(Posted May 31, 2005)

HUNTINGDON, Pa. -- Two Juniata College faculty members who retired at the end of the 2004-2005 academic year were honored recently at the faculty retirement dinner, April 22. The retirees are: Alexander McBride, professor of art and Ei-Ichiro Ochiai, H. George Foster Professor of Chemistry.

Alexander McBride, a Boalsburg, Pa. resident, started his career at Juniata in 1970. He received his undergraduate education at Rhode Island School of Design, graduating in 1962. He received his master of fine arts degree from Cornell University in 1964.

As an artist, McBride considers himself an abstract expressionist and his work is in the permanent collections of Pepsico Headquarters in Purchase, N.Y. and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles, Calif. McBride also has taught at such institutions as the Rhode Island School of Design, Nathaniel Hawthorne College and Green Mountain College.

Throughout his career he has made it a point to continue to learn new techniques and technologies. He served as guest artist and lecturers at schools in China, Great Britain and Germany. He has continued his education at New York's School of Visual Art and the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. He also teaches the college's computer art and digital photography courses at Juniata. For the past several years he has taken students to England for a summer art photography course.

McBride, who received the 2002 Beachley Award for Distinguished Teaching from the college, has had numerous one-person exhibitions and has been included in many group art exhibits, including shows at the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, The Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, the Three Rivers Art Festival, Penn State University main campus, Wilkes College and the Pamlemousse Gallery in Chicago.

McBride was promoted to associate professor in 1978 and was named full professor in 1986. He served as chairman of the art department from 1970 to 1986.
Ei-Ichiro Ochiai joined the Juniata College faculty in 1981 as an associate professor. Before coming to Juniata, he was a visiting scholar at the University of Maryland from 1980 to 1981, and an instructor at the University of British Columbia from 1971 to 1980.

Ochiai earned a bachelor's degree in engineering in 1959, and a master's degree in 1961 and a doctorate in 1964, both in chemistry, and all from the University of Tokyo. He started his academic career as an instructor at the University of Tokyo from 1964 to 1969. He came to the United States in 1966 as a postdoctoral researcher at Ohio State University. In 1969 he was a teaching postdoctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia.

His research interests center on bioinorganic chemistry and he has published four books on the subject, including "Bioinorganic Chemistry: An Introduction," "General Principles of Biochemistry of the Elements," both considered standard works in the field. He also is interested in researching "nonlinear dynamics," which centers on the bioinorganic aspects of the origin and evolution of life. In particular, he is interested in the formation of patterns or order in biological systems.

During his Juniata career, Ochiai has taught as a visiting professor at the University of Umea in Sweden and the University of Toronto. He is a member of the American Chemical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Ochiai's wife, Katsuko, who has served as Juniata's instructor in piano in the music department, will retire at the same time as her husband.

Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.