Honorary Degree Recipient

and Commencement Speaker
Jonathan K. Muraskas
Muraskas, M.D., is a professor of pediatrics and neonatal/perinatal medicine at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Ill. He has cared for more than 15,000 sick babies. More than 1,700 of those babies weighed less than two pounds at birth. Loyola doctors or those trained at Loyola have cared for nine of the 59 surviving babies who were born in the United States weighing 13 ounces or less, including the smallest (8.6 ounces), a patient of Muraskas who is noted in the Guinness Book of World Records. In his 29-year career, Muraskas has cared for some 300 sets of triplets, ten sets of quadruplets, two sets of quintuplets and six sets of conjoined twins, as well as a tiny polar bear and an equally small gorilla. He received his medical training from Loyola University after graduating with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Ripon College in 1978.

Honorary Degree Recipient
Joia Mukherjee
Mukherjee, M.D., M.P.H., is medical director of Partners in Health (PIH), an international medical charity that has community-based health care programs in Haiti, Peru, Russia, Rwanda, Lesotho, Malawi, Chiapas, Mexico and the inner-city of Boston, Massachusetts. Focusing on the human rights aspects of disease treatment, Mukherjee leads PIH teams in treating multidrug-resistant tuberculosis and HIV and in implementing other complex health interventions in resource-poor settings. Mukherjee is an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and an attending physician in infectious disease at Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s Hospitals in Boston. She consults for the World Health Organization on treating HIV and tuberculosis in developing countries. She’s also an executive board member for Health AIDS Action, a campaign through Physicians for Human Rights to engage American health professionals to help stop the global AIDS pandemic.

Distinguished Educator Award Recipient
JoAnn Marie Davis
A native of Ripon, Wis., JoAnn Marie Davis of Wisconsin Dells, Wis., is a retired elementary art instructor. She spent 33 years teaching art in the School District of Wisconsin Dells and has taught at each of the district's six elementary schools, sharing her passion for art with students from first grade through junior high. Davis, who holds a bachelor's degree from Carroll College, has been an active volunteer in her local community, lending her skills to everything from Christmas pagaents and parade float decorations to coordination of the city's parks and recreation craft program. She was elected to Who's Who of American Teachers in 2006. Davis is the mother of Drew Bradley Crain Davis, class of 2007.

Medal of Merit Recipients
Donald and Marilyn Anderson
Donald and Marilyn Dixon Anderson are long-time benefactors of Ripon College. Don Anderson, Ripon College class of 1942, was a college trustee from 1984 to 1993, when he was elected honorary life trustee. Marilyn Anderson is a member of the Ripon College class of 1945. Over the years, the Andersons have established an endowed scholarship at Ripon College and have supported various capital campaigns. They are charter members of Ripon’s Benefactors and Partners in the Legacy. Anderson Hall was dedicated in their honor in 2003, and the conference room in the recently renovated Evans Admission Center also bears their names. Don and Marilyn have assisted the College’s chapter of Habitat for Humanity, a national organization with which they are involved in Naples, Fla.