Saluting outstanding alumni achievement
Living the objectives of our Alma Mater
Distinguished Alumni Award
The Distinguished Alumni Award is the highest honor The Pennsylvania State University bestows upon an outstanding alumnus/a. The award salutes the achievements of outstanding alumni whose “personal lives, professional achievements, and community service exemplify the objectives of their Alma Mater.”
2020 Recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award
James P. Bradley, M.D. has been honored with the 2020 Distinguished Alumni Award, to be presented in 2021. Bradley is an orthopedic surgeon with Burke and Bradley Orthopedic Associates, UPMC Health System; and the director of Sports Medicine for UPMC—St. Margaret Memorial Hospital. He is one of the few physicians in his field to have held the office of president for the American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine, the National Football League Physicians Society, and the prestigious Herodicus Society.
Bradley graduated from Penn State with a bachelor’s degree in science in 1975. He was a highly recruited football star and was named the team’s co-captain in the 1974/1975 season. After graduation, he quickly realized he could do more for sports and the game he loved by becoming an orthopedic surgeon.
Bradley completed his medical school training at Georgetown University School of Medicine and completed residency program for Orthopedic Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He then completed a sports medicine fellowship at the renowned Kerlan-Jobe Orthopedic Clinic in Los Angeles.
As of 2020, Bradley has been the head team orthopedic surgeon of the Pittsburgh Steelers for 29 years. He also served 15 years as the chairman of the National Football League’s Medical Research Peer Review Committee and 25 years on the NFL Injury and Safety Panel Committee. In 2014, Bradley was honored with the Jerry Hawk Rhea Award from the NFL for being a dedicated and outstanding NFL team physician.
An educator and innovator, he has contributed advancements in surgical techniques and patents for medical devices. Bradley continues to support sports medicine education and research currently, as a clinical professor of orthopedic surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. In this position, he encourages and mentors orthopedic surgeons in their fellowships, imparting valuable medical knowledge, experience, and surgical techniques.
Bradley was awarded the Arthur C. Rettig Award for excellence in academic research by the National Football League Physicians Society in 2019. He was named to the Castle Connolly America’s Top Doctors of 2019; “Becker’s Spine Review: 65 Orthopedic Surgeons recommended by Orthopedic Surgeons” in 2017; Orthopedics This Week’s “16 Standout North American Sports Knee Surgeons: 2016”; Orthopedics This Week “20 of the Top North American Shoulder Surgeons: 2015”; and Becker’s Spine Review’s “Top 55 surgeons in the country” in 2015.
Previous Eberly Distinguished Alumni Award Recipients
2019
Christopher Wolfgang
2018
Barbara Howell Raphael
2017
Richard Silverman
2014
Stephen Mayo
Nicholas Pelick
2013
Alan Bedrick
2011
Sara Campbell Rockwell
2009
LTG George Trautman III
2007
Eric Prystowsky
2005
Alan Schriesheim
2004
Edward Frymoyer
Stuart Seides
2002
Monica Morrow
1999
Duane Alexander
Robert Fortinsky
Joseph Miller
1998
Albert Kligman
1997
James Balog
1996
Gordon Fee
1995
Judith Loftin Davenport
William Perry
1994
T. Ming Chu
1993
J. Lloyd Huck
1992
David Joyner
1991
Harold O'Connor, Jr.
1989
Gary Lyons
Raymond Shibley
1984
Frank Luerssen
1983
Henry Yeagley
Murray Schwartz
1981
Roscoe Brady
LTGN William Brown, Jr.
Robert Elmore
1980
Peter Danos
Kenneth Weston
1979
George Cressman
1978
John Chemerda
Joseph Kriss
James Robinson
Gerald Romig
1977
John McLucas
1976
James Giacobine
1975
J. Edwin Matz
Charles Overberger
1972
Robert Eberly
1971
Paul Doty
M.Gen (Ret.) Walter Tkach
1967
Katharine Boucot Sturgis
1966
Florence Powdermaker
1965
Mary Willard
1964
David Osborne
1959
George Haller
1958
Harold Erskine
Marlin Geiger
1957
Samuel Hinkle
1955
William Decker
1954
Robert Ostermayer
Arthur Shoffstall