He uses this expansive and dedicated experience when inspiring students to learn selflessness and set life goals that transcend individual accomplishments. He also is the author of nearly 200 peer-reviewed manuscripts and the editor of a chronic kidney disease handbook for primary care physicians. He is the winner of the National Kidney Foundation’s Nostradamus Award, the Governor’s Award from the Michigan American College of Physicians and the American Society for Nephrology Education Award. Dr. Yee resides in Beverly Hills, Michigan, with his wife, Virginia.

North Hills School District graduates Sandra Carson, M.D., and Kurt Weiss, M.D., were the 2016 Distinguished Alumni Award recipients. Carson is a member of the North Hills High School Class of 1971, and Weiss is a member of the North Hills High School Class of 1992.

Since 2013, Dr. Sandra Carson has been the vice president of education with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists where she oversees a team that directs the educational curriculum for ob/gyn residents across the United States. Additionally, she serves as a professor of obstetrics and gynecology and director of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at the Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University. She received her medical degree at Northwestern University Medical School and completed her ob-gyn residency at Northwestern’s Prentice Women’s Hospital and her reproductive endocrinology fellowship at the University of Chicago’s Michael Reese Hospital.

An accomplished surgeon, Dr. Carson designed hysteroscopic instruments that allow doctors to look inside a uterus to diagnose and treat bleeding issues. She has been recognized in “Best Doctors in America” for more than 10 years and is included regularly in Good Housekeeping’s “401 Best Doctors for Women” and “The Guide to America’s Top Obstetricians and Gynecologists” among many other publications. She has published more than 130 peer-reviewed scientific papers, 60 chapters and six books in reproductive medicine. She was an associate editor for the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology and editor-in-chief of Sexuality, Reproduction and Menopause. Dr. Carson chaired the FDA’s Reproductive Drugs Advisory Committee and was consultant to both the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health and the President’s Council on Bioethics. Her research was funded by the National Institutes of Health for 18 years, and her latest research development, the Artificial Human Ovary, was named a Top 10 medical breakthrough in 2010 by Time magazine and Rhode Island 2011 Innovation of the Year.

Class of 1992 graduate Dr. Kurt Weiss is an orthopaedic oncology surgeon at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center where he also serves as an assistant professor in the division of musculoskeletal oncology and the director of the cancer stem cell laboratory within the UPMC Orthopaedic Surgery Stem Cell Research Center. The laboratory, which he established, focuses entirely upon cancer research and boasts one of the largest tumor registries and tissue banks of its kind in the world, which has aided sarcoma research and medical collaborations across the country. Dr. Weiss’ dedication to cancer research and orthopaedic surgery comes from his own battle with sarcoma or bone cancer that resulted in the loss of his leg and nearly took his life at age 15.

Following his battle with cancer, he went on to receive his undergraduate degree from Notre Dame University and his medical degree from Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University. He completed his orthopaedic surgery residency at UPMC and musculoskeletal oncology fellowship at the University of Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital. Now, he is one of only a handful of surgeons who specialize in sarcoma. Dr. Weiss is also one of the very few physician-scientists searching for a cure for this disease, and the only one who is also a former sarcoma patient. He is a founding member of Pittsburgh Cure Sarcoma, which seeks to raise awareness of and research funds for the rare cancer. The organization has donated more than $200,000 to the Sarcoma Foundation of America making it the most active sarcoma volunteer organization in the United States. Dr. Weiss also has established the Kurt R. Weiss Scholarship for Wish Kids in partnership with the Make-A-Wish Foundation that provides financial support for former “wish kids” to pursue their goals beyond high school. Many North Hills graduates have benefited from this scholarship that has helped hundreds of children pursue higher education.

North Hills School District graduates William Corley and Debra Lam were the 2015 Distinguished Alumni Award recipients. Corley is a member of the North Hills High School Class of 1960, and Lam is a member of the North Hills High School Class of 1999.

