David Bruce Dill was a physiologist in the study of exercise, sports medicine and applied sciences. His research focused on the effects of temperature exposure, high-altitudes, diet, age and fatigue on the human body. Dill received his bachelor's degree from Occidental College in Los Angeles, California and both his master's and doctoral degrees from Stanford University in Stanford, California. He began his physiology career at Harvard’s Fatigue Laboratory in its inaugural year, 1927.

Civil rights leader James B. McMillan was born in 1917 in Aberdeen, Mississippi and moved to Michigan in 1931 with his family. He finished his high school education in Hamtramck, Michigan where he was the first African-American captain of the football and track teams. In 1936, he opted to enroll at the University of Detroit rather than the segregated University of Michigan. After graduation, he moved to Nashville, Tennessee to attend Meharry Medical College School of Dentistry.