CORVALLIS, Ore. - The Oregon State University Alumni Association has selected two alumni, Jen-Hsun Huang and Pamela Knowles, and one great friend of the university, Allyn Ford, to be honored on April 22 at a celebration on campus.

The E.B. Lemon Distinguished Alumni Award will go to Huang, a 1984 engineering graduate who is co-founder, president and chief executive officer of NVIDIA. The award, named for an alumnus, teacher, dean and volunteer leader who gave more than 70 years of service to the university, honors those who exemplify the service, generosity and success epitomized by its namesake.

NVIDIA is a global technology company that designs and manufactures graphics processing units for a wide variety of platforms, and is known as a pioneer and world leader in visual computing. The company has 9,100 employees worldwide. Titan, the world's fastest supercomputer, is one of its recent projects.

In 2015, Harvard Business Review named Huang the fourth-best performing chief executive officer in the world in his field. He has a master's degree from Stanford University and received an honorary doctorate from OSU in 2009, when he gave the commencement address. He and his wife, Lori Mills Huang, a 1985 OSU graduate in engineering, have made numerous philanthropic contributions to the university and to many other institutions.

The Joan Austin Honorary Alumni Award will go to Allyn Ford of Roseburg, chief executive officer of family-owned Roseburg Forest Products. Established in 2005, the award recognizes a person whose actions in support of the university have demonstrated that he or she is truly a beaver at heart.

Ford, who has an industrial engineering degree from Yale University and a masters of business administration from Stanford University, has been a staunch supporter of the OSU College of Forestry since at least the early 1980s, donating time and other resources to help keep the college an international leader in the development of sustainable forestry and wood products manufacturing practices.

He also serves on the board of The Ford Family Foundation, one of Oregon's most generous providers of support for rural communities and need-based scholarships for students who show great promise but have limited means. He and his family have had a broad impact on many OSU initiatives.

The Jean and C.H. "Scram" Graham Leadership Award will go to Portland's Pamela Knowles, a 1977 liberal arts graduate. Named for a former alumni director and his wife, who worked and volunteered on behalf of the association and OSU for most of their lives, the award honors individuals who give exemplary service to the alumni association.

An attorney, Knowles is a former member of the OSUAA board of directors and treasurer of the association. She serves on the Portland School Board and has been chief operating officer of the Portland Business Alliance, a partner in the Davis Wright Tremaine law firm and executive director for industry relations for the OSU College of Business.

Source: 

Kate Sanders, 541-737-7916

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