To Jay Pepose ’75, MA ’75 and Susan Feigenbaum ’74, P ’08, their recent gift to Brandeis represents a way to give back to an institution that has played a pivotal role in their lives – both personally and professionally.

The couple, who met at a Passover seder at Brandeis and have been married for 30 years, recently made a $1 million gift to the University to establish the Jay Pepose ’75 Award in Vision Sciences and the Jay Pepose ’75 Vision Sciences Fellowship. They are the fourth alumni couple to make a gift of at least $1 million since the launch of The Campaign for Brandeis in 2001. In all, 36 alumni have made Campaign gifts in excess of $1 million.

For Jay and Susan, their Brandeis experiences – in and out of the classroom – laid the foundation for highly productive careers.

Jay, an ophthalmologist, had worked in academic medicine and now has a thriving private practice and conducts pioneering research. He was part of the inaugural class of Fellows recently inducted into the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) for his lifelong contributions to the field.

“Brandeis imbued in me so many attributes that later shaped my career – an appreciation of the scientific method as a more advanced way of thinking; a need to set expectations higher for myself than anyone else could; an understanding of the types of interactions and challenges of the scientific community in seeking a more complete understanding of how things work; and life-long friendships with (professor) John (Lisman) and other faculty and fellow students,” Jay says.

At Brandeis, Jay worked in Lisman’s lab – after the professor had put the student through a rigorous screening process to determine his qualifications. The collaboration led to Jay publishing an article on his research in the Journal of Physiology, studying at the famed marine biological lab at Woods Hole, and delivering his first talk at ARVO. His research became the basis for a master’s thesis that permitted him to earn his bachelor’s and master’s degrees simultaneously.

Susan is an award-winning economics professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and has published widely in the areas of health economics, public choice, and the economics of science. The first woman to receive tenure in the Economics Department at Claremont McKenna College and Graduate School in California, she is currently under contract to write an introductory economics textbook – the first such book with a female lead author. 

“I have taken the teaching role models I had at Brandeis and ‘rechanneled’ them to become a rigorous but empathetic, committed professor,” Susan says. “There are times that I stretch my arms out to emphasize a point and feel like I am the embodiment of (economics professor) Barney Schwalberg – even though my arms are each at least a foot shorter than his were!”

A scholarship student, Susan came to Brandeis with the intent of attending law school, but her experiences in Schwalberg’s classes and her research activities with economics professor Anne Carter prompted her to change her career path. She majored in both economics and Near Eastern and Judaic studies.

The couple’s oldest son, David, graduated with honors from Brandeis with a degree in American studies in 2008. Their triplets may one day follow their parents and older brother to Waltham. “We began to imbue our three 14-year-olds with our Brandeis passion well before ‘their’ David even arrived on campus!” Susan says.

Both Jay and Susan understand the importance of alumni supporting Brandeis at this critical time in the University’s history.

“Susan and I want to be sure that Brandeis will be there for generations to come, providing the same level of excellence that we enjoyed,” Jay says. “With Brandeis facing its greatest challenge since its inception, we were obliged to do everything we could to give back for all that we have received. We hope that other Brandeis alumni will feel the same way to ensure Brandeis’s future.”