Evelyn Van Donk Steenbock Endowed Chair
The Evelyn Van Donk Steenbock Endowed Chair was established by Evelyn Van Donk Steenbock to provide research and professional development opportunities for faculty in the Food and Nutrition Department at UW-Stout. Evelyn Van Donk (1905-1992) graduated from UW-Stout in 1925.
She was a research assistant in Harry Steenbock's lab at UW-Madison for a number of years and was a co-author on many of his research manuscripts. Harry Steenbock did much of the original vitamin D research and patented the method of irradiating food to produce vitamin D fortified milk. He had the patent assigned to the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) which earned a fraction of a cent on every quarter of vitamin D fortified mile sold in this country.
WARF helps steward the cycle of research, discovery, commercialization and investment of the University of Wisconsin. Evelyn married Harry Steenbock in 1948 when she was 43 and he was 61.
In addition to endowing the chair at Stout she also funded research professorships at UW-Madison where she had worked for many years. The primary goal of the research chair is to enhance food and nutrition research at UW-Stout and facilitate extramural funding.