The WKYC morning team has been sipping out of Case Western Reserve coffee mugs all week and learning more about the University’s history in research and innovation.
U.S. News & World Report ranked Case Western Reserve as number one in Ohio and 37th in the nation. They also boast a number of famous and successful alumni including:
- Craig Newmark, an American Internet entrepreneur best known for founding the San Francisco-based international website Craigslist.
- M. Frank Rudy, the aeronautical engineer who patented a cushioning system based on an inert gas encapsulated in polyurethane plastic. It was trademarked by Nike as the “Air” sole.
- Rich Sommer, an American actor best known for his portrayal of Harry Crane on the AMC drama series “Mad Men.”
- Gregg Gillis, known by the stage name “Girl Talk,” is an American disc jockey specializing in mashups and digital sampling.
- Richard Thaler, a founder of behavioral economics and winner of 2017 Nobel Prize in Economics.
- Fred Gray, a civil rights attorney, preacher and activist who represented, among others, Rosa Parks and the men exploited by the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and worked closely with Martin Luther King Jr.
- Paul Buchheit, an American computer programmer and entrepreneur who created and was lead developer of Gmail.
- Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, who was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1998, becoming the first African-American woman to represent Ohio in the U.S. Congress.
- Julie Gerberding, American infectious disease expert and former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
- Susie Gharib, award-winning business news journalist and senior special correspondent for Fortune magazine.
Here are more fun facts you may not know:
- The Larry Sears and Sally Zlotnick Sears think[box] is the world’s largest university-based, open-access innovation and entrepreneurship center. The seven-story, 50,000-square-foot facility is open for free to anyone, offering the use of such high-tech tools as 3-D printers, laser-cutters and computerized routers. Even MythBusters star Adam Savage stopped by for a visit.
- Microsoft HoloLens mixed-reality technology, which allows Case Western Reserve students and other campus users to interact and learn with holograms, is transforming education. The technology is a partnership of Case Western Reserve, Cleveland Clinic and Microsoft.
- Law Professor Charlie Korsmo is a former “child actor” who starred in several major hits of the 1990s, including Hook (as Jack Banning), Dick Tracy (as “The Kid”), What About Bob? (as Siggy Marvin) and Can’t Hardly Wait (as William Lichter).
- The Michelson-Morley Experiment, performed in the basement of a Western Reserve University dormitory in July 1887 by Albert A. Michelson of the Case School of Applied Science and Edward Morley of Western Reserve, provided experimental confirmation of Einstein's theory of relativity. It was designed to detect the motion of the earth through the “luminiferous aether,” a theoretical substance which, according to 19th-century physicists, was essential to the transmission of light.
- A donation by New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick created the “Steve Belichick Varsity Weight Room,” in honor of the Super Bowl-winning coach’s late father. Steve Belichick was a standout football and basketball player for the former Western Reserve University, playing fullback on the 1940 Western Reserve team that beat Arizona State in the Sun Bowl on New Year’s Day in 1941.