2022-Gala Program Online Honoree -4.14.2022

2022

RECIPIENTS OF THE
2022 JOAN RIVERS ’54
TRAILBLAZER
AWARD
Barnard College Alumnae
and Current Faculty Members
of the National Academies of
Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

HONOREE
JACQUELINE K. BARTON ’74, PhD
National Academy of Sciences
National Academy of Medicine
Dr. Jacqueline K. Barton is the John G. Kirkwood
and Arthur A. Noyes Professor of Chemistry at
the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
Barton received a bachelor’s degree from Barnard
College and a doctorate in inorganic chemistry from
Columbia University. After a postdoctoral fellowship
at Bell Laboratories and Yale University, she became an assistant professor
at Hunter College, City University of New York. Soon after, she returned
to Columbia University, becoming a professor of chemistry after three
years. In the fall of 1989, she joined the faculty at Caltech, and from 2009
to 2019, she served as chair of the Division of Chemistry and Chemical
Engineering.
Professor Barton has pioneered the application of transition metal
complexes to probe recognition and reactions of double helical DNA.
In particular, she has carried out studies to elucidate electron transfer
chemistry mediated by the DNA double helix, a basis for understanding
long-range DNA-mediated signaling in DNA damage, repair, and replication.
Professor Barton has trained more than 100 graduate students and
postdoctoral students. In particular, many women who trained in her
laboratory have moved on to academic and industrial positions across the
country. She has also served the chemistry community through her service
on government and industrial boards. She served as a director of the Dow
Chemical Company for over 20 years and currently serves as a director
of Gilead Sciences. She is the recipient of the Alan T. Waterman Award
from the National Science Foundation, the American Chemical Society
(ACS) Award in Pure Chemistry, and a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship.
She has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the
American Philosophical Society, the National Academy of Sciences, and the
National Academy of Medicine, and has received an honorary fellowship
from the Royal Society of Chemistry. Professor Barton received the 2010
National Medal of Science from President Obama, and in 2015 she received
the ACS Priestley Medal, the highest award of the ACS.

HONOREE
JOAN S. BIRMAN ’48, PhD
National Academy of Sciences
Joan S. Birman is a professor emerita of mathematics
at Barnard College, where she earned her bachelor’s
degree in 1948. Until 1961 she worked for engineering
firms in the New York area, focusing on aircraft
navigation computers. During this period, she also
got married and cared for her three children. In
1961, she began graduate studies part-time at the
Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University, receiving
her doctorate in 1968. She then became an assistant professor at Stevens
Institute of Technology. In 1974, she joined the faculty of Barnard College.
Within mathematics, Professor Birman’s primary area of interest is lowdimensional
topology. She is known for her discoveries of unexpected
connections between braid groups and other parts of mathematics; for
example, the dynamical systems that underlie chaos.
Over the years, she has received fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan
Foundation and Guggenheim Foundation, became a fellow of the
American Mathematical Society, and was elected to both the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Science Foundation. In
2021, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. She holds the
degree of Doctor Honoris Causa from the Israel Institute of Technology in
Haifa, Israel.

HONOREE
JACQUELINE E. DARROCH ’68, PhD
National Academy of Medicine
Jacqueline E. Darroch is senior fellow at the
Guttmacher Institute, where she has worked since
1978, serving as director, vice president, and senior
vice president of research until 2004. From 2004 to
2006, she was an associate director of reproductive
health at The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
After graduating from Barnard in 1968, she earned
a master’s degree from the University of Michigan and a doctorate from
Princeton University.
A widely respected researcher, writer, and speaker, Dr. Darroch has
focused on sexual and reproductive behavior and health, including
issues related to pregnancy, birth, abortion, infertility, health service
needs and insurance, contraception, and sex education. She developed
methodologies now widely used in her field and her data and findings
are relied on by national and international policymakers and funders.
She has authored more than 125 journal articles and over 100 books,
book chapters, monographs, or reports, and she has testified before the
US Congress and Supreme Court, in addition to the US Food and Drug
Administration and numerous other bodies.
Dr. Darroch serves on the Brush Foundation Board of Managers. She has
served as a board member and/or advisor to the University of Washington
Department of Global Health, the World Health Organization, the American
College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, USAID, the National Abortion
Federation, Planned Parenthood of America, Population Association of
America, the National Center for Health Statistics, the National Center for
Child Health and Human Development, the National Bureau of Economic
Research, and other organizations.
Dr. Darroch is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine,
the Washington State Academy of Sciences, the New York Obstetrical
Society, and the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population.
In her honor, the Guttmacher Institute established The Darroch Award
for Excellence in Sexual and Reproductive Health Research. She has
also received awards for service from the Society of Family Planning, the
American Public Health Association’s section on Population and Family
Planning, the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals, the Society
for Research on Adolescence, and the American College of Obstetricians
and Gynecologists.

