Carmella Dixon, Classical Studies

Carmella Ulissi Dixon, an administrative assistant in the department of classical studies from 1971 to 1996, died of congestive heart failure on February 25 at the Samaritan Hospice Inpatient Center in Mount Holly, New Jersey. Mrs. Dixon, a Moorestown resident, was 87 years old.

In 1971, Mrs. Dixon began working as an administrative assistant in the department of classical studies at Penn. In the 1990s, she became an administrative assistant in the graduate programs in ancient history and in the art and archaeology of the Mediterranean world.

Mrs. Dixon and her late husband, Jay, gave lectures on Abraham Lincoln and tours of Civil War battlefields with Penn faculty and students.

Mrs. Dixon is survived by her son, Lawrence; her daughter, Anne Ehly; two sisters and one brother.

Donations may be made in Mrs. Dixon’s memory to Samaritan Healthcare & Hospice, 5 Eves Drive, Marlton, NJ 08053.

Chuan-Kuo Lee, Physics

Chuan-Kuo Lee, Penn alumnus and former researcher in the department of physics, died on February 21 at Christiana Hospital in Delaware. He was 78 years old.

Dr. Lee was born in Tsingdao, Shandong Province, China. After completing his bachelor’s degree in physics at the National Taiwan University, he enrolled in the graduate physics program at Penn and received a PhD in 1970.
In 1974, Dr. Lee returned to Penn and joined the solar neutrino detection experiment that had recently begun at the Homestake Gold Mine in Lead, South Dakota. The goal was to experimentally verify that the source of the sun’s energy was a nuclear fusion reactor operating in its center. The signal was the flux of neutrinos, the neutral twin of the electron, emitted during the fusion of four protons into a helium nucleus. This experiment achieved three goals: it was the first to detect neutrinos from an astronomical source, the beginning of neutrino astronomy; it verified that the sun is a fusion reactor; and it showed that two-thirds of the neutrinos generated in the sun change into other particles on their way to the earth. This last observation was completely unexpected and opened a new area of scientific research that continues to be probed.

The fundamental importance of this experiment was recognized by the awarding of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physics to the senior member of the group, Dr.  Raymond Davis (Almanac October 15, 2002). Dr. Lee was also engaged in a number of nuclear physics experiments involving the Meson Physics Facility at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Tevatron at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. He retired from Penn in 1996.

Dr. Lee is survived by two sisters, Chuan-Min Lee Liao and Chuan-Pu; a brother, Chuan-Shue and his wife, Catherine; and several nieces, nephews, great nieces and great nephews.

Contributions may be made in Dr. Lee’s memory to the American Kidney Fund, 11921 Rockville Pike, Suite 300, Rockville, MD 20852 or to the Food Bank of Delaware, 14 Garfield Way, Newark, DE 19713.

Shaun F. O’Malley, Former Trustee

Shaun F. O’Malley, former Penn Trustee and Wharton alumnus, died of metastatic melanoma on February 25 at his home in Chestnut Hill. He was 79 years old.

Mr. O’Malley served on the Board of Trustees from 2001-2005. As one of the world’s foremost figures in accounting and business consultancy, he brought tremendous insight to his participation on Penn’s Audit and Compliance and Budget and Finance committees.

Mr. O’Malley also provided years of leadership at the Wharton School, where from 1991 to 2002 he served as an Overseer. He was a member of the Wharton Dean’s Council and the Undergraduate Executive Board, a director of the SEI Center for the Study of Management, an officer of the Class of 1959 and an occasional guest speaker. He generously established the Shaun F. O’Malley Endowed Scholarship Fund to put a Wharton education within reach of future business leaders and was instrumental in creating the Price Waterhouse Professorship for Accounting to help the School advance its research and teaching mission. At Penn Medicine, Mr. O’Malley was a founding member of the Board and Executive Committee and served as the first chair of the Audit Committee.

Mr. O’Malley originally came to Penn in 1952 but interrupted his studies for military duty. After resuming his studies in 1955, he financed his education through the GI Bill, summer jobs and work at the University Library. He still found time to be an active member of the Penn community, participating in the varsity rowing team, the intramural basketball and softball programs, the Interfraternity Council, the Law Review, the Newman Club, Penn Players and the West Philadelphia Tutoring Program. He was also president of the Zeta Psi Fraternity.Mr. O’Malley  graduated from Wharton with a bachelor’s degree in accounting in 1959.

Mr. O’Malley then joined Price Waterhouse as a staff accountant in the Philadelphia office. He stayed with the internationally known firm throughout his career, carrying out assignments in Japan, in the firm’s National Office Research Department and as partner-in-charge of the Philadelphia office before moving into the upper tiers of management. In 1984 he was elected to the firm’s US governing board and was later elected chairman and senior partner of its US operations. In 1990, he was appointed as co-chief executive officer of the company’s worldwide organization and was named its chairman in 1992. He held that position until his retirement in 1995.

Outside of Price Waterhouse, he had served as the non-executive chairman of the Board of Freddie Mac, chairman of the Philadelphia Contributionship and a director of the Horace Mann Educators Corporation, Vlasic Foods International, the Finance Company of Pennsylvania, Regulus Group LLC, Coty, Inc. and the Philadelphia Belt Line Railroad Company. He was also active in civic affairs in both Philadelphia and New York. In his hometown of Philadelphia, his roles included chairman of the board of the Curtis Institute of Music, trustee of Chestnut Hill College, chair of the Mayor’s Committee to Select Members of the Philadelphia School Board, chair of the Regional Planning Committee of the Greater Philadelphia First Corporation, chairman of the Committee of Seventy, vice chairman of the Monell Center, board member of the Springside School and director of the Greater Philadelphia International Network and the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia. In New York, he served on the Executive Committee of the Mayor’s Private Sector Survey, served as vice chairman of the New York City International Business Initiative, and played a leading role in the New York City Alliance for International Business.

Mr. O’Malley is survived by his wife, Lyn Buchheit; two brothers, W. Gresham III and Hilaire J.; two sisters, Mrs. Wallace Cooney and Mrs. Kristin Russo; his children, Brendan H., WG ’03, Sibyl H., and Aine O’Malley Pappas; his stepdaughter, Megan K. McNamara and his grandchildren, Katherine G., Peter W., Ellen I., Chloe C. Pappas and Samuel L. Pappas.

A memorial service will be held on Saturday, April 25 at 1 p.m. at Our Mother of Consolation Church, 17 E. Chestnut Hill Avenue, Philadelphia, PA. Contributions may be made in Mr. O’Malley’s memory to the Curtis Institute of Music, 1726 Locust Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103, or in support of Dr. Lynn Schuchter’s research at the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania, Penn Medicine Development, Attn: Laura Ferraiolo, 3535 Market Street, Suite 750, Philadelphia, PA 19104; make checks in support of Dr. Schuchter’s research payable to Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania.