Awards and Recognition
Professional Achievement Award
Attained prominence in their field
Homecoming 2008 Award Winners
Bruce Bethancourt
Bruce A. Bethancourt holds the distinction of being named by his peers as the Top Doc for Internal Medicine by Phoenix magazine for 12 years running.
After earning a bachelor’s degree with distinction in zoology and chemistry from Arizona State University, he attended the Autonomous University of Guadalajara College of Medicine and then came to the University of Arizona College of Medicine and earned a medical doctorate.
During his time at the UA, Bruce became a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha medical honor society, served as president of the College of Medicine Dean’s Council, and won the Lange Publication Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement.
In addition to his own practice, Bruce is an adjuvant clinical assistant professor of medicine at Midwestern Osteopathic School, where he is a preceptor for first- and second-year students in outpatient internal medicine rotation. He also is a clinical instructor at Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center and a senior clinical lecturer at the UA College of Medicine.
Bruce volunteers with many medical organizations, a free neighborhood clinic, Habitat for Humanity, and the Boy Scouts.
His many accolades include the Health Services Advisory Group Award for Commitment Above and Beyond in the Care of Diabetes, Phoenix Business magazine’s Medical Hero of the Year for Contributions to Patient Safety, and the Arizona Medical Association President’s Distinguished Service Award.
We are proud to present the Professional Achievement Award to Bruce A. Bethancourt.
Melinda Waters Burke
Building tomorrow’s industry today — that’s the goal of Melinda Waters Burke, director of the Terry J. Lundgren Center for Retailing within the John and Doris Norton School of Family and Consumer Sciences at The University of Arizona.
Melinda also brings her unique combination of academic training and business and industry experience to the classroom, providing students with research-based instruction and practical application of the instruction.
In addition to her teaching role, Melinda is the Sam Walton Faculty Fellow for the Students in Free Enterprise team, a nationally recognized student organization based at the UA. Her students are nationally competitive and known for their preparation, competence, and professionalism. She also has built, in conjunction with the UA Bookstores, two A-Stores at local malls, and she oversees the Duel in the Desert, the Junior Duel, the Credit-Wise Cats, and the TCAI Outreach team.
Melinda has an excellent reputation among major retailers and a majority of the CEOs of the largest retail firms in the country and internationally, as well. Her work and exposure through the Global Retailing Conference has brought national prominence to the UA.
Melinda, a trailblazer in her field, is training the next generation of great retail-industry leaders.
With much regard, we present the Professional Achievement Award to Melinda Waters Burke.
Robert T. Dorr
Robert T. Dorr has achieved at the highest levels in research, teaching, and service at The University of Arizona for more than 30 years.
Robert rose from being a hospital pharmacist on the Oncology Service to earning a doctorate degree in pharmacology and being promoted to full professor of pharmacology and medicine at the Arizona Cancer Center.
Robert’s remarkable career spans both preclinical and clinical oncology drug development, focusing on cancer prevention and treatment. Two outstanding examples of his genius are his seminal work on the development of Melanotan, a natural tanning agent, presently in phase III trial for the prevention of skin cancer and other dermatologic diseases related to ultraviolet light exposure. In the development of this novel melanotropic stimulating hormone analogue, Robert was responsible for most of the preclinical pharmacology, toxicology, mechanism of action, and regulatory issues, while designing the phase I and phase II clinical trials of this agent at the Arizona Cancer Center. Another outstanding example is Imexon, a novel small-molecule, nonmyelosuppressive cytotoxic agent which has exciting possibilities in the treatment of lung and pancreatic cancer and metastatic melanoma.
Considered as one of the most translational of research scientists at the UA in terms of his ability to shepherd a small molecule all the way through its development, Robert maintains one of the strongest cancer pharmacology research programs in the world. In fact, he is the principal investigator on a National Cancer Institute-funded drug development program project grant dedicated to cytotoxic drug development, a grant that has held the drug development efforts in the Arizona Cancer Center together for more than 30 years.