HONOREE
CAROL S. DWECK ’67, PhD
National Academy of Sciences
Carol Dweck is the Lewis and Virginia Eaton
Professor of Psychology at Stanford University,
where she has been a member of the faculty since
2004. Previously, she was a professor at Columbia
University, the University of Illinois, and Harvard
University. She holds a doctorate in psychology
from Yale.
Professor Dweck’s pioneering work on fixed and growth mindsets has
shown the effects of believing that human attributes, such as intelligence,
are malleable. Specifically, her research shows how these mindsets affect
the motivation, achievement, and well-being of both children and adults
in many cultures around the globe. This research has also led to important
innovations in schools and businesses worldwide that have increased
inclusion, diversity, and equity. In addition, she has published landmark
theoretical papers—most recently, a theory of personality and how it
develops, as well as a theory of how the brain makes intelligent decisions.
In addition to 12 lifetime achievement awards for her research, including
the Atkinson Prize in Psychological and Cognitive Science from the National
Academy of Sciences, Professor Dweck has been elected to the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences.
Her book, Mindset (Random House, 2006), has been widely acclaimed and
translated into 40 languages.

HONOREE
HELENE D. GAYLE ’76, MD, MPH
National Academy of Medicine
Helene Gayle has been president and CEO of
The Chicago Community Trust, one of the nation’s
oldest and largest community foundations, since
October 2017. Previously, she was president and
CEO of CARE, a leading international humanitarian
organization, and also worked at the Centers
for Disease Control and The Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation, directing programs on HIV/AIDS. She earned a bachelor’s in
psychology at Barnard College, a Doctor of Medicine degree at the University
of Pennsylvania, and a master’s in public health at Johns Hopkins University.
An expert on global development, humanitarian, and health issues,
Dr. Gayle is now leading The Chicago Community Trust in a new focus on
closing the racial and ethnic wealth gap in the Chicago region. In addition,
she holds faculty appointments at the University of Washington and
Emory University.
Dr. Gayle serves on public company and nonprofit boards, including
The Coca-Cola Company, Organon, Palo Alto Networks, The Brookings
Institution, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, New
America, ONE Campaign, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and the
Economic Club of Chicago. She is a member of the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences, the Council on Foreign Relations, the American
Public Health Association, the National Academy of Medicine, the National
Medical Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics. She has
authored numerous articles on global and domestic public health issues,
poverty alleviation, gender equality, and social justice. In recognition of
her work, she has been awarded 18 honorary degrees.

HONOREE
KAREN I. GOLDBERG ’83, P’22, PhD
National Academy of Sciences
Karen Goldberg is the inaugural Vagelos Professor
of Energy Research in the Department of Chemistry
at the University of Pennsylvania. She also serves
as director of the new Vagelos Institute of Energy
Science and Technology (VIEST), which focuses its
research efforts on alternative sources of energy
as well as energy use and storage. Prior to her
current appointment, she was a professor at the University of Washington,
where she was also director of the Center for Enabling New Technologies
through Catalysis (CENTC). She began her career at Illinois State University
after earning a doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, and
spending a postdoctoral year at The Ohio State University.
Professor Goldberg is known for developing new catalytic systems to
produce chemicals and fuels from a range of available feedstocks in a way
that is both efficient and environmentally responsible. She then aims to
improve these systems by testing and understanding the mechanisms by
which catalysts operate.
In 2018, Professor Goldberg was elected to the National Academy of
Sciences. She is the recipient of numerous grants, fellowships, and prizes,
including the International Precious Metal Institute’s Carol Tyler Award and
the American Chemical Society’s Award for Organometallic Chemistry. She
is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
She has served on the advisory boards of several journals published by the
American Chemical Society and Royal Society of Chemistry, and she has
been a member of the Chemistry Selection Committee for Sloan Research
Fellowships and the International Advisory Committee of the Solvay Institutes.

