2025 Alumni Awards
Temple Grandin (Image courtesy of Temple Grandin)
ALUMNI ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Temple Grandin
Animal behaviorist and autism activist
As a young girl, Temple Grandin, PHD ’89 ACES, HON ’04, came to understand how cattle saw the world in terms of visual distractions, including shadow and light, open space, and confinement. It mimicked her own perceptions, something she calls visual thinking. “My memory is like little cell phone pictures,” she explains. “When I search my memory, it’s like going through my picture files. I’ll find pictures that are associated with each other. That’s how my mind works.”
She used her insight to develop more humane slaughterhouse techniques, such as moving the animals through a center-track conveyor restrainer system, which leaves them feeling contained and supported. Grandin developed handling systems that help keep cattle calm. Another innovation was the development of a scoring system for evaluating animal welfare in slaughter plants.
“I was one of the first scientists to report that animals are sensitive to distractions in handling facilities, like a dangling chain or a cowboy’s jacket on a fence rail,” she told Illinois Alumni in a 2019 interview. “The cattle’s fear causes them to panic, which leads to injuries and losses.” Her ideas revolutionized the meatpacking industry and have informed her for three decades as
professor of animal science at Colorado State University.
By openly addressing that she is on the autism spectrum, Grandin serves as a champion for those who think differently. Her best-selling books include Animals Make Us Human, Calling All Minds, and Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns, and Abstractions.
In 2010, she was selected as one of Time magazine’s most influential people, and USA Today named her among its 2025 Women of the Year. Her life story was filmed for HBO as Temple Grandin, starring Claire Danes; it won seven Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe. “They did a really good job of showing visual thinking accurately,” Grandin says.
Bradley Harms (Image courtesy of Bradley Harms)
ALUMNI ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Bradley Harms
Former Chief of Staff, White House Military Office
Colonel Bradley Harms, ’95 LAS, retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in June 2025 after a 30-year career of distinguished service, one that earned him numerous honors, including the Legion of Merit. He was the longest serving commander of Marine Helicopter Squadron One, flying as the nation’s 32nd presidential helicopter pilot. Harms also directed the Marine Corps’ largest aviation unit, leading more than 1,000 personnel to provide global helicopter transportation for President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., and other world leaders. As a pilot, he flew combat missions during Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Most recently, Harms oversaw White House military operations during the Biden administration, directing more than 4,100 personnel in support of the president, vice president, and first lady. His command included Air Force One, Marine Helicopter Squadron One, and Camp David, as well as communication, transportation, and medical and food services.
The task was “high stress and no-fail, but we had the right people and resources to make it happen.”
Harms believes military service instilled in him a strong code of personal ethics. “I’m a Marine, and we place a lot of value in our shared history and accomplishments,” he says. “Each of us bears a responsibility to the generations that have gone before to uphold standards.”
As an Illinois student, Harms received the national Navy ROTC Distinguished Naval Graduate Award. He is proud to be part of an Illini family succession that dates back to his grandfather, Dr. Alfred G. Harms, Sr., who taught at Illinois. Both his parents are Illini—his mother Mary L. Harms, ’71 LAS, and his father, Alfred G. “Al” Harms, Jr., ’71 LAS, who is a retired U.S. Navy vice admiral and received the Alumni Achievement Award in 2005.
Harms attributes his hometown as integral to who he has become, noting that Champaign-Urbana is his family’s “center of gravity. I get my values from here.”
Douglas Nelson (Image courtesy of UIAA)
DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARD
Douglas Nelson
Co-creator of the U. of I.’s Art of Science
Working with Gene Robinson, director of the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, Douglas Nelson created Art
of Science to showcase images of research as art. The initiative, now in its 15th year, melds aesthetic design with informative text to explain the science and convey its importance and application.
“My greatest passion is to shine a light in an understandable way on the work [being done] at the U. of I.,” Nelson says. He came to understand the power of this approach when he overheard a viewer remark, “They’re working on stuff that matters!” Nelson says, “That has been the goal all along—to draw people in through the art and then enlighten them through the science.”
Art of Science exhibitions have enlivened spaces across campus, including the Alice Campbell Alumni Center, Illini Union, and State Farm Center. Nationally, they have appeared at the National Institutes of Health Library, and the National Academies of Engineering, Medicine, and Science.
Science is central to Nelson’s work. In 1982, he founded BodyWork Associates in Champaign. There, he practices Precision Neuromuscular Therapy, a technique he developed to address musculoskeletal pain.
Tracy and Stephanie Campbell (Image courtesy of UIAA)
DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION AWARD
Tracy and Stephanie Campbell
Youth gymnastics program founders
Tracy Campbell, ’01 AHS, and Stephanie Campbell, ’77 LAS, are founders of KiDsGyM USA (KGU), a nonprofit that uses gymnastics to help children/youth develop healthy habits, school readiness skills, and the confidence to be positive role models in their school and community. KGU also enables kids to pursue competitive gymnastics, if they desire.
KGU’s athletes, formerly known as TopGun Tumblers, have performed at NBA, NCAA, and NFL sporting events, as well as at the White House, Walt Disney World, and the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games. In 2025, KGU received the “Good Troublemaker” Neighborhood grant from the John and Lillian Lewis Foundation.
KGU traces its origins and its rigor back to the U. of I. As a running back for the Fighting Illini football team, Tracy first became involved with gymnastics when he answered an ad to train with Men’s Gymnastics Head Coach Yoshi Hayasaki and learned the power of gymnastics for preschoolers. Coach Tracy taught Stephanie how to teach, and today they both train instructors from across the globe. To develop KGU’s evidence-based curriculum, the Campbells worked with the late Stafford L. Hood, PHD ’84 ED, founding director of the Center for Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Assessment.
