The Askwith Professorship Story

Dr Charles Parkos, Chair of the Pathology Department, Dr James Baker Jr., founding Director of the Mary H. Weiser Food Allergy Center, Dr Simon Hogan, recipient of the Askwith Professorship and Kathy Franklin, daughter of Bert Askwith.

Dr Simon Hogan with Kathy Franklin, daughter of Bert Askwith.

Carol Bradford, who was the Executive Vice Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of Michigan presenting Dr Simon Hogan with his medal.

Bertram (Bert) J. Askwith was a longtime friend of the University of Michigan, offering generous support to multiple areas at the university. Born on March 2, 1911, in Battle Creek, he chose U-M for his higher education. Once the Great Depression hit, he and his fellow students from New York could no longer afford a train ticket home. In a flash of solution-oriented innovation, Mr. Askwith rented a bus from Greyhound and sold tickets for the ride. These were much less expensive than a train ticket and secured him a free ride home while making a profit. With that, Mr. Askwith’s business, Campus Coach Lines, began. Initially housed in the Michigan Union, the business covered Mr. Askwith’s U-M costs during the Great Depression and set him on a lifelong professional path to success. He graduated in 1931, and though he shifted his business to New York City after graduation, he never forgot its humble beginnings.

“I feel like Michigan gave me a lot,” Mr. Askwith once said. “They gave me a great start in life. The least I could do is show some gratitude.” And so he has. Mr. Askwith served as vice chair of the university’s Michigan Difference Campaign (2000-2008). During this time, inspired by his grandson — who lives with a severe food allergy — he created the Askwith Fund for Innovation in Asthma and Allergy Management in the Center for Managing Chronic Disease at the U-M School of Public Health. The fund provides flexible resources to create and test innovative solutions to asthma and allergy management. Mr. Askwith went on to make additional contributions in this area, including significant contributions in 2014 and 2015 to establish the Askwith Food Allergy Fund in the Mary H. Weiser Food Allergy Center. And today we celebrate the inauguration of the Askwith Research Professorship in Food Allergy.

Many of Mr. Askwith’s gifts have supported opportunities for engaged learning, cultural enrichment, and an enhanced quality of life for students. He was a generous supporter of the Livingston Awards for Young Journalists, administered by the U-M, and he created the Mary Sue Coleman Endowed Fund for the Raoul Wallenberg Fellowship, named for the Swedish diplomat credited with saving 100,000 lives during the Holocaust.

An original thinker, Mr. Askwith brought creative ideas and enormous energy to his work with the university, whether he was finding a way for students to get home from campus in 1928 or figuring out how to extend the legacy of great U-M alumni such as Wallenberg, into the 21st century and beyond. His impact will be felt for generations to come. “Bert’s generosity is evident throughout the university and beyond,” says Mary Weiser, advocate and former volunteer fundraising chair for the Food Allergy Center. “I wish that Bert was here in person to see this vision become a reality, but I know that he is here in spirit, through his family and in name through the Askwith Research Professorship in Food Allergy.” Bert Askwith passed away on June 1, 2015. He was 104. Given the remarkable influence he had through compassion, ingenuity and philanthropy, he was posthumously appointed to the Victors for Michigan campaign steering committee — the most successful fundraising effort in the history of the University of Michigan.

Simon Hogan, Ph.D.

Simon Hogan, Ph.D. — a native of Leeton, New South Wales, Australia — journeyed halfway across the globe three times on his path to join the University of Michigan Department of Pathology in April 2018. Dr. Hogan completed his Ph.D. at the John Curtin School of Medical Research at the Australian National University in Canberra, where he originally focused on understanding immunological processes that underlie allergic airways diseases.

He found himself at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center for his postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Allergy, Immunology, and Pulmonary medicine. During this time, he recognized the increasing incidence of allergic diseases of the GI tract, the need for investigation into understanding disease, and that there were no existing model systems to study the diseases. He returned to Canberra as a fellow in the Allergy and Inflammation Research Group in the Division of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, becoming the head of the Gastrointestinal Research Laboratory in 2003. In 2004, Hogan was recruited back to the University of Cincinnati as an assistant professor of pediatrics in the Division of Allergy and Immunology to develop a program in food allergy. He was promoted to associate professor in 2009.

Dr. Hogan was drawn to the University of Michigan because of the number of strong investigators in the field of mucosal immunology and food allergy combined with the great collaborative and interactive environment.

“I am a firm believer in team science,” says Dr. Hogan. “And the number of talented investigators interested in food allergy was an important draw for me.”

He adds, “What is most striking for me in this day and age is that, with all of our advancements in science and technology, there is no FDA approved drug for food allergy. That presents the opportunity for my lab to contribute to the prevention of this disease and the development of therapeutic interventions.”

“Tackling food allergy can be daunting for anyone,” says James R. Baker Jr., M.D., director of the Mary H. Weiser Food Allergy Center, who — along with Charles Parkos, M.D., Ph.D., the Carl Vernon Weller Professor of Pathology and chair of the Department of Pathology — recruited Dr. Hogan to U-M. “Simon has the passion, determination and skill that will move us closer to the answers we seek. We are excited about the future with him on board and the hope his work will give to our patients and families.”

It is Dr. Hogan’s skill that has captured the attention of renowned leaders in food allergy around the world, but his compassion is what motivates him to keep momentum. “I listen to these families and the challenges that both the parents and children face — the stress of accidental exposure, lack of immediate care accessibility, anxiety about things we may take for granted, like going away to camp,” he says. “Having no drug to help them is unacceptable.”

Outside of his laboratory, Dr. Hogan enjoys an active lifestyle filled with mountain biking, running, and horseback riding on his ranch in Whitmore Lake with his wife, Courtney Wilkens, a teacher. On being chosen as the inaugural holder of the Askwith Research Professorship in Food Allergy, he says, “I have read Mr. Askwith’s beautiful story. He didn’t get caught up in the noise and minutia of problems, he just focused on the solutions. I can appreciate that and am privileged to be the first recipient of this professorship in his honor.”