NEOMED gives Watanakunakorn honorary degree

Staff report

ROOTSTOWN

Northeast Ohio Medical University presented Eleanor I. Watanakunakorn with an honorary degree this month as part of commencement honoring 186 new pharmacists, physicians and public-health professionals.

Watanakunakorn’s honorary degree marks her extraordinary commitment to the current and future success of the university.

“Eleanor Watanakunakorn has served as a leader and example to the Northeast Ohio community through her selfless passion for helping others and her philanthropic investment in the region.” said Jay A. Gershen, president of NEOMED. “It is an honor and a privilege to award the honorary degree, doctor of science Honoris Causa, to her on a day where we celebrate the achievements of our graduates, who were all touched in some way by the Watanakunakorn family and their commitment to the NEOMED community.”

In 2003, Watanakunakorn made the largest-single contribution to NEOMED in the university’s history in an effort to advance medical education and curriculum transformation by endowing a chair in microbiology and immunology while also establishing a lectureship in honor of her husband for students and health care professionals throughout the region.

In addition, she has created several endowed scholarships for underrepresented medical students as well as naming a suite in The Village, located on NEOMED’s campus and designed to accommodate visiting dignitaries, faculty and guests while on campus.

The university also is home to the Dr. Chatrchai and Eleanor Watanakunakorn Medical Research Building.

Watanakunakorn earned a bachelor of science degree in home economics from the University of Alberta and a master of science degree in clinical nutrition from the University of Iowa.

She is the mother of Dr. Paul Watanakunakorn, a 1998 graduate of the College of Medicine at NEOMED, who has established a practice in internal medicine in Youngstown; and Maria Poppe, a physical therapist, living in Mechanicsburg, Pa.