Annie (Crawley) Keffler (Image courtesy of Annie Keffler)
ILLINI COMEBACK AWARD
Annie (Crawley) Keffler
Underwater filmmaker and author
Annie (Crawley) Keffler, ’90 MEDIA, a.k.a. “Ocean Annie,” is an underwater filmmaker, photojournalist, and author whose career spans more than three decades. A Chicago native, she has become a driving force for ocean literacy, exploration, and conservation through education and advocacy.
After discovering scuba diving after college, Keffler charted a bold course—becoming a Coast Guard captain, scuba instructor, and Women Divers Hall of Fame inductee.
Her award-winning books and films, such as Plastic Ahoy!, Planet Ocean, and Ocean Life From A to Z, have reached global audiences.
“I take big issues and break them down,” she says, and she works to fill her messages with “inspiration, hope, and love for the ocean.”
Keffler leads a youth scuba diving team in the Pacific Northwest, and she recently created ocean-themed visual compositions for symphonies with renowned composer Dr. Stella Sung that merge science, music, and art to spotlight pollution. Keffler’s latest documentary, The Island of the Shark: Guardians of Malpelo, documents illegal fishing in Colombia.
Keffler stresses the need to act urgently when it comes to maintaining our life-sustaining waters. “The ocean will recycle itself in 1 million years, so [it] will be fine without us,” she says. “We, however, will not be fine without the ocean.”
Paul Rudolph (Image by Katherine Marks)
ILLINI COMEBACK AWARD
Paul Rudolph
The Muppets’ music man
Paul Rudolph, ’89 FAA, is a music director, composer, and instrument builder. Since 2008, the Normal, Ill., native has been the vocal arranger and music director for Sesame Street, where he received Emmy nominations for music direction in 2009 and 2013, and won three consecutive Emmys for sound editing from 2016 to 2018.
Rudolph’s percussion performance art group, GLANK, has been entertaining audiences since 2002. The group takes its name from a percussive piece that he wrote and first performed in the Krannert Center parking garage, in order to take advantage of the structure’s amazing echo. “We ‘played’ on the parking signs, heating grates, and pipes,” he says. Rudolph even had a fellow musician drive into the garage, get out of a car, plug into an amp, play one note on a guitar, and then drive off.
Rudolph eventually joined Muppets Tonight as its assistant music director, where he met his wife, Leslie Carrara-Rudolph (Sesame Street’s Abby Cadabby). The couple have co-produced a CD for Carrara’s children’s play, Wake Up Your Weird.
Louis Margaglione (Image courtesy of Louis Margaglione)
LOU LIAY SPIRIT AWARD
Louis Margaglione
U. of I. booster, volunteer, and committee chair
Louis Margaglione, ’92 FAA, turned an interest and education in the arts into a rewarding career in … banking. To explain this disconnect, he quotes Oscar Wilde: “When bankers get together for dinner, they talk about the arts. When artists get together for dinner, they talk about money!”
Margaglione—whose 23-year banking career began at Bank of America and ended with Bank of Montréal—notes that “people like to have bankers on committees.” He has chaired the Chicago Illini of the Year Award selection committee and the Urbana Campus Alumni Advisory Board; served on the Dept. of Intercollegiate Athletics Board; and sat on the UI System Advocacy Committee. He is a returning alumni fellow at the Cline Center for Advanced Social Research, and for the University of Illinois Alumni Association, he served on its Board of Directors and chaired its Audit Committee.
When looking at schools, Margaglione recalls coming back from a trip to a university with a beautiful campus. “I told Dad about it,” he says. “I’ll never forget his response: ‘Some universities have beautiful campuses. But a university is not a collection of great buildings. It’s a collection of great minds.’”
A Fighting Illini booster, Margaglione co-founded the Illini Guardians, which helps U. of I. athletes harness possibilities created by Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) legislation. In its first year, the Illini Guardians entered into NIL contracts with more than 170 athletes across every varsity program, and in 2022, it funded 100 student athletes to take a day off from social media in support of mental health awareness. The Illini Guardians were the first such organization to provide NIL funds in return for service in the community and the first to find ways for international students to participate in NIL opportunities.
Margaglione also serves as director and development chair of the U.S. Treasury Historical Association in Washington, D.C., and directs the Campaign for Alexander Hamilton’s Treasury. Not coincidentally, he also owns Bookster Tweed, a tailoring company in England. “While generally understated, bankers are kind of peacocks,” he says.
Of the former UIAA executive director and lifelong family friend whose name adorns this honor, Margaglione says: “I don’t think I’ve been to an Illinois basketball game in the last 20 years where I didn’t see Lou Liay in the stands. There must be three of him!”
Adham Sahloul (Image courtesy of Adham Sahloul)
YOUNG ALUMNUS AWARD
Adham Sahloul
Foreign-policy advisor and U.S. Navy officer
As Adham Sahloul, ’15 LAS, began his freshman year at Illinois, civil war broke out in Syria. “To a son of Syrian immigrants studying political science, the distance between international relations theory in the classroom and what was going on in the world was palpable,” he says.
After graduation, he moved to southern Turkey to serve as an advocacy advisor. There, he addressed civilian protection issues. He next joined the Atlantic Council think tank, where he researched Middle Eastern human rights and transatlantic affairs.
Sahloul also volunteered as a foreign-policy advisor for Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 presidential bid, and he advised the Biden-Harris campaign. In addition, he served as a presidential appointee in the Biden Administration at the Pentagon, and he worked on China policy at USAID. He now serves as an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a bipartisan defense policy think tank.
As an intelligence officer for the U.S. Navy Reserve, Sahloul was deployed during the 2024 Red Sea crisis.
