Entrepreneur, Robert W. Naismith to Speak at ESU’s Undergraduate Commencement Ceremonies

Alumnus Robert W. Naismith, Ph.D. ’66 will be the keynote speaker for East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania’s two undergraduate commencement ceremonies on Saturday, May 6 in Koehler Fieldhouse.

Dr. Naismith currently serves as Chairman of JUJAMA, Inc. a company that provides customizable mobile and web applications for conferences and meetings. Naismith began his career as a tenured professor at The Pennsylvania State University. Among his notable accomplishments while an academic was the founding of Pennarama, the predecessor to the Pennsylvania Cable Network (PCN).

In 1979 he left academia to begin a series of entrepreneurial endeavors including Pharmakon Research International, Inc., a major international preclinical contract research organization; and Biofor, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, for which he served as president and chief executive officer until 1995. Naismith served as chairman and director of the MicroCap Fund and managing director of Healthcare at Bluestone Capital Partners in New York, and in 1999 he founded Emedsecurities, an investment bank serving the life-science industry. Naismith serves as a director of Peoples Security Bank and the Life Sciences Greenhouse of Central PA; a member of the scientific advisory board of Queen Mary’s William Harvey Research Institute in London; vice chairman of the International Advisory Board of BioAsia (India); and a member of the Kania School of Management’s Advisory Board at the University of Scranton. In addition, Naismith is a founding member and past chairman of the board of the Commonwealth Medical College before it merged with Geisinger Health Systems. He currently sits on their advisory board. Previously he was an expert member of the Society of Toxicology, adjunct associate professor in the School of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University, professor at The Pennsylvania State University, and professor at The University of Scranton. He currently serves as professor of clinical sciences at The Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine. Naismith earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from East Stroudsburg University and holds a Ph.D. in genetics from the Pennsylvania State University.

He has received numerous awards including the Charles M. Bost, MD Award, The John Vane Medal, the Medical Education Development Consortium Medal, Recognition Award from the Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education, The Association of Asian Biotech Associations Award, and The Founders Citation from the Genetic Toxicology Association. He  was recently named an honorary member of Beta Gamma Sigma and is a member of several honor societies including Phi Kappa Phi, Phi Sigma, Phi Epsilon Phi, and Sigma Xi. Naismith is a 32° Mason and a member of the Scottish Rite.

The ceremony awarding bachelor’s degrees from ESU’s college of arts and sciences, college of education and university college will begin at 8:45 a.m. The ceremony awarding bachelor’s degrees from ESU’s college of business and management and college of health sciences will begin at 1:15 p.m.

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