Rider to Confer Honorary Degrees on Weischaus, Schulke

Rider University will confer honorary doctor of laws degrees on Dr. Eric F. Wieschaus, a Nobel laureate in physiology and medicine, and Graeme Phelps “Flip” Schulke, award-winning photojournalist and noted author, at its 138th commencement on Friday, May 16.
      “Through his research, Dr. Wieschaus has contributed much to our current understanding of embryonic development in humans, and we are particularly delighted to celebrate his work and achievements,” said Bart Luedeke, Rider president. “Rider also takes great pride in celebrating the life-long work of such a distinguished author and photojournalist as Flip Schulke. Both have touched many lives throughout their careers.”
      Dr. Wieschaus, professor of molecular biology at Princeton University, won the Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine in 1995. A member of the faculty since 1981, he is recognized for his scientific scholarship. That recognition has taken the form of both his election to the National Academies of Sciences and his winning the Nobel Prize.
     Wieschaus’ experiments made clear basic genetic mechanisms of animal development, which has led to a better understanding of birth defects in humans. In addition to being a world-class researcher, he is a highly respected teacher of biology using the method of inquiry science at Princeton University. He is also a prominent investigator supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. During his career, he has received many professional honors and has been active on several boards, including Rider’s Science Advisory Board for the past five years.
      Wieschaus received his Ph.D. in biology from Yale University and conducted post-doctoral work with the University of Zurich, Switzerland. In 1974, he won the John Spangler Niclaus Prize for the outstanding dissertation in experimental embryology. He graduated magna cum laude with a B.S. degree in biology from the University of Notre Dame.
      A self-taught photographer, Schulke is widely known as one of America’s premier photojournalists and as a noted author. Over the past 50 years, he has chronicled the lives of national and international figures and documented important events. Acclaimed for his photographs of Fidel Castro, John F. Kennedy and the fall of the Berlin Wall, he is best known for his documentation of the civil rights movement and the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He covered nearly every major civil rights story in the South from the 1950s until Dr. King’s assassination in 1968, accumulating more than 11,000 photographs of Dr. King and the civil rights movement – the largest personal collection in the world.
      In addition, Schulke is an acclaimed pioneer of underwater photography and his contributions to this field have transformed underwater photojournalism. He has worked as a contract photographer for Life magazine. His work has appeared in National Geographic, Sports Illustrated, Time, Newsweek, The Saturday Evening Post, Der Stern and numerous other publications. Over the years, he has won dozens of national photojournalism awards, including first prize honors for Picture of the Year. In 1986, he was presented with the first New York State Martin Luther King Jr. Medal by former governor Mario Cuomo. In 1995, he received the Crystal Eagle Award from the National Press Photographers Association for his lifelong documentation of the civil rights movement.
      Schulke has lectured at Rider and frequently across the country on photojournalism, the civil rights struggle of the 1960s and his friendship with Dr. King. Author of six books, his most recent is Muhammad Ali– the Birth of a Legend, Miami, 1961-1964. He is currently finishing a book on his photographic career and a book on the history of the Berlin Wall from 1962 to 1999.

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