HONOREE
ELLEN R. GRITZ ’64, PhD
National Academy of Medicine
Ellen R. Gritz is a professor emerita at the University
of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, where she
was the Olla S. Stribling Distinguished Chair for
Cancer Research and chair of the Department
of Behavioral Science until her retirement. She
earned a doctorate from the University of California,
San Diego, after working for a period at Bell
Laboratories.
Dr. Gritz is an internationally recognized leader in cancer prevention
and control research. She is especially known for her work on cigarette
smoking behavior: prevention, cessation, pharmacologic mechanisms, and
special issues of concern to women and high-risk groups, including ethnic
minorities, youth, cancer patients, and persons living with HIV/AIDS and
other chronic illnesses.
Dr. Gritz is the author or editor of over 300 publications, including
eight reports on smoking and health by the US Surgeon General. She
is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and the Academy of
Medicine, Engineering, and Science of Texas, and she has served on the
board of directors of the American Legacy Foundation. She was president
of both the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco and the
American Society of Preventive Oncology (ASPO).
Dr. Gritz has received numerous honors, including the ASPO’s Joseph
Cullen Memorial Award and Distinguished Achievement Award, and the
MD Anderson Cancer Center’s Margaret and James Elkins, Jr. Faculty
Achievement Award in Cancer Prevention and President’s Award for
Faculty Excellence. She received the Alma Dea Morani Renaissance Woman
Award, the Society of Behavioral Medicine Cancer Special Interest Group’s
Outstanding Biobehavioral Oncology Award, the Distinguished Professional
Woman’s Award of the UT Health Science Center-Houston, and she is an
elected fellow of the Society of Behavioral Medicine and the American
Psychological Association.

HONOREE
ROCHELLE HIRSCHHORN ’53, MD
National Academy of Medicine
Rochelle Hirschhorn is a professor emerita of
medicine, cell biology, and pediatrics at the Langone
Medical Center of New York University, where she
was chief of the Division of Medical Genetics for
24 years, and where she also earned her medical
degree from the Grossman School of Medicine.
Dr. Hirschhorn’s major discoveries include delineating the genetic
structure and pathophysiology of adenosine deaminase (ADA) deficiency,
an autosomal recessive metabolic disorder that causes immunodeficiency.
She also described the phenomenon of reverse mutations as a cause of
“self-cure” in ADA-deficient patients and predicted the utility of gene
therapy for ADA deficiency.
In 1986, Dr. Hirschhorn was the first woman elected to the Interurban
Clinical Club, founded in 1905, and was subsequently elected president
of the group. She was honored with the NYU Langone Medical Center’s
Master Scientist Award in 2010, and in 2013, she and her husband, Dr. Kurt
Hirschhorn, received the American Society of Human Genetics Victor
A. McKusick Leadership Award, which recognizes individuals whose
professional achievements have fostered and enriched the development
of human genetics.

HONOREE
EVELYN HU ’69, PhD
National Academy of Sciences
National Academy of Engineering
Evelyn Hu is the Tarr-Coyne Professor of Applied
Physics and of Electrical Engineering at Harvard
University, where she is also a co-director of the
Harvard Quantum Initiative. Previously, she was a
co-director of the California Nanosystems Institute
and a professor at the University of California,
Santa Barbara. Prior to that, she worked at Bell Laboratories, developing
microfabrication and nanofabrication techniques for high-performance
superconducting and semiconducting devices and circuits. She received
doctorate and master’s degrees in physics from Columbia University and a
bachelor’s in physics from Barnard College.
Professor Hu’s research explores new possibilities of optical and electronic
behavior within materials that have been carefully sculpted, modulated,
and modified at the nanoscale. Using cutting-edge nanofabrication
techniques, she creates structures to enhance interactions between light
and matter, which has enabled her to develop new techniques to probe
fundamental material physics and create high-performance photonic and
electronic devices for classical and quantum communication/information
applications.
Professor Hu is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, National
Academy of Engineering, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the
Academica Sinica of Taiwan. She is a recipient of a Distinguished Teaching
Fellow Award from the National Science Foundation, a Lifetime Mentor
Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science
(AAAS), and she has been elected a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and
Electronics Engineers, the American Physical Society, and the AAAS. She
holds honorary doctorates from the University of Glasgow and Heriot-Watt
University.

