Each year, Carthage alumni are asked to submit their nominations for the Distinguished Alumni Awards. After extensive deliberations, the Alumni Council selects the recipients.

John E. Johnson
John E. Johnson, '67, San Diego, will receive a Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award. Mr. Johnson is a professor of molecular biology at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of California-San Diego. Mr. Johnson has studied the structure and function of viruses for the last 35 years. His work includes high-resolution crystallography and electron microscopy of viruses in various states of assembly and maturation as well as dynamic studies of virus transitions. He has published more than 240 papers during his career. Mr. Johnson earned a Ph. D. in physical chemistry from Iowa State University in 1972. He went to Purdue University in 1975, and served 20 years on Purdue's faculty in the Department of Biological Sciences, receiving the Faculty Research Award from Purdue's chapter of Sigma Xi in 1989. He joined the Scripps Institute in 1995.

 

Mr. Johnson has been a member of the editorial boards of several professional journals, and has served on many advisory boards. He is a member of the board of governors of the Consortium for Advanced Radiation Sources at the University of Chicago. Mr. Johnson and his wife, Mary, have two children, Aaron, and Melissa.

 

 

BettyAnn Mocek
BettyAnn Mocek, '78, Chicago, received a Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award.

 

Ms. Mocek is a prominent artist, arts advocate and educator in her native Chicago. She is associate professor of art at Concordia University Chicago in River Forest, Ill., and gallery director of Concordia's Ferguson Art Gallery. In 2003, Ms. Mocek was awarded the Chicago Artists' Coalition's Service to the Visual Arts Award, recognizing her many years of advocacy on behalf of Chicago artists and her role in spearheading and directing the Chicago Art Open, the largest exhibition of Chicago artists under one roof.

 

She was named 2001 Woman of the Year by the Chicago Society of Artists, for her service to the visual arts community. She sits on the advisory board of the Chicago Artists Coalition, and is a director of the Chicago Society of Artists. Ms. Mocek also taught at the College of Saint Teresa in Winona, Minn., and Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago, and was director of the Chicago Center for the Print Art Gallery. She earned a Master of Fine Arts, the terminal degree in printmaking, with a minor in Art History, from the University of Minnesota, where she was voted "Most Outstanding Teaching Assistant."

 

Ms. Mocek creates prints, drawings and mixed-media works of art. Her work has been honored by the Illinois Artisans Program, and she has received a Chicago Office of Fine Arts grant. Her exhibition highlights include completing two commissions for "Suite Home Chicago," an outdoor exhibition of painted fiberglass street furniture throughout downtown Chicago developed by Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs Public Art Program. Ms. Mocek's work has also been shown at: the Alexandria (La.) Museum of Art; the San Diego Institute of Art; California State University-San Diego; and in Washington, D.C. in conjunction with the National Museum of Women in Art. BettyAnn has been happily married to Adam Rice Walker since 1983. He is a municipal finance attorney for the City of Chicago as well as an avid amateur musician.

Joseph Trotter
Joseph Trotter, '69, Pittsburgh, received a Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award.

 

Mr. Trotter is Mellon Professor of History at Carnegie Mellon University and head of the Department of History in CMU's College of Humanities and Social Sciences. He teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in African-American and U. S. urban, labor, and working class history. Mr. Trotter joined CMU's faculty in 1985. He earned his master's and doctoral degrees from the University of Minnesota. He was a social studies teacher at Tremper High School in Kenosha, and served on the history faculty at the University of California-Davis.

 

Mr. Trotter's research focuses on the urban experiences of African-Americans, and in particular black labor and working class history. During the past six years, he has published a two-volume college-level history text on African-Americans in the United States, "The African-American Experience," edited two books and two encyclopedias, and wrote 13 articles for professional publications. The University of Illinois Press published a second edition of his first book, "Black Milwaukee: The Making of an Industrial Proletariat, 1915-45," which expands the story of Milwaukee's black community from its antebellum beginnings to the late 20th century era of deindustrialization. His most recent book, co-edited with Tera Hunter and Earl Lewis, is "The African American Urban Experience: Perspectives from the Colonial Period to the Present." His long-term research projects include a synthesis of black urban workers from the colonial era to the present and a case study of black workers in the 20th century urban Deep South.

 

Mr. Trotter has served on the boards and committees of numerous professional organizations, including service as chair of the 2004 Program Committee of the American Historical Association, and president of the Labor and Working Class History Association between 2001 and 2003. Mr. Trotter is married to H. LaRue (Mack) Trotter, '72, who has taught in several states.