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Ramsden Award - 2019
Jack Downing represented the
class for the 2019 presentation...
Fellows,
Yesterday
[sic 24 May] I presented the Ramsden award in Chemistry to a deserving
graduating cadet.
Many
other awards were given in the Chemistry and Life Science award event. I
am always astounded at the wide variety of areas of science in which the cadets
are involved.. Some not only study but do research in the lab with their
professors. One young woman-cadet published seven peer-reviewed papers and
another, five. Not all cadets have such a deep interest but some do,
especially those who are going to med school. By-the-way, the med school
cadets go to medical service basic training before med school.
I
also was given a visit to the small room where the beer is brewed.
Unfortunately there was none at the time for me to try.
Col
Burpo, head of the department, also told me that the ring melt is done in the
chemistry department. I was interested since, on this
trip, I turned in Bob Miller’s ring to Cathy Kilner at the AOG for the melt.
After
the presentations, one gentleman came up to me and said that he was in the class
of 1968 and I had been his teacher. He was there to see his grandson
graduate.
I
had lunch with the cadet I knew. He is a member of the USMA Cyber Strategy
team that won the world-wide “2019 Cyber 9/12 Strategy Challenge” in Geneva
Switzerland this year. This is not trivial. There were 22 high-caliber
teams not only from universities but teams made up of Rhodes Scholars,
retired diplomats, and military generals. He also said that the picture of
the team was taken in civilian clothes ta the result of Switzerland’s law
forbidding foreign uniforms. The contest takes place over two days With
each team presenting responses to a situation that changes and is presented to
the teams in a series of Intelligence Reports. The judges are members of
the Atlantic Council. He gave me a copy of the intelligence reports and
the team’s responses.
Jack Downing