HONOREE
PROFESSOR DUSA MCDUFF
National Academy of Sciences
Dusa McDuff is the Helen Lyttle Kimmel ’42
Professor of Mathematics at Barnard College.
She gained her early teaching experience at the
University of York, the University of Warwick,
and MIT. In 1978, she joined the faculty of SUNY
Stony Brook, where she was awarded the title
of Distinguished Professor in 1998. She holds a
bachelor’s degree from the University of Edinburgh and a doctorate from
the University of Cambridge.
Together with Dietmar Salamon, Professor McDuff has written several
foundational books on symplectic topology as well as many research
articles. She is best known for her work in the geometry of multidimensional
structures, which has been credited with opening a new
branch of mathematics and providing new understandings in a range of
mathematical topics.
Professor McDuff serves on the board of trustees of the Mathematical
Sciences Research Institute. She is a fellow of the Royal Society,
a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a member of the
American Philosophical Society, and an honorary fellow of Girton College,
Cambridge. In addition, she has received the Satter Prize from the
American Mathematical Society and the Outstanding Woman Scientist
Award from the Association for Women in Science (AWIS), and she holds
honorary doctorates from the University of Edinburgh, the University of
York, and the University of Strasbourg.

HONOREE
ELIZABETH M. MCNALLY ’83, MD, PhD
National Academy of Medicine
Elizabeth McNally is the Elizabeth J. Ward Professor
of Genetic Medicine at Northwestern University’s
Feinberg School of Medicine, where she directs the
Center for Genetic Medicine. She holds a Doctor of
Medicine degree and a doctorate from the Albert
Einstein College of Medicine in New York and was a
postdoctoral fellow at Children’s Hospital, Boston.
Dr. McNally is a cardiologist with expertise in cardiovascular genetics
and a special interest in neuromuscular diseases. As a clinician, she
developed one of the first cardiovascular genetics clinics in the nation,
integrating genetic testing into cardiovascular care for patients and families.
Dr. McNally’s research focuses on understanding genetic mechanisms
underlying heritable cardiac disorders, including those that cause muscular
dystrophies. By understanding how these genetic mutations exert their
effects, she is driving the development of new therapies, including genetic
editing strategies.
Dr. McNally serves on the board of directors of the Muscular Dystrophy
Association and is the current chair of the Council on Basic Cardiovascular
Sciences of the American Heart Association. She is also currently the
president of the Association of American Physicians. She is on the scientific
advisory committee for Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy, and is a past
president of the American Society for Clinical Investigation.
Dr. McNally’s accomplishments have been recognized with an award from
the Burroughs Wellcome Foundation and a Distinguished Clinical Scientist
Award from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. She has also been
named an Established Investigator of the American Heart Association, and
she is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
and the National Academy of Medicine.

HONOREE
ELISSA L. NEWPORT ’69, PhD
National Academy of Sciences
Elissa Newport ’69 is a professor of neurology and
the director of the Center for Brain Plasticity and
Recovery at Georgetown University. She began her
career at the University of California, San Diego, and
the University of Illinois before joining the faculty
of the University of Rochester, where she was the
George Eastman Professor of Brain and Cognitive
Sciences. She earned a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania in 1975.
Professor Newport first became interested in psychology at Barnard
and has made major contributions to the study of language acquisition
and linguistic rules, with a particular focus on American Sign Language
(ASL). Among her significant contributions to her field are the “less is
more” theory of language acquisition, which posits that children are
better than adults at learning languages, and the discovery that ASL is a
linguistically natural language with its own unique rules, rather than a mere
representation of spoken language.
In addition to being a fellow of numerous scientific groups, Professor
Newport is a recipient of the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and
Cognitive Science, and her research has been supported by the National
Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Packard
Foundation. In December 2020, she received the American Psychological
Association’s Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions, which
is considered to be one of the highest distinctions for research in
psychology.

HONOREE
ELENA OTTOLENGHI
NIGHTINGALE ’54, MD, PhD
National Academy of Medicine
Elena Ottolenghi Nightingale is a scholar-inresidence
emerita at the National Academy of
Medicine, an adjunct professor of pediatrics emerita
at George Washington University School of Medicine
and Health Sciences, and an adjunct professor
of pediatrics at Georgetown University School of
Medicine. She holds a Doctor of Medicine degree from New York University
and a doctorate from Rockefeller University.
Dr. Nightingale began her career at the Institute of Medicine (now the
National Academy of Medicine), where she developed programs on health
promotion, disease prevention, and health and science policies, before
becoming a special advisor to the president and senior program officer
at the Carnegie Corporation of New York. After retirement, she returned
to the Institute of Medicine, where she served as a scholar-in-residence
for 18 years.
Dr. Nightingale is the author of several books and numerous articles on
microbial genetics, health and well-being, health promotion and disease
prevention, health policy, and human rights. With Eric Stover, she coedited
The Breaking of Bodies and Minds: Torture, Psychiatric Abuse and
the Health Professions (Freeman, 1985), which was based on extensive field
research and was the first effort to compile information on the role of
physicians as protectors of human rights and perpetrators of abuse.
In 2006, Dr. Nightingale was awarded the Walsh McDermott Medal
for Distinguished Service to the Institute of Medicine, and in 2008, in
recognition of extraordinary service, she was designated a lifetime National
Associate of the National Research Council of the National Academies.
She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and a fellow of the
American Association for the Advancement of Sciences.

