Global Naga Forum pays tributes to Dr. Senkalong Yaden
Global Naga Forum (GNF) joined the Naga public in expressing admiration on Dr. Senkalong Yaden’s record of excellence as a scientist and a professor, who passed away March 16, 2025, in Texas, USA
- DIMAPUR — The
Global Naga Forum (GNF) joined the Naga public in expressing admiration on Dr.
Senkalong Yaden’s record of excellence as a scientist and a professor, who passed
away March 16, 2025, in Texas, USA, after several decades of teaching Biology
in multiple colleges and a university in Texas, as well as working as a senior
science associate in Osteopathic Medicine for a time.
- It mentioned that Dr. Yaden earned a PhD in Biology from the
University of Minnesota in 1965, soon after which he moved to Texas to teach at
Jarvis Christian College (JCC), Hawkins, later becoming chair of the Science
division and a full professor. After teaching at JCC for many years, he joined
the department of Pharmacology at Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine from
1981 to 1984.
- It was during this period that he married Theola Thedford in
1982. He returned to teaching as an associate professor of Science at Parker
University, Dallas, Texas; moved to Alabama for a year, and was back again to
Texas to chair the department of biology at Wiley College, Marshall, TX.
- It stated that his final professional home was Texas
College, Tyler, a historically Black Methodist college, where he was a
professor of biology. It was during his years in Tyler that Dr. Yaden won the
prestigious professional honour by being recognised in the 1998-99 Directory of
American Men and Women of Science.
- It stated that Dr. Yaden’s life, work and achievements are
nothing less than extraordinary when framed against the rudimentary educational
and material conditions of the Naga hills in the mid-1930s. It added that
within the first thirty years of his life, he made his way through not only the
vigours of a master’s degree in Science from the University of Bombay, India,
but to the most advanced country on earth and earned a PhD in Biology from a
prestigious university, which set him up for the rest of his distinguished
professional life.
- It further conveyed condolence to his family and friends in
the homeland and the United States.
