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NAMES AND FACES

CHEERS

In-Ju Sturgeon recently received the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) Los Angeles Fellow Award, which recognizes designers and other major figures in the graphic-design industry who have made a significant contribution to raising the standards of excellence in their local design community and AIGA chapter. As director of creative marketing services for UCLA Extension, Sturgeon promotes UCLA’s continuing-education programs through design. She developed the award-winning Masters of Graphic Design catalog cover series.... Joseph K. Perloff, Streisand/American Heart Association Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics emeritus at the David Geffen School of Medicine, was presented with the 2005 Medical Honoree Award at Camp del Corazon’s 2nd Annual Gala del Sol event April 9 at Universal Studios. Perloff was honored as the founder of a new cardiac subspecialty: congenital heart disease in the adult. He established the Ahmanson/UCLA Adult Congenital Heart Disease Center in 1980.... Julie R. Korenberg, professor of human genetics and pediatrics at the Geffen School of Medicine and holder of the Geri and Richard Brawerman Endowed Chair in Molecular Genetics at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, was inducted into the University of Miami’s School of Medicine Hall of Fame. Inductees must have graduated from UM’s Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine at least 10 years ago and achieved national recognition for outstanding contributions to the medical profession or to society.... Computer Science Professor Leonard Kleinrock will receive an honorary laureate degree from the University of Bologna in Italy, the oldest university in the Western world. Kleinrock will become a Doctor of Internet Science at graduation ceremonies in May.... On May 15, Margaret L. Stuber, professor of psychiatry and biobehaviorial sciences at NPI, will receive an honorary doctorate of science from her alma mater, Denison University in Granville, Ohio. She will be honored for her contributions to medical education and to the care of families dealing with life-threatening pediatric illnesses. Her research examines post-traumatic stress responses to pediatric cancer and organ transplantation.

IN MEMORIAM

Samuel Krachmalnick, 79, former director of the UCLA Symphony and Opera Workshop, died of a heart attack on April 1 in Burbank, Calif. He was also a Tony Award-nominated Broadway conductor. After five years at the University of Washington in Seattle, Krachnmalnick joined the UCLA music faculty in 1976 and helped shift its emphasis from training music teachers to developing performers. His directed concerts, operas and other musical productions of the UCLA Symphony and Opera Workshop until his retirement in 1991.

"It's a joy watching them grow," Krachmalnick told The Times in 1978, explaining why he switched to academe from the lofty circles of Broadway, the American Ballet Theater and the New York City Opera. "They're like plants you tend and water and worry over. So some of them don't bloom; so some of them do. The percentages are pretty much the same as in the outside world."

Krachmalnick also led student groups in productions os such musical revivals as "Leave it to Jane" and "The Boys from Syracuse."

After having studied piano, French horn and music theory in Rochester, N.Y., and conducting at Juilliard in New York City, he won the inaugural Koussevitzky Memorial Prize in conducting at Tanglewood where he studied with Leonard Bernstein in 1954. Three years later, he earned his Tony nomination as musical director of Bernstein's Broadway musical production of the French classic "Candide."

He worked with ballet and opera orchestras, and had stints as musical director for various theater, arts, and ballet groups. He also did extensive work in television. He ended his UCLA tenure with an acclaimed performance of the signature score of "Candide," of which he prided himself on conducting.

Richard H. Popkin, a professor emeritus of philosophy who became an expert on skepticism and its history through the centuries, died April 14 of natural causes. He was 81.

Popkin died Thursday in Santa Monica of natural causes, said his son, Jeremy, of Lexington, Ky. He had suffered from emphysema, which caused him to use a wheelchair.

Popkin, despite limited vision, had been working on a book about the 16th century Rabbi Isaac of Troki, his son said. He attracted mainstream readers with such books as his 1966 "The Second Oswald: The case for a Conspiracy Theory," about the John F. Kennedy assassination. In the book, Popkin strongly challenged the finding of the Warren Commission that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone in fatally shooting the presiden during a 1963 motorcade in Dallas.

Popkin also earned widespread attention for the 1998 book he co-wrote with David S. Katz, "Messianic Revolution," about radical religious politics at the millennium. He was also an internationally known expert on the interaction throughout history of Jewish and Christian philosophy and theology and examined millennial clues from the Bible and other religious writing pointing toward an apocalypse and "rapture," or ascent to heaven after 1,000 years.

Born Dec. 27, 1923, in New York City, Popkin earned bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in philosophy from Columbia University. In addition to UCLA, he taught at the Universities of Connecticut and Iowa, Washington University in St. Louis, Harvey Mudd College in Claremont and UC San Diego, where in 1965 he was founding chairman of its philosophy department.

In addition to his son, Popkin is survived by his wife, Juliet, of Pacific Palisades; two daughters, and five grandchildren.

Lawrence B. Robinson, 85, professor emeritus of chemical engineering at the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, died March 21 of natural causes at his home in Los Angeles.

An expert in thermodynamics and energy conservation devices, Robinson became a member of the UCLA engineering faculty in 1960 as an associate professor. He taught a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses in thermodynamics, nuclear reactor engineering, properties of materials and chemical physics, among other topics.

He later served as vice chairman and acting chairman of the chemical engineering department and as associate dean of the school. He retired in 1990.

Born in Tappahannock, Va., Robinson received his bachelor's degree in mathematics from Virginia Union University and his master's degree and doctorate at Harvard.

He taught at Howard University and Brooklyn College and spent several years working in private industry before joining the UCLA faculty.