WHEELING — A doctor who made history and a scientist and inventor still actively making history will be among those honored as part of the 2025 class of the Wheeling Hall of Fame.

Brian Joseph, founder, president and CEO of Touchstone Research Laboratory, Ltd., and the late Dr. Harriet Jones, the first woman in West Virginia licensed to practice medicine in West Virginia, will be inducted in the Business, Industry and Professions category.

The 2025 induction ceremony will take place at 6 p.m. Saturday, June 28, at WesBanco Arena. Tickets are $45 and can be purchased online at WesBancoArena.com or by calling the arena box office at 304-233-7000, Monday through Friday from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. The last day to buy tickets is June 25.

Brian E. Joseph

A scientist, inventor, and entrepreneur, Joseph grew up in Wheeling, attended The Linsly School, graduated from West Liberty State College, and studied biophysics at Ohio State University.

With a passion for science, the imaginative young entrepreneur purchased an electron microscope for $100 in Columbus, Ohio, and rebuilt it in the basement of the Carmelite Monastery in Wheeling. This was the catalyst for what would become Touchstone Research Laboratory.

Joseph and his team have won more than $200 million worth of research and development programs, leading which led to inventions in next-generation aircraft-parts fabrication, algae to biofuels, new aluminum alloys, coal gasification technologies, coal-based materials, energy-absorbing blast structures, heat exchangers, microelectromechanical systems, radar absorbing materials, and more efficient solid rocket motors, among others.

His intensity and leadership led to many successful spin-out companies that emerged from Touchstone, including: Touchstone Testing Laboratory, a world class aerospace materials testing company that has performed testing for nearly all U.S. aircraft and rocket launches; CFOAM, a high strength, fireproof foam made from coal with applications from aerospace to consumer goods (it even had a place in the Olympics); and Touchstone Advanced Composites that invented a revolutionary way to build carbon fiber aircraft and spacecraft parts.

Touchstone continues developing technologies that soon will be manufacturing in the Wheeling area. These include MetPreg, the world’s strongest aluminum; Bonded MetPreg Repair, a technology to repair structural problems in Naval vessels; and Faraday Thermal Protection Systems, a system to protect rockets from lightning strikes. And even more technologies are in the development pipeline.

Because of Touchstone’s commercialization successes, Veloxint, an MIT spin-out, was moved from Boston to Touchstone’s campus. With Joseph as Veloxint’s president and CEO, this company is developing and making nanocrystalline metal alloys which are among the strongest copper, chrome, and tungsten alloys in existence.

Joseph was awarded the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s top award, Small Business Person of the Year, from the West Virginia Small Business Administration; West Virginia Entrepreneur of the Year, presented by Ernst & Young; the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Chi Beta Phi Science Honorary; and received an Honorary Doctorate from West Liberty University, where Joseph also has been recognized on its Wall of Fame. He has also been the keynote speaker for technical conferences across the country.

Touchstone has been awarded five R&D 100 awards, three Tibbetts awards, the National Blue Chip Enterprise award, the Sandia National Laboratories Plantino Service award, the Governor’s Cup from the Southern Growth Policies Board, and has received supplier awards from SpaceX and Northrop Grumman.

Joseph’s impact on the Wheeling area goes beyond the successes of Touchstone. He has been an inspiration for thousands of students in the areas of local innovation history, entrepreneurship, science, and next-generation technology.

In addition, Joseph serves in other roles in the community on numerous local boards, such as board member and president of JB Chambers Memorial Foundation, Wheeling Country Day School board member, advisory board member for Keystone Space Collaborative, Grow Ohio Valley board member, Board of Governors member and chair at West Liberty University, and Wheeling Vintage Raceboat Regatta committee member.

Joseph resides in Triadelphia with his wife Julie, daughter Tesla, and their dogs Edison and Foxy.

Dr. Harriet B. Jones

Dr. Harriet Jones was born in Ebensburg, Pennsylvania, on June 5, 1856. Her family later moved to West Virginia, and she grew up in Terra Alta in Preston County. She graduated from Wheeling Female College in 1875 and then the Women’s Medical College in Baltimore where she specialized in gynecology and abdominal surgery. After graduating in 1884, Jones pursued further training in New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago.

In 1886, Jones opened a practice in Wheeling as the first woman in West Virginia licensed to practice medicine. She then was called to serve as the assistant superintendent at the West Virginia Hospital for the Insane, the first of many roles at leading medical institutions throughout West Virginia.

In 1892, she returned to Wheeling, identified a specific need in the community, and set up a clinic for women only. Two years later, she led the construction of a new building at the corner of 15th and Jacob streets. This revolutionary women’s hospital served the Wheeling community for more than 20 years.

Jones was regarded as one of Wheeling’s leading doctors throughout this time. She was a member of the West Virginia State Medical Association, the Ohio County Medical Society, and the American Medical Association at a time where there were few to no other female physicians. The June 12, 1896, edition of The Intelligencer in Wheeling reported the proceedings of the West Virginia Medical Society in which Jones delivered a lecture on the roadblocks women physicians faced as they pursued their careers.

Jones was especially known for her work to combat tuberculosis. In 1909, Dr. Philip Jacobs, a leader in the top national anti-tuberculosis organization, came to speak in Wheeling. Jacobs praised the work of Jones, to “whom the local medical fraternity was indebted, and whom he called the most useful woman in West Virginia.” Just a year later, in 1910, Jones and Rabbi Levi of the Eoff Street Temple led the charge to open the first tuberculosis clinic in Wheeling. She was the first president of the Ohio County Anti-Tuberculosis League and also served 10 years as the executive secretary of the West Virginia Tuberculosis Association.

According to a story in the Morgantown Post, the West Virginia Legislature approved a large sum of money for an education campaign addressing the prevention of tuberculosis in 1912, in large part because of Jones’ lobbying efforts. She answered the call, traveling throughout the state by rail and automobile. During that single tour, Jones visited 164 towns, spoke 624 times in schools, gave 102 lectures before adult audiences, and addressed 16 county school teachers’ institutes.

Jones’ efforts in her public health career led to the founding of the West Virginia Industrial Home for Girls in Salem, the West Virginia Children’s Home in Elkins, the West Virginia Tuberculosis Sanitarium in her hometown of Terra Alta, and the State Tuberculosis Sanitarium for the Colored. As noted, she also was named assistant superintendent of the West Virginia Hospital for the Insane (later known as Weston State Hospital and the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum.) Notably, as part of her public health work during this time, Jones also was one of the first supporters of the school playground movement in Wheeling. In addition, she was active in the administration of the Florence Crittenton Home in Wheeling, a residence that served the needs of unwed mothers.

Along with her medical work, Jones was an active suffragist in West Virginia, and a member of the West Virginia Federation of Women’s Clubs and the West Virginia Equal Suffrage Association. She advocated for women to gain admission to West Virginia University and other state colleges, which finally came to fruition in 1889. After the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, Jones became active in the League of Women Voters.

Jones moved to Glen Dale in the early 1920s and was elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates in 1924, serving two terms. She continued her political and public health activism until the end of her life. She died on June 28, 1943, in Glen Dale.