UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Three longtime Penn State champions and benefactors were recognized by the Penn State Alumni Association with the 2026 Honorary Alumni Award at a celebratory event on Friday, June 12, at the Hintz Family Alumni Center.
Since 1973, the Alumni Association has presented the award to honor people who, while not graduates of Penn State, have made significant contributions to the University’s welfare, reputation or prestige. Since the Honorary Alumni Award was established, more than 100 individuals have been given honorary alumni status.
The 2026 recipients are listed below. Visit the Alumni Association’s Honorary Alumni page for more information about the recipients’ accomplishments and contributions to Penn State.
Jainendra K. Jain is Evan Pugh University Professor and Eberly Family Chair in Physics in the Penn State Eberly College of Science, and the director of the Penn State Center for Theory of Emergent Quantum Matter. He is a theoretical physicist with interests in the area of strongly interacting electronic systems in low dimensions. He is best known for predicting a new class of particles that he named composite fermions, and for explaining the phenomenon of the fractional quantum Hall effect as the integral quantum Hall effect of composite fermions. In 2025 he was awarded the Wolf Prize in Physics, one of the highest honors in the world of science. In 2026 he was selected as the founding director of the Lodha Theoretical Physics Institute, established by the Lodha Foundation, a leading philanthropic organization in India.
Michele “Mitch” Kirsch retired as associate dean for student affairs in the Penn State Schreyer Honors College, a role she held from 2005 through 2019. She oversaw student life, marketing, admissions, financial aid and operational functions, with a consistent focus on elevating the student experience. Kirsch previously worked as director of MBA admissions in the Smeal College of Business and as assistant director of admissions and customer service for Undergraduate Admissions. She and her husband, Rod — a 2013 honorary Penn State alumnus — have supported many areas of the University, including the Schreyer Honors College, Counseling and Psychological Services, Blue Band, Athletics, THON and more. She also helped to establish the Schreyer Scholar Involvement Award and was recognized with the naming of the Dr. Michele “Mitch” Kirsch Fund in Support of Health and Wellness Initiatives in the Schreyer Honors College.
Ted H. McCourtney is a general partner of Saw Mill Partners, a private investment partnership in Katonah, New York. He previously served as managing general partner of Venrock Associates, a venture capital firm that manages investments for the Rockefeller family and other limited partners. McCourtney’s wife, Tracy Winfree McCourtney, is a 1965 graduate of Penn State, where she and Ted serve on the President’s Council. In addition to supporting Penn State’s McCourtney Institute for Democracy, the McCourtneys have supported undergraduate scholarships that have helped more than 350 liberal arts students; fellowships and scholarships for graduate students in social sciences and humanities; and faculty professorships in psychology, sociology and American history.
About the Penn State Alumni Association
For more than 150 years, the Penn State Alumni Association has provided alumni with a strong and welcoming community representative of the Penn Staters it proudly serves. The association keeps alumni connected to the University and to each other, while upholding Penn State traditions and supporting the University’s mission of teaching, research and service. The association also produces the award-winning Penn Stater magazine and other publications, and offers alumni and friends volunteer opportunities, educational programming and many other services. For more information about the Alumni Association, visit alumni.psu.edu.