Don Pophal and Christian Waldschmidt to receive 2025 Davis Awards

A faculty member who uses his business background of seeing technology go from concept to production and a graduating engineering student who enjoys helping others and wants to develop medical devices have been named this year’s RIT Alfred Davis Award winners.

Don Pophal, a senior lecturer and lead guide in the Multidisciplinary Senior Design Capstone Program in the Kate Gleason College of Engineering, will receive the 2025  Four Presidents Distinguished Public Service Award. Christian Waldschmidt, a fifth-year biomedical engineering major with a mechanical engineering minor, will receive the Bruce R. James ’64 Distinguished Service Award.

They will be recognized at a ceremony at 4 p.m. April 8 in RIT’s University Gallery, followed by a reception at 5 p.m. The ceremony is free and open to all.

A native of Williamsport, Pa., Pophal held various leadership positions at Eastman Kodak Company from 1981 to 2006, helping oversee more than a billion dollars in digital imaging technology revenue generation go from the research lab to commercialization.

He received a degree in 1982 from RIT in photographic sciences and instrumentation and taught part time at RIT in the 1980s.

In 2018, Pophal returned to RIT as an adjunct professor to teach students in multiple fields, including serving as an innovation coach in the Simone Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and was soon hired full-time.

“I wanted to put a capstone on my career and come back to RIT to teach,” Pophal said. “I can have more of an impact working with young people and teaching them how to solve problems. I try not to tell them what to think, I want to teach them how to think, how to solve problems. These young persons at RIT now are our futures. We really need them right now.”

Pophal mainly works with fifth-year students who will graduate after their capstone projects. He calls them “phenomenally smart. I have no concern about their technical skills, but what I like to do is teach them how to work within a team, and the use of best practices on how to commercialize these new products. These new minds are untethered, and they are way smarter than we are. They come out with solutions we would never have thought of.”

Pophal served on the board of directors for the former Lakeside Health Systems in Brockport, N.Y., until 2008. In the town of Sweden, where he lives, he was asked to work with the town’s attorney to help write laws on solar power, battery storage, and wind farms.

The Davis Award comes with $2,500 which will be donated to a charity of the recipient’s choice. Pophal says the donation will go to the Seymour Library in Brockport, where he serves on the board of trustees and is chairman of facilities, overseeing an extensive internal remodeling.

In his spare time, Pophal enjoys camping and taking his recreation vehicle along the east coast, particularly to his native Pennsylvania. He lives with Mary Ellen Warner, his partner for more than 20 years, and their two dogs, Emma, a golden retriever, and Gabby, a Yorkshire terrier.

Helping others and the community

Christian Waldschmidt thought he’d like to be an engineer when he was a youngster growing up in the Pittsburgh suburb of Allison Park, Pa.
“I always liked playing with Legos and anytime my dad was fixing things in the garage, I would see if I could help,” he said. “In high school, I liked physics and math and realized engineering was right for me.”

His focus turned to biomedical engineering after working in a pharmacy when he was in high school. While at RIT, he completed a co-op with Thermo Fisher, a Rochester-area company that designs medical equipment and pharmaceutical devices. After graduation in May, he’ll work at a co-op at a medical manufacturer in Pittsburgh which he hopes will lead to a full-time job there.

“I like helping people,” Waldschmidt said. “I feel that applying my skillset may help improve lives and even save lives. There’s a big need in the health care industry right now to be more efficient.”

He has volunteered countless hours on many projects to help others on and off campus, yet he said he feels a bit dumbfounded winning this award because he knows there are so many other students who also volunteer in the community.

He’s nailed wooden frames with other RIT students during the annual Framing Frenzy event for Habitat for Humanity, and often spent weekends as a building supervisor overseeing student efforts on-site in Batavia, N.Y. where Habitat homes were being erected.

Along with his award comes $1,000 to designate to a charity of his choice.

“I’m very glad I get to send money to Habitat for Humanity because I worked for them since freshman year. They helped me grow as a person and it makes me happy that I can help them,” he said.

Maintaining a 3.76 GPA and being a member of RIT’s Biomedical Engineering Society, he enjoys being active, “nerdy,” playing board games, hiking, playing soccer, disc golf, and working with his 3D printer.

“My first semester at RIT, I wanted to join everything,” he said. “There were just so many opportunities that were presented. That was really helpful for me and my time while at RIT, the people I’ve met and the relationships I’ve made have driven me to be the person I am now.”

He’s a member of Pi Kappa Phi and Phi Sigma Pi fraternities and helped raise more than $1,000 for the American Cancer Society during RIT’s Relay for Life. He also helped organize an RIT campus cleanup as well as a series of cleanups at an area Buddhist temple, and helped coordinate student volunteer efforts with residents of St. John’s nursing home in Rochester.

And Waldschmidt spent a winter break with other RIT biomedical engineering students volunteering at a hospital in Guatemala to repair 58 medical devices, including monitors, ventilators, and infant incubators.

“I grew up with a mindset of helping others,” he said. “My parents always felt showing kindness was a good virtue. I really want to show that if you lead by example, that will spread and help others share kindness as well.”

About the awards:

The Four Presidents Distinguished Public Service Award Fund was created in 2003 by RIT Vice President Emeritus Alfred L. Davis on the occasion of the 65th year of his association with RIT, to commemorate the dedication of the four RIT presidents - Mark Ellingson, Paul Miller, M. Richard Rose, and Albert Simone - with whom he worked, in their service to the Rochester community. The award also recognizes a current member of the faculty or staff who, through his/her public service, mirrors the lives of the four presidents, who have been not only outstanding professionals but also caring members of the community. In 2005 Davis established a companion student award to commemorate the outstanding service of RIT trustee Bruce R. James.

The Bruce R. James ’64 Distinguished Public Service Award commemorates the public service of Bruce James, chairman emeritus of the RIT Board of Trustees recognizes an RIT student for exemplary public service in the community with hopes other students will engage in public service.