“My husband felt that anybody who is interested in going to Marshall should have a bit of extra help,” said Lucille Duba, “He felt college was important. He thought it served as a pathway to a better life.”
Alfred Duba was born Jan. 26, 1940, in Braeholm, Logan County, West Virginia. The oldest of 12 children, he graduated from Man High School as valedictorian in 1958. From there, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and served as a personnel clerk posted in Heidelberg, Germany.
Under the GI Bill®, Duba was able to attend Marshall and received his bachelor’s degree in physics in 1966. While at Marshall, he worked at Cabell Huntington Hospital where he met Lucille, a fellow Marshall student, and they married in 1964. Alfred Duba later received his Ph.D. in geophysics at the University of Chicago.
After finishing his doctoral work, he completed research stays at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California, Harvard University and the Australian National University in Canberra.
From 1972, he was employed as a research scientist at LLNL, where he conducted experiments on how the earth behaved at high pressures and high temperatures and served in various leadership roles. In 1981, Duba received the Marshall University Distinguished Alumnus award during Marshall University Alumni Association’s annual Alumni Awards Banquet.
In 1985, he received an Alexander von Humboldt research award and, in 1997, he was named Fellow of the American Geophysical Union. He also had visiting professorships in the Netherlands, France and Germany. In 2002, Duba retired early to return to West Virginia. For the next decade and a half, he worked at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, where he produced Earth news reports for the museums and schools across the United States. His research, collaborations and outreach took him to locations across five continents and the North Pole.
Lucille Duba said her husband was an outgoing person and easily made friends anywhere they went. He often shared with them his love of Marshall and his home state.
“He was hardworking and very outgoing,” Lucille Duba said. “He thoroughly enjoyed life and enjoyed telling people about Marshall and West Virginia. He was never ashamed of where he was from. I think he gave people a good impression of West Virginia.”
The scholarship recipient shall be a full-time student in good academic standing with a 3.0 GPA or higher. The Office of Student Financial Assistance shall select the recipient and renew the award if full-time status and satisfactory academic progress are maintained.
For information regarding the Alfred G. Duba Memorial Scholarship, please contact Marshall University’s Office of Student Financial Assistance at 304-696-3162.
Photo caption: In the photo are Charles, Lucille and William Duba, who are Alfred’s wife and two sons. Also in the photo is Daniel Miller, director of philanthropy for the Marshall Foundation.