PSU honors Outstanding Alumni for 2017
Monday, October 9, 2017 2:00 AM
Alumni, Science and Technology, News
Pittsburg, KS
Pittsburg State University will honor three alumni with the 2017 Dr. Kenneth K. Bateman Outstanding Alumni Award during Homecoming activities on Oct. 13-14.
This year's recipients are: Jessican Freeman Clements, a medical physicist in California; Lt. Col. David Oakley, a military strategist in Washington, D.C.; and Jay Maharjan, a nanotechnology researcher in Las Vegas.
The recipients were selected based on their professional achievements and community and organizational involvement. The award recipients will speak to students in various classes on Friday, Oct. 13, and will be introduced at a public reception in their honor at 4:30 p.m. that day in the Wilkinson Alumni Center. They will ride in Saturday’s Homecoming Parade in the morning and will be recognized at the Homecoming football game that afternoon.
The award is named after longtime Director of Alumni Relations Ken Bateman.
Jessica Freeman Clements
Jessica Freeman Clements earned a bachelor's degree in physics from PSU in 2002 and a master's degree in nuclear engineering sciences from the University of Florida in 2005. She's certified by the American Board of Radiology in Diagnostic Radiologic Physics and Nuclear Medical Physics.
She started her career at the University of Florida, where she worked from 2004 to 2007, followed by a position at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas from 2007 to 2010. From 2010 to 2015, she served as the Director of Medical Physics for 14 hospitals within Texas Health Resources and Radiation Safety Officer for Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas.
Now, she is the Chief Physicist and Regional Radiation Safety Officer for Kaiser Permanente, Southern California Permanente Medical Group. There, she manages a team of medical radiation physicists. The team provides medical physics and radiation safety support to a health care system that delivers care to almost 4.5 million people, specializing in regulatory, accreditation, image quality and radiation dose issues for patients, hospital staff, and physicians. Clements served as an expert to the International Atomic Energy Agency by providing training on radiation protection in nuclear medicine to a group of professionals from several member states in Africa.
Clements holds numerous memberships in professional organizations, including the American Association of Physicists in Medicine, the American College of Radiology and Conference of Radiation Control Program Directors. She serves on commission on medical physics and leadership.
Clements and her husband, Jake Clements, a former Gorilla, live in Arcadia, California, with their two sons, Dylan, 18, and Evan, 13.
David Oakley
David Oakley earned a bachelor's degree in political science from PSU in 1998, a master's degree in public administration from the University of Oklahoma in 2005, two masters of military arts and sciences degrees from the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and the U.S. Army's School of Advanced Military Studies in 2012 and 2013, and a PhD in security studies from Kansas State University in 2016.
He has served nearly 20 years as a national security professional in the U.S. Army and the intelligence community.
Oakley began his career as a field artillery officer, having been commissioned through the PSU Army Reserve Officer Training Corps. He served in South Korea and Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He left active duty for a few years, serving as a Staff Operations Officer in the Central Intelligence Agency and as a contractor within the National Counterterrorism Center.
Since 2007, Oakley has served as a strategist at National Defense University in Washington, D.C., U.S Army North/Fifth Army in Fort Sam Houston, Texas, at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and with the 1st Infantry Division at Fort Riley, Kansas, and in Iraq.
Oakley is currently a lieutenant colonel serving as an assistant professor at NDU’s College of International Security Affairs and working on getting his first book, "Militarizing Intelligence: The CIA/DoD Post-Cold War Relationship," published. Oakley and his wife, Kristen Jensen Oakley (BA 1999), have four children, Taylor, who is 17, Tanner, who is 16, Tatum, who is 14, and Tyler, who is 8. He lives in Ashburn, Virginia.
Jay Maharjan
Jay Maharjan, a student from Nepal, earned a bachelor's degree in plastics engineering technology from PSU in 1997. He holds a master's degree in leadership, with emphasis in public policy analysis from the University of Southern California.
Maharjan is the founder and CEO of Explore Nano, an organization launched to understand, educate and expedite commercialization of nanotechnology in cancer and advanced stage diabetes.
Currently, Maharjan is conducting research under the guidance of USC Sol Price School of Public Policy to understand the National Cancer Institute’s strategy for nanotechnology alliance.
Prior to founding Explore Nano, Maharjan served as the Nevada state-wide leader and a regional champion for the White House initiative Startup America Partnership under President Obama. Its objective was to mobilize a billion dollars in private sector resources to help create and foster as many as 100,000 startup companies across the United States.
Later, Maharjan also served as the ambassador for UP Global, the State Department-partnered non-profit initiative to foster entrepreneurship in more than 110 countries.
Maharjan is the author of the award-winning book "Winning Lessons for Entrepreneurs in the Conceptual Economy." He is a resident of Nevada.