Ohio Northern University Alumni

What an amazing night at Huntington Park! Thank you to the 150 alumni, family, and friends who joined us to cheer on the Columbus Clippers as they took down the Toledo Mud Hens. It was incredible being able to connect with so many polar bears! 🐻‍❄️

This past weekend, ONU proudly welcomed more than 100 sisters of the Kappa Pi Chapter of Alpha Omicron Pi back to campus to celebrate the 60th anniversary of their chartering.

As part of this milestone celebration, the sisters established an endowed scholarship fund and raised more than $85,000 to support future Polar Bears.

The Kappa Pi Chapter was active at ONU from 1966 to 1995, and this incredible gift reflects the lasting bonds of sisterhood and a shared commitment to scholarship, leadership, and the future of Ohio Northern.

Thank you, Kappa Pi sisters, for your extraordinary generosity and enduring pride. Go Bears!

A future-focused plant researcher, Ohio Northern University alumnus Eric Schultz, BS ’11, Ph.D., leads a small team of scientists and engineers focused on improving the efficiency, quality, and safety of agricultural and food production systems.

Since 2017, Schultz has been a principal investigator at Corteva Agriscience in Johnston, Iowa, heading a crop phenotype team that tests new plant products in controlled environments and early-stage field trials.

He credits ONU for allowing him to deeply explore his interests and giving him a solid foundation for graduate school. While pursuing his undergraduate degree, he engaged in two summer internships, one with the Boyce-Thompson Institute at Cornell and one with Harvard, both in the plant field.

📲 Read more about Eric's award-winning work and more photos: https://bit.ly/4wN7KrS

Ohio Northern University alumnus Kevin Haynes, PharmD '01, works to keep patients safe around the world. As director of epidemiology for Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine, he helps make sure the drugs patients take are safe and that they work.

Haynes works in pharmacoepidemiology, a field that joins pharmacy and epidemiology. The field explores how often drugs cause side effects and how widespread those effects are in populations.

He chose ONU, he said, because he wanted a small school focused on pharmacy that still gave him a taste of other fields like law, the humanities, and engineering.

📲 Read more about how he made his path in Pharmacy: https://bit.ly/4baNwjJ

Working with former members of the armed services who received a less than honorable discharge is not for the faint of heart. For Ohio Northern University alumna Dania Lofton, JD ’15, each day brings new challenges along with opportunities to make a difference.

As an administrative attorney with The Veterans Consortium, a veterans legal aid nonprofit in Washington, D.C., Lofton spends her time combing through thousands of pages of legal documents, interviewing clients, and helping veterans, their families, caregivers, and survivors fight for the dignity and benefits they have earned.

Lofton credits ONU’s Pettit College of Law with providing a foundation that supports her demanding and meaningful work today. Her time at ONU Law honed her analytical thinking, discipline, and deep respect for the practice of law.

📲 Read more about Dania's work with veterans: https://bit.ly/4vnFHhP

Advanced technologies are revolutionizing the mobility industry. But before any groundbreaking vehicle hits the roadways, it has to survive a gauntlet of rigorous testing. That’s the wheelhouse of Taylor (Manahan) Weideling, BSME ’15.

An Ohio Northern University alumna, Weideling works at the intersection of innovation and reality. She’s the Executive Director of Services at the Transportation Research Center (TRC), North America’s largest independent automotive proving ground and vehicle testing facility.

Looking back, Weideling is grateful that ONU set her on the path to a career that’s both exciting and fulfilling. As an honors student, softball player, and resident assistant, she built leadership skills and learned how to tackle any problem.

📲 Read more about Taylor's work and see more photos: https://bit.ly/4f65aWK

Ohio Northern University alumna Caroline (Woodworth) Schumacher, BA ’99, is in the business of bringing joy to children who need it most. As the president and CEO of Give Kids The World Village, she leads a whimsical Central Florida resort that provides weeklong, cost-free vacations to between 7,000 and 8,000 children with critical illnesses and their families every year.

After a bitterly cold and snowy winter on the Tundra, Schumacher graduated and moved to Florida, where she found employment at the Tampa Port Authority. When a position as a volunteer coordinator opened at Give Kids The World Village, she applied and landed the position. She steadily rose through the organization, taking on increasing responsibility.

📲 Read more about Caroline's journey and see more photos of her experiences: https://bit.ly/4b8PYqG

Understanding a disease is the first step toward treating it.

Ohio Northern University alumna Dr. Carla Kim, BS ’97, has dedicated her career to this vital work, helping the world to better understand lung health.

As a professor at Harvard Medical School and a principal investigator at Boston Children’s Hospital, Kim leads groundbreaking research through her Carla Kim Laboratory that is reshaping how we fight lung cancer and disease.

One of the defining breakthroughs in Kim’s lab is the development of organoids, three-dimensional cell cultures that mirror the complexity of an organ. By recreating structures like airways and alveolar sacs (where gas exchange occurs), these “mini-organs” allow researchers to observe lung behavior in ways not possible before.

📲 Read more about her her research: https://bit.ly/4eF4NU8

Students at Bacon Academy in Colchester, Connecticut, have long known that manufacturing technology teacher, David Mason, BS ’11, is one-of-a-kind. This past school year, the nation learned he’s an “Oscar-worthy” educator.

Mason, an Ohio Northern University alumnus, was recently honored with the prestigious Milken Educator Award, widely considered to be the teaching profession’s equivalent to a Grammy or an Oscar.

Despite the honor and the $25,000 grant, Mason says his greatest reward still happens right in the classroom.

“I really love helping students transition into adulthood, watching them grow, graduate, and succeed,” he says. “No matter what a student envisions for their future, whether its college, trade school, military, or straight into the workforce, I have a plan to help get them there.”

📲 Read more about David's passion for education: https://bit.ly/4vBbQmM