-ABOUT JOEL STROM-
FROM EP TO MD AND BACK AGAIN
By Stephen Itoga
Joel Strom’s career looks like an interesting example of multitasking, parallel processing, and perhaps a sociological interpretation of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. (EP and physics majors should relax since this is supposed to be humorous.) A quick review of his resume reveals that he’s had 15 academic appointments, 27 medical school and hospital appointments, 3 board certifications, 4 medical licensure, 5 editorial board appointments, 2 pages worth of research study sections and committee appointments while holding 24 professional memberships and achieving the rank of Major in the USAF Medical Corp. He’s managed 32 funded research projects, authored 102 publications, 6 conference proceedings, 41 book chapters and review articles, 159 abstracts, given 75 invited lectures, and has one 1 patent pending. He has received the Frieda and Herman Saporta Fellowship in Cardiology and the 2003 Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine - Merck Executive Leadership Program Award. His career has taken him from Syracuse to Manhattan, to San Antonio, to the Bronx and (finally?) to Tampa Florida with some backtracking and looping in between.
In view of all of these accomplishments it’s interesting to note that he considers his greatest achievements to be (in this order):
Being married 41 years to the same woman (Brown ’67).
Fathering two children in wedlock, the first (NYU Tisch '91) who is trained as actress and chef who went to London to find her fortune and did! She has a husband (M.A. Oxford) and three children. The second (Brown '94) is an IP lawyer who is married (husband: Grinnell College) and has two children.
I have not been jailed for financial misconduct.
Since Joel was never a CEO nor a politician, the last point may not seem that impressive to some. (All classmates who are CEO’s or politicians please see above note to physics majors.)
What is surprising is that he is currently Professor of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida, never having received any formal education or degree(s) in Chemical Engineering or Biomedical Engineering. He did receive from Cornell both a B.S. and M.Eng in Engineering Physics and also an M.D. from the SUNY Medical Center. Clearly his professional successes speak well of his educational experiences at Cornell.
Joel has thought about retirement, but forgot the word.