HONOREE
JOAN V. RUDERMAN ’69, PhD
National Academy of Sciences
Joan Ruderman is a senior biologist and lecturer
at the High Meadows Environmental Institute at
Princeton University. She previously served as
the Marion V. Nelson Professor of Cell Biology
at Harvard Medical School and as the president
and director of the Marine Biological Laboratory
in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. She earned a
doctorate in biology from MIT.
Trained as a developmental biologist, most of her research has focused
on the molecular mechanisms that regulate cell division and early
development. More recently, she has turned her attention to the public
health and wildlife effects of environmental contaminants that mimic or
interfere with estrogen, testosterone, and other hormones. These include
chemicals used to make many of the plastics in consumer products
encountered in everyday life, as well as pesticides, flame retardants, and
chemicals used for fracking in shale gas production.
As senior science advisor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at
Harvard, she helped to establish a program that covers the crosscutting
roles of water in areas that range from human health to geopolitical
disputes. Among her national leadership roles, she has served on the
medical advisory board of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and
the scientific advisory board of the Ellison Medical Foundation. She is a
member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National
Academy of Sciences.

HONOREE
SUSAN C. SCRIMSHAW ’67, PhD
National Academy of Medicine
Susan Scrimshaw was president of Russell Sage
College from 2008 until her retirement in 2017.
She had previously been president of Simmons
College, dean of the School of Public Health at the
University of Illinois at Chicago, and associate dean
of public health and a professor of public health
and anthropology at the University of California,
Los Angeles. After graduating from Barnard, she earned a doctorate in
anthropology from Columbia University.
Dr. Scrimshaw’s research uses community participatory methods to
examine health disparities, pregnancy outcomes, health communication,
and culturally appropriate delivery of healthcare.
She currently serves on the board of directors of the Capital District
Physicians’ Health Plan in Albany, New York, and of Speare Memorial
Hospital in Plymouth, New Hampshire, and she recently chaired the
National Academy of Sciences Committee on Birth Settings, co-editing its
report, Birth Settings in America: Outcomes, Quality, Access and Choice
(National Academies Press, 2020). She is lead editor of the second edition
of The Handbook of Social Studies in Health and Medicine (SAGE, 2021).
Previously, she served on the Chicago and Illinois State Boards of Health
and the New York State Minority Health Council. In addition, she served as
president of the Society for Medical Anthropology, and is a former chair of
the Association of Schools of Public Health. She was also a member of the
board of governors of the US-Mexico Foundation for Science, serving as
board president for three years.
Dr. Scrimshaw’s honors include the Yarmolinsky Medal given by the National
Academy of Medicine for distinguished service, the Margaret Mead Award
from the American Anthropological Association, and a Hero of Public Health
gold medal awarded by President Vicente Fox of Mexico. She is a fellow of
the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American
Anthropological Association. When she was elected to the National Academy
of Medicine in 1993, she and her father, Dr. Nevin S. Scrimshaw, became the
first father/daughter duo members of the Academy.

HONOREE
BARBARA J. STOLL ’71, MD
National Academy of Medicine
Barbara J. Stoll is president of the China Medical
Board (CMB), a US-based foundation working to
advance health in China and Southeast Asia by
strengthening medical, nursing, and public health
education and research, and supporting leadership
development. Prior to joining CMB, she served
as the first woman dean of McGovern Medical
School at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center. Earlier, she
was the George W. Brumley, Jr. Professor and chair of the Department
of Pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine. She holds a Doctor
of Medicine degree from Yale Medical School and completed pediatric
training at Columbia and Emory.
Dr. Stoll’s research has focused on perinatal epidemiology, neonatal
infections, randomized clinical trials in neonatology, and international child
health. With funding from the National Institutes of Health, she has produced
over 400 publications, including articles, chapters, editorials, and reports. She
has worked at institutions in several countries, including the International
Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Bangladesh, the University of
Goteborg in Sweden, and the World Health Organization in Geneva.
Dr. Stoll is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, the American
Academy of Pediatrics, and she has served as president of the American
Pediatric Society, the oldest pediatric academic society in the US. She
has been recognized with several prestigious awards, including the John
Howland Award of the American Pediatric Society and the Frank Morris
Pediatric Leadership Award from the University of Iowa.

