Burt Adelman

Burt Adelman, M.D., and Thomas F. Huff, Ph.D., met as medical faculty members in the 1980s and remained close friends until Huff’s death in 2015. That same year, Adelman and his wife, Lydia Rogers, contributed $72,000 of the initial $100,000 in gifts that established the Thomas F. Huff Graduate Scholarship in Integrative Life Sciences to honor the memory of their friend, who was named the inaugural vice provost for life sciences and research at VCU in 2001.

“Tom was wonderfully smart, and he was enthusiastic in his fascination with all things intellectual,” Adelman says. “He loved the adventure of science. His passion was in making all avenues of scientific investigation available to students, and he was so excited about his role in establishing the Rice Rivers Center. Knowing how important it had been to Tom, it was a pleasure for Lydia and I to be able to provide some funding for graduate students in his memory.”

Scholarship recipients have gone on to pursue careers that seek answers to some of the world’s most important questions that affect our environment and our planet. Knowing that the Huff scholarship is advancing the work of rising climate-change scientists, for example, gives Adelman hope for the future, he says.

“The Rice Rivers Center is providing learning and training opportunities to young scientists who will actively participate in solving these problems,” Adelman says. “Thanks to Tom, we’ve had the opportunity to make a small contribution to a meaningful effort to train scientists who will be involved in climate-related research that will impact the future of all of our lives.”