Dr. John A. Armstrong and Mrs. Elizabeth S. Armstrong

John and Elizabeth Armstrong are longtime donors and devoted friends of UMass Amherst. For their service to UMass Amherst and the wider community through advocacy and philanthropy, the Armstrongs are the recipients of the 2022 UMass Alumni Honors Excellence in Service Award. They created the Armstrong Professional Development Professorship in 2001 and established the Armstrong Fund for Science in 2006 to identify and support promising research that does not yet have enough data for standard funding channels. In 2014, the Armstrongs partnered with another family to establish the Armstrong/Siadat Endowed Professorship in Materials Science, which is awarded to a researcher in the area of materials science in the UMass Amherst chemical engineering department. UMass Amherst granted the Armstrongs the Distinguished Honorary Alumni Award in 2003, and the UMass system awarded them the President’s Medal—the highest honor bestowed by the university—in 2004.

In addition to their philanthropy at UMass Amherst, the Armstrongs have given generously to other local institutions, including the Emily Dickinson Museum, Cooley Dickinson Hospital, and the United Way of Franklin and Hampshire Region.

The Armstrongs moved to Amherst in 1995, after John completed a 30-year career with IBM. John has served on the College of Engineering Dean’s Advisory Council, the UMass Amherst Foundation (as a founding member), and the Electrical and Computer Engineering Advisory Committee. Elizabeth has co-chaired the United Way of Hampshire County Tocqueville Society campaign and is a founding member of the Emily Dickinson Museum Board of Governors.