Robert is an extremely loyal alumnus of the UA and a major contributor to the education of innumerable predoctoral and doctoral candidates and medical students.
The University of Arizona Alumni Association and the College of Pharmacy are honored to present the Professional Achievement Award to Robert T. Dorr.
Patricia Nez Henderson
Despite her humble beginnings and the challenges she encountered during her undergraduate and medical school training, Patricia Nez Henderson has persevered while remaining rooted in her Native values, beliefs, and traditions — a reflection of the teachings from her parents, grandparents, and elders. An enrolled member of the Navajo Nation from Seba Dalkai, Arizona, a remote, isolated community located on the Colorado Plateau on the Navajo reservation, Patricia grew up in a two-room house with no running water or electricity with her parents, four brothers, and two sisters. Her grandfather, a prominent medicine man whose influence directed her career toward medicine, lived in a hogan next door.
Patricia earned a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from The University of Arizona. Upon graduation, she worked as a research assistant at the UA’s Arizona Cancer Center and at the chemistry department. She left Tucson and earned a master’s degree in public health from Yale University, becoming the first American Indian woman to graduate from Yale Medical School. The school created and awarded her the first Patricia Nez Award, an award given annually to recognize a Yale School of Medicine graduate committed to improving health among American Indian populations.
Patricia now is the vice president of the Black Hills Center for American Indian Health in Rapid City, South Dakota, a Native-owned nonprofit community-based organization, and she is an assistant professor and a Native Investigator Fellow at the Native Elder Research Center at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.
In honor of her outstanding contributions to the health and well-being of all peoples, we are delighted to present the Professional Achievement Award to Patricia Nez Henderson.
Peggy MacMacken
During her nearly four decades of service and outstanding contributions to the nursing profession, Peggy MacMacken has established patient care initiatives that greatly enhance the quality of patient care.
Peggy’s career has progressed from staff nurse positions, to numerous leadership positions including work as a clinical nurse specialist, and, for the past nine years, as the chief nursing officer at Carondelet St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Tucson. She has contributed to the advancement of nursing practice at the local, state, and national levels, and supports the University of Arizona College of Nursing’s faculty and students by providing clinical and educational experiences at St. Joseph’s Medical Center.
As a result of Peggy’s vast experience, outstanding reputation, and superb nursing knowledge, she frequently is sought out as a consultant, recruiter, role model, and mentor. She also is involved in community endeavors and serves as chair of the local chapter of the American Heart Association Board of Directors and Community Board.
Peggy’s many accolades include the Sigma Theta Tau Beta Mu Chapter Excellence in Clinical Practice Award and the March of Dimes 2008 Distinguished Nurse and Arizona Legend in Nursing Awards. And Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano appointed Peggy to a three-year term on the Governor’s Task Force on Arizona’s Nursing Shortage.
With deep appreciation for her excellent leadership in nursing and her ongoing contributions to the quality of patient care, the University of Arizona Alumni Association and the College of Nursing are honored to present the Professional Achievement Award to Peggy MacMacken.
Jeffrey Quintenz
Jeffrey P. Quintenz earned two electrical engineering degrees from The University of Arizona: a bachelor’s degree in 1971, when he graduated at the top of his class and was named the Outstanding Senior in the College of Engineering, and a Ph.D. specializing in electromagnetic analysis in 1975.
As a graduate student, Jeff received the Motorola Foundation Merit Scholar Award, the Hughes Aircraft Company and Gibbs Memorial Fellowships, and was named the Outstanding Fellow of Phi Kappa Phi.
Upon graduation, Jeff joined the technical staff at Sandia National Laboratories and later supervised the Pulsed Power Theory Division and managed the Divergence Reduction and the Inertial Confinement Fusion programs. In 1993 he formed and became manager of the Computational Electromagnetics and Plasma Physics Department. After becoming the director of the Pulsed Power Sciences Center, Jeff left Sandia in 2004 to be the president of Lockheed Martin Nevada Technologies and deputy general manager for the Stockpile Stewardship Program and operations of Bechtel Nevada. In 2006, upon the end of the Lockheed Martin contract, Jeff returned to Sandia and became director of Facilities Management and Operations.
