Celebrating Our Honorees | Montgomery College, Maryland

Honorary Degree Recipients 1996–2019

2014 Honorary Degree Recipients

Dr. Adi Shmueli and Mrs. Iris Shmueli
Philanthropists

Mrs. Iris Shmueli

Dr. Adi Shmueli

Dr. Adi Shmueli and Mrs. Iris Shmueli, longtime residents of Silver Spring, Maryland, are generous benefactors of Montgomery College. The Shmuelis selected Montgomery College both as a recipient of their current charitable gifts and as the beneficiary of their estates. Their combined bequests, the largest deferred-gift commitment in the history of Montgomery College, established the Adi and Iris Shmueli Endowed Scholarship to support both scholarships for students in the nursing program and transfer scholarships for students seeking to continue their educations in baccalaureate programs.

Dr. Shmueli, a native of Tel Aviv, Israel, earned a master’s degree in philosophy at Tel Aviv University. He continued his study of existential philosophy in Denmark and France, where he earned a doctorate from Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, Tours, France. His doctoral thesis, Kierkegaard and Consciousness, was published in 1971 by Princeton University Press. From 1968 to 1970, he lectured on the existential philosophies of Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Sartre at Tel Aviv University. He earned a second doctorate in clinical psychology at the University of Rochester, New York, in 1974. Humanities Press published his book, The Tower of Babel: Identity and Sanity, in 1978. The book combines philosophical and psychological approaches to deal with the concept of self or identity. Since 1976, Dr. Shmueli has been practicing as a life coach in Washington, DC. He focuses on his clients’ work environments to facilitate their progress and success.

Mrs. Shmueli, a native of Texas, earned a nursing degree at Texas Woman’s University. She joined the Peace Corps and served in Afghanistan for two years. When she returned home, she attended Smith College, earning a master’s in social work in 1971. She met her future husband, Adi, at her first social work job in Rochester. When the Shmuelis moved to Bethesda, Maryland, Mrs. Shmueli began a 20-year career in the Social Work Department at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center. While working at NIH, she earned a master’s in public health at George Washington University. Since retiring from NIH, she has been serving as a volunteer at Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington.