{"id":4733,"date":"2025-06-10T09:54:20","date_gmt":"2025-06-10T13:54:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/?p=4733"},"modified":"2025-07-03T12:45:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T16:45:14","slug":"honoring-six-alumni-for-their-achievements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/2025\/honoring-six-alumni-for-their-achievements\/","title":{"rendered":"Honoring Six Alumni for Their Achievements"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Richard

Richard Bloom<\/p><\/div>\n

Distinguished Undergraduate Alumni Award<\/h2>\n

Richard A. Bloom<\/b>,<\/span> MD (WRC \u201974, MED \u201979)<\/b>, served the Rochester, New York, community for more than 30 years as a pediatrician. He continues to mentor physicians and support initiatives to improve community health. Since serving as president of the Class of 1974 as an undergraduate, Bloom has dedicated more than five decades to the Case Western Reserve University community through philanthropy, student recruitment and insights he has provided on campus committees and in other forums.<\/span><\/p>\n

CWRU\u2019s impact: <\/b>\u201cI have lived university history from the early days after federation to the forming of Western Reserve College and then the College of Arts and Sciences. I was a member of the winning Hudson Relays team in 1972, worked as an assistant in CWRU President Louis Toepfer\u2019s administration for nearly two years and then continued to the CWRU School of Medicine, graduating in 1979. That\u2019s almost 10 years on campus. Long enough to develop critical thinking, lifetime friends, professional credentials and special interests.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Thomas

Thomas Leff<\/p><\/div>\n

Distinguished Graduate Alumni Award<\/h2>\n

Thomas P. Leff, MFA, JD<\/b> (ADL \u201972; GRS \u201975, theater)<\/b>,<\/span> has excelled in two careers. He was an English and drama professor at several schools including Colgate University, Swarthmore College and the University of Notre Dame. He later became a trial attorney with Casarino Christman Shalk Ransom & Doss, P.A. in Wilmington, Delaware, where he worked 22 years before retiring in 2020. On campus, he created the Thomas Leff and Melanie DeMent Endowment for Theater Studies at the college.<\/span><\/p>\n

CWRU\u2019s impact: <\/b>\u201cI had wonderful teachers, who opened my perspectives on the world and the possibilities before me. I enjoyed classes and studying at my own pace. My experience at CWRU showed the way for me to fulfill Plato\u2019s dictum that one\u2019s highest goal in life [is] to realize and become what you are. It\u2019s a process that never ends and often takes you where you\u2019d never expect to go. Who could ask for more?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Shaomeng

Shaomeng Wang<\/p><\/div>\n

Distinguished Professional Achievement Award<\/h2>\n

Shaomeng Wang<\/b>,<\/span> PhD (GRS \u201993, chemistry)<\/b>, <\/span>is the Warner-Lambert\/Parke-Davis Professor in Internal Medicine and a Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Michigan. He also co-founded the drug companies Ascenta Therapeutics and Ascentage Pharma and led development of 10 cancer drugs. He previously was a co-editor-in-chief at the American Chemical Society’s <\/span>Journal of Medicinal Chemistry <\/span><\/i>and has been a strong supporter of the college\u2019s Department of Chemistry<\/span>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

CWRU\u2019s impact: <\/b>\u201cAt CWRU, I was given a lot of freedom to choose research projects to work on by my PhD advisor, Professor Gilles Klopman. In addition, I had a close collaboration with two research groups in the medical school. Both of which had a profound impact on my own research career.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"A

Dieter-Moeller<\/p><\/div>\n

Distinguished Service Award<\/h2>\n

Dieter Moeller (CIT \u201988) <\/b>is president and CEO of Rhinestahl, a leading global company providing tools and precision-manufacturing equipment for aviation and military industries. It is headquartered in Mason, Ohio. He joined the company in 1990 as general manager and eventually led Rhinestahl to become the world\u2019s largest supplier of General Electric turbine-engine tooling. He sits on CWRU\u2019s bicentennial cabinet and has served on the college\u2019s visiting committee for six years. Moeller has been chair of the Department of Physics\u2019 Physics Strategic Advisory Group for four years. <\/span><\/p>\n

CWRU\u2019s impact: <\/b>\u201cThe rigor of the CWRU education set me up to successfully handle several large challenges in my life and career. This was an important time for me. I developed relationships, curiosity, [and] work and study habits that withstood the test of a lifetime.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Amanda

Amanda Merner<\/p><\/div>\n

Distinguished Young Alumni Award<\/h2>\n

Amanda R. Merner<\/b>,<\/span> PhD (GRS \u201920, \u201922, psychology), <\/b>is a faculty research scientist in the Department of Neurosurgery at Massachusetts General Hospital and instructor at Harvard Medical School. She also consults with health-technology companies on the development and optimization of their apps.<\/span><\/p>\n

CWRU\u2019s impact:<\/b> \u201cAttending CWRU helped [me] grow as a researcher and establish a network. I [had] the opportunity to do research with Cleveland Clinic, which shifted my interests from strictly psychological and neural aspects of psychiatric conditions to examining the neuroethical aspects of new technologies in psychiatry, which set me down an entirely different research path that I love. CWRU has an incredible environment for highly interdisciplinary research and pushed me to view research through different lenses.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"A

Zachary E. Rubin<\/p><\/div>\n

Distinguished Young Alumni Award<\/h2>\n

Zachary E. Rubin<\/b>,<\/span> MD (CWR \u201911, MED \u201915)<\/b>, is a pediatric allergist and social media influencer. He has amassed more than 3.3 million followers across multiple social media platforms and has been featured in numerous news outlets, providing information about allergy medicine and debunking misinformation in audience-friendly ways.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

CWRU\u2019s impact:<\/b> \u201c\u200b\u200bI had the opportunity to work with the Joan C. Edwards Charitable Foundation in between my undergraduate and medical school education to help create educational programs for high school students at the Cleveland School of Science and Medicine. We helped create a pipeline program to connect students at this school with CWRU [undergraduate] and medical students. Those experiences helped shape the type of educator and clinician that I am today.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Distinguished Undergraduate Alumni Award
\nRichard A. Bloom<\/b>, MD (WRC \u201974, MED \u201979)<\/b>, served the Rochester, New York, community for more than 30 years as a pediatrician. …Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":481,"featured_media":4732,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artscimedia.case.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/2025\/06\/09162605\/Richard-Bloom.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4733"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/481"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4733"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4947,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4733\/revisions\/4947"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}