KENT, Ohio (April 19, 2018)--Dr. Richard Detsch, chief knowledge officer and senior program analyst with the U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory in Hanover, New Hampshire, was presented Kent State University’s Thomas J. Froehlich Award at their annual Celebration of Alumni and Student Success event in Kent, Ohio, April 19.
Detsch is a graduate of Kent State University having received a master’s in information architecture and knowledge management in 2017. He joined CRREL in 1994 as chief of the Geophysical Sciences Branch, and in 2005, he joined the Office of the Technical Director as the chief knowledge and senior program analyst. The position was later moved to CRREL’s Management Integration Office, when the U.S. Engineer Research and Development Center’s knowledge management function began to be managed by the deputy directors.
The Thomas J. Froehlich Award is presented annually by the university to students who demonstrate academic excellence and promise for leadership in the field of information architecture and knowledge management.
The award’s namesake, while currently retired, continues to be active in research, and recently created a fake news course, which is now offered at the university. A pioneer in the ethics of library science, he was responsible for the establishment of the Information Architecture and Knowledge Management program approximately 20 years ago. The program recently reorganized into the School of Information and has the most graduate students of any program at Kent.
“I’m especially thankful for the award because it has led to an offer by Kent State to teach ‘Knowledge Management’ and ‘Knowledge Organizational Systems’ courses to students in Health Informatics,” said Detsch. “I’m also hopeful that it will facilitate my doing research in health informatics – allowing me to combine my degree in information architecture and knowledge management with my experiences in biomedical physics.”