Eugene Evonuk ’52, M.S. ’53 and Friends Former Professor, Alumnus Continues to Impact Students’ Lives

Evonuk at the Arctic Aeromedical Laboratory in Fort Wainwright, Alaska. The late Dr. Eugene Evonuk made his mark as a physiology scholar, but many remember him best as a teacher. Even years after his death, students of the former director of the UO’s Applied Physiology Lab cite him as a mentor who continues to influence their lives and careers. "As a Ph.D. student, I came down with pneumonia," recalls Pat Lombardi, a UO professor of biology who studied under Evonuk. "Dr. Evonuk came to my house. He packed me in ice to bring down my 104-degree fever and gave me medicine. He was far more than a professor -- he was a friend, a colleague and a guide." Evonuk’s greatest legacy was teaching his students to focus on the "big picture," says Lombardi. "He taught us to be global physiologists, to always ask ‘how does this apply to real life?’ I think about that every day in my teaching." After Evonuk’s sudden death from a heart attack in 1984, his wife, Clarissa, wanted to honor her husband’s devotion to teaching. That was the beginning of the Eugene and Clarissa Evonuk Memorial Graduate Fellowship Fund in Environmental or Stress Physiology. Clarissa became friends with many of her husband’s students; after her death in 2000 (see obituary below), her name was added to the award. The fund started small, awarding just $200 in its first year from the interest on the endowment. With Clarissa’s generosity, the award has since grown to $5,000 per year and has supported 17 graduate students, many of whom have become stars in their fields. Award winner Dennis Taaffe now works for the National Institute on Aging and has collaborated with world-famous bone and exercise researchers. The Oregon Academy of Science and the Carnegie Foundation have named Terence Favero, an associate professor of biology at the University of Portland, as an outstanding science teacher. The fellowship selection committee is made of up former Evonuk students who continue to devote time and expertise, working with the exercise and movement science department to select worthy recipients of the annual award. They include Mary Ann Carmack, specialist in pediatric infectious diseases at the Palo Alto Medical Clinic; George Oja, professor at Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon; Peter Raven, chair of physiology at the University of North Texas Health Sciences Center; and Lombardi at the UO. Carmack, the committee chair, says she’s more than happy to commit time to the fellowship, both in tribute to the Evonuks and for the satisfaction of helping deserving graduate students pursue their careers. "When Dr. Evonuk died, many of us lost not only a doctoral advisor, but also a friend," says Carmack. "His unfailing encouragement, sense of justice, easy laughter, intense curiosity, fierce loyalty and quiet confidence made our endeavors not merely possible, but worthwhile and joyful." Raven says that Dr. Evonuk’s influence on him continues, some thirty years after his graduation. "Dr. Evonuk was always there for me. Many a time he used his own personal money to support the research we were doing together," says Raven. "His philosophy of life was to live every day to its fullest, and I still try to do that. It was because of his fundamental love of the biological sciences that I was steered into my current work." While former students carry on Evonuk’s legacy, new students are benefiting from the fellowship, a permanent symbol of Evonuk’s generous spirit. Laura Adomaitis, a graduate student in the UO’s exercise and movement science department, is using her award to investigate the impact of strokes on balance. Her long-term goal is to test a therapeutic intervention for balance retraining in chronic stroke patients. "Given that full-time employment is near impossible while completing a dissertation, the award allowed me to move forward on this research by giving me the means to cover many of our screening, testing and equipment costs," says Adomaitis. "It was also encouraging to receive the conceptual support -- knowing that others felt this study was important and worthy was very motivating."

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