Corley has made a difference in the lives of thousands through his dedication to excellence in the varied fields of education, business, medicine and public service. He recently retired from the Indianapolis Community Health Network where he served as president and chief executive officer for more than 25 years. During that time, he took a single hospital that had been languishing for decades and built the Indianapolis Community Hospital Network, which includes five hospitals, 70 healthcare facilities and 10,000 employees. He was the driving force behind the establishment of Indiana’s first heart hospital, and under his leadership, the hospital network was named one of the Top 10 integrated hospital networks in the nation. He now works with the Institute of Healthcare Improvement, influencing the quality of healthcare around the globe.

Throughout his career, he was honored with the “Sagamore by the Wabash,” award, the highest civilian award in Indiana. Outside of healthcare, he is co-chairman and creator of G.R.A.D.E.S., which seeks to develop partnerships between Indianapolis’ urban schools and the city’s Chamber of Commerce to raise graduation rates and reduce the dropout rate for high school students. Corley holds degrees from the College of William & Mary and Duke University.

Lam is on the forefront of Pittsburgh’s exciting transformation in sustainability, technology, performance and innovation. In the newly created position of Chief Innovation and Performance Officer under Mayor Bill Peduto, she has created an innovation road map that details problems, solutions, successes and strategies designed to advance our region’s position as a national player. Lam has worked on public policy and urban-planning projects in China, the Philippines, Vietnam, London and New York City. As one of the youngest senior managers at Arup, a global consulting and design firm, she introduced a climate resilience and cities initiative to areas under direct threats from climate change to enhance traditional engineering offerings and thinking.

She also advised companies such as Siemens and Phillips, local governments in Manila and Ho Chi Minh City and international organizations including the United Nations and the World Bank on urban sustainable development. Additionally, she was involved with Arup’s partnership work with C40, a group of 40 of the world’s largest cities committed to tackling climate change. Lam is trilingual speaking both Cantonese and Mandarin. She holds degrees from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and the University of California at Berkeley and has studied climate change and public policy at the University of Cambridge in England.

North Hills School District graduates Kim McLoughlin, Ph.D., and David Andrew Strobel receive the district’s annual Distinguished Alumni Award in 2013. Both recipients are members of the North Hills Senior High School Class of 1986.

McLoughlin serves as a product development team leader and polymer scientist at Braskem. She is a noted inventor, who has patented novel polypropylene materials for numerous applications including disposable fabrics, automotive parts and food packaging films.

Currently, Dr. McLoughlin leads a team of scientists who are working to develop new food packaging materials for improved sustainability. She also serves on teams developing advanced materials for automotive products, to improve fuel efficiency, vehicle aesthetics and cost. She collaborates both locally and internationally with researchers in universities and in Braskem’s technology center in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

McLoughlin volunteers in a wide range of community education activities. She has judged the Pittsburgh Regional Science and Engineering Fair, and she has coordinated many hands-on science activities for classroom outreach programs and the SciTech Festival at Carnegie Science Center.

Strobel is an emergency response and recovery professional, who has led humanitarian relief efforts on five continents over the past 20 years. Drew, as he is known globally, has dedicated his life to helping in a hands-on way those in need around the world.

Currently, he is working as a regional representative with the American Red Cross in the organization’s office in Bangkok, Thailand, where he is responsible for developing and managing programs in community health and disease control, water and sanitation, organizational development and disaster risk reduction. 

In the past, he has helped communities rebound from natural disasters such as the 2007 southeast Asia tsunami, health emergencies, armed conflicts and other tragic events in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Rwanda, Guatemala, Ecuador, Thailand, Pakistan and Bangladesh. 

A veteran of the Peace Corps, he is fluent in numerous languages and also worked to rebuild rural communities in the United States. Strobel earned a bachelor’s degree in mulitidisciplinary studies with a focus on international political economies from Capital University and a master’s degree in international affairs with a focus on Latin American studies from Ohio University.