As principal and executive producer of Helen Holter Communications and work on community initiatives, Helen Holter ’78, has had a profound impact on global health and understanding.  She received an Emmy Award for creating the medical/health show "HealthSmart," and group Emmys for best newscasts and documentaries. Other honors include a first-place award from the Society of Professional Journalists for “Surgeon Confronts Cancer”;; a Best in the West Award for a health series; honors from the National Council of Christians & Jews for “Siberian Seven Christmas”; an invitation to speak at the ground-breaking New Media for a New World conference in Moscow, Russia, and named the top presenter there; Microsoft Ship lt Award for an online project; a KIRO-TV (CBS Seattle affiliate) Award for Excellence for community service; and an Alderdinck Foundation Award from The Hague, Netherlands, to report in Russian as senior correspondent for Soviet television and an interview with Uzbekistan’s President Karimov. Her v isit to Chernobyl in 1990 (at the time, only the fourth by a western reporter), and firsthand knowledge of the devastating effects of the nuclear accident profoundly seeded her passion for global health.  Her recent community activities include serving on the board of directors for the Seattle-Tashkent Sister City Association, celebrating its 40th anniversary of cultural, business, medical and diplomatic exchanges between Seattle and Uzbekistan; creator, anchor and executive producer of “Global Health Lessons” and global health video channel; and serving on the leadership team of Global Health Initiatives in Faith-Based Settings, an ecumenical service to Christian, Muslim and Jewish communities. Her hometown is Billings, Montana and she currently resides in Seattle, Washington.

Thomas L. Reinecke ‘68 is the Senior Scientist for Nanoscience and head of Semiconductor Physics Section at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C.  He is a member of the Senior Executive Service of the U.S. Civil Service and has trained 25 post-doctoral fellows in physics. He also has been a visiting scientist at Max Planck Institute, University of Wuerzburg, University of Stuttgart and University of Dortmund in Germany. He was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship in 1968. Other major honors include a National Science Foundation Fellowship in 1968; Woodrow Wilson Foundation Fellowship in 1968; Humboldt Prize of Germany in 1994; named a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1982; Sigma Xi Award for Outstanding Research in 1983; U.S. Presidential Rank Executive Award in 2005; E.O. Hulburt Science Award in 1998; J. Shelton Horsley Award of the Virginia Academy of Sciences in 1995; and Department of the Defense Outstanding Scientists and Engineers Award in 2006. He has written more than 300 journal articles and book chapters on a wide range of science and technology. He is a member of the American Physics Society, Materials Research Society, Sigma Xi Society, International Thermoelectrics Society and Virginia Academy of Sciences; as well as research selection committees for the National Science Foundation, Research Corp.; Office of Naval Research, Department of Energy and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; and a member of the Rhodes Scholar Selection Committee.  Reinecke is a native of Ripon, Wis., and now lives in Alexandria, Va.