Jeff has authored or coauthored more than 80 publications and performed more than 150 technical presentations. He has contributed to the study of magnetically insulated ion, reflex pinch ion, and electron beam diodes; plasma opening switches, and electromagnetic field propagation in complex structures.
Jeff is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and a member of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is past associate editor of the journal Laser and Particle Beams, and has served on the College of Sciences Board of Visitors at Washington State University and on the College of Engineering Dean’s Advisory Committee at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
With much regard, we present the Professional Achievement Award to Jeffrey P. Quintenz.
Carroll Rinehart
Carroll Rinehart’s career as music educator began in grade school, when one of the teachers asked him to teach music to one of the other classes. He responded to the challenge and has been teaching music ever since.
During the past 60 years, the outstanding personal and professional talent and commitment Carroll has contributed to music education worldwide is amazing!
A University of Arizona graduate, Carroll has distinguished himself for his accomplishments and service as a music educator at the UA and in the U.S., Mexico, Canada, and Australia; and as a principal and music educator within Tucson’s public school systems.
Carroll’s ideas were the foundation of the program now known as Opening Minds through the Arts, which has received national recognition. His mode of guiding 2nd - and 3rd -grade students in writing and performing their own operas leads students from all backgrounds to flourish in creative environments — experiences that are key for students and teachers alike. This method, used in the creation of more than 1600 operas, has been proven to enhance learning of Total English to twice that of comparative classes as noted in a federal study.
Carroll also has linked local education programs through the Amphitheater School District to a national consortium, Music-In-Education, based at the New England Conservatory. As part of Project Excell, for which the Amphitheater School District received $29 million of U.S. Department of Education funding, Carroll has provided a 10-point evaluation tool, set to be expanded for measuring success in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Project members are working with the National Science Foundation and the Southwest and Rocky Mountain States Division of the American Association for the Advancement of Science to extend this as a model for broader testing elsewhere.
We are honored to share just a fraction of Carroll’s many astounding contributions to music education as we present the Professional Achievement Award to Carroll A. Rinehart.
Roxann Rokey
After graduating summa cum laude with a degree in chemistry from Arizona State University, Roxann Rokey enrolled in the University of Arizona College of Medicine and earned a medical doctorate in three years. She then studied cardiology at Baylor College of Medicine. After completing her training, she was asked to join the faculty at Baylor in the Departments of Medicine and Pediatrics.
Roxann became the director of Baylor’s noninvasive cardiology laboratory at Ben Taub General Hospital, director of its high-risk obstetrical cardiology clinic, and director of the adult congenital heart disease clinic at Texas Children’s Hospital. Her research included pioneering studies in the application of magnetic resonance imaging to cardiac disease, and she became a founding member of the International Cardiovascular Society for Magnetic Resonance Imaging. Roxann’s work was rewarded with a Physician Scientist Award from the National Institutes of Health, and she was recruited to serve on several NIH committees. Subsequently, she has been a principle and a collaborating investigator on multiple research grants from the NIH and the American Heart Association.
In 1994, Roxann became the codirector of the echocardiography laboratory and director of the Adult Congenital Heart Disease Clinic at the Marshfield Clinic in Wisconsin and a clinical professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin College of Medicine.
Roxann is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, the American College of Chest Physicians, and the American College of Cardiology. She is a prolific author, and has presented 70 abstracts and lectured at medical meetings in the U.S., Italy, and Japan.
Roxann also belongs to several musical organizations. Prior to entering medical school, she was briefly a professional musician. Upon the death of one of her ASU music professors, Merv Britton, she helped establish a scholarship in his honor to fund the education of a music student at her alma mater.
We are proud to present the Professional Achievement Award to Roxann Rokey.