Alumnus Harold Scheraga (right) shaking hands with President Vince Boudreau (left) with CCNY Professor David Jeruzalmi (middle) in the Physical Sciences Building at Cornell University.
Alumnus Harold Scheraga ’41 receives an honorary degree from The City College of New York for seven decades of research at Cornell University. City College President Vince Boudreau presented Sheraga with his degree Doctor of Science honoris causa at the university in Ithaca, New York.
“It’s a real a real joy to be able to do this,” said President Vince Boudreau, who received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1991. “Harold Scheraga’s story—as someone from humble socioeconomic beginnings who came to City College when it was free—embodies CCNY’s commitment to promoting social mobility for its students.”
Scheraga received his Ph.D. from Duke University in 1946. He joined the faculty at Cornell as an instructor in 1947 and became a full professor in 1958. He was named a Todd Professor in 1965 and served as chair of the chemistry department from 1960-1967.
Through his research, funded by the National Institute of Health for sixty years, Scheraga has over 1,300 scientific papers to his name with five published in 2018. He has received many awards for his work and is a fellow of the American Chemical Society, the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
The citation presented to Scheraga by City College named him a true pioneer; it also mentioned that in the course of more than six decades he’s played a major role in elucidating the physical principles underlying the behavior of proteins. His work laid the foundation for understanding forces responsible for protein structure and stability, the prediction of the native structure of proteins and the folding of proteins into three-dimensional objects, as well as for current efforts in precision medicine to treat human diseases by specifically targeting damaged proteins.
About The City College of New York
Since 1847, The City College of New York has provided a high quality and affordable education to generations of New Yorkers in a wide variety of disciplines. Today The Chronicle of Higher Education ranks CCNY #2 among public colleges with the greatest success in ensuring the social mobility of our student body; at the same time the Center for world University Rankings places it in the top 1.2% of universities worldwide in terms of academic excellence. More than 16,000 students pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in eight professional schools and divisions, driven by significant funded research, creativity and scholarship. CCNY is as diverse, dynamic and visionary as New York City itself. View CCNY Media Kit.
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