HONOREE
RUTH TOBY GROSS ’41, MD +
National Academy of Medicine
Ruth Taubenhaus “Toby” Gross was a professor of
pediatrics at Stanford University. In 1976, she became
the first woman to receive an endowed professorship
at Stanford when she was named the Katharine
Dexter and Stanley McCormick Memorial Professor
of Pediatrics. She pioneered the field of general
pediatrics at the Stanford School of Medicine.
In 1944, she was one of only two women to receive a medical degree from
the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. She joined the
faculty at Stanford School of Medicine for the first time after completing
her residency training. Then, in 1960, she was appointed associate professor
of pediatrics and co-director of the division of human genetics at the
Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.
Professor Gross went to San Francisco in 1966 to become chief of the
department of pediatrics at Mount Zion Hospital and Medical Center.
Empowered to launch a comprehensive healthcare program for
disadvantaged children, she realized the potential of organized medicine
to improve the quality of life for the underserved and focused on
community and social medicine for the remainder of her career.
Professor Gross returned to Stanford in 1973 and remained there until her
retirement. She was a member of numerous scientific and professional
societies, including the Institute of Medicine (now the National Academy of
Medicine). She served as national study director of the infant health and
development program for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which
demonstrated that aggressive social intervention significantly increased
the IQ scores, cognitive development, and behavioral outcomes of very
low-birth-weight infants. Although she enjoyed her early years of scientific
research, she told others she felt great fulfillment from the latter part of
her career, in which she worked to find new approaches to comprehensive
health education and care for children.
Professor Gross passed away in 2007.
+ Indicates deceased

HONOREE
EVA J. NEER ’59 PhD +
National Academy of Sciences
National Academy of Medicine
Eva J. Neer was a biochemist and heart researcher.
She became a research associate at Harvard
University in 1970, an assistant professor of
biochemistry in 1976, an associate professor in
1979, and professor of medicine and biochemistry
in 1990, becoming the second woman ever to hold
that title at Harvard. From 1982 to 1992, she also worked as a biochemist in
the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
She received her bachelor’s degree from Barnard and earned a Doctor
of Medicine degree from Columbia University’s College of Physicians and
Surgeons.
Dr. Neer’s studies on transmembrane signaling systems and G proteins, an
important class of signaling molecules, revolutionized the fields of signal
transduction and protein function. Her laboratory was the first to describe
the physical properties of adenylyl cyclase enzymes, to develop a chemical
separation of the adenylyl cyclase unit from a G protein, to demonstrate
that the rate-limiting step in the activation of the catalytic unit was equal
to the rate of activation of the G protein, and to show that calmodulin
activated the catalytic unit. She also discovered a G protein subunit, called
Go, that regulated important ion channels and proved to be one of the
most abundant signaling proteins in the human brain. Her most significant
contribution was identifying the coupling of muscarinic receptors on the
heart to the IKACh ion channel.
Dr. Neer was a member of the American Society for Molecular Biology
and Biochemistry, the Endocrine Society, the Society for Neuroscience,
and both the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of
Medicine. She received the Basic Research Prize from the American
Heart Association in 1996 and the Excellence in Science Award from the
Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology in 1998.
Dr. Neer passed away in 2000.
+ Indicates deceased

HONOREE
HELEN M. RANNEY ’41, MD +
National Academy of Sciences
National Academy of Medicine
Helen M. Ranney was a faculty member at the
University of California, San Diego, School of
Medicine for more than 30 years and a former head
of its Department of Medicine, the first woman at a
major American medical school to hold that post.
She earned her Doctor of Medicine from Columbia
University in 1947, where she was one of five women in her class. She
remained at Columbia for postgraduate training, and from 1951 to 1953 she
was a clinical cancer fellow at Columbia, where she taught medicine until
1960. She then went to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where she
became a professor in 1965. After a brief period at the State University of
New York, Buffalo, she moved to the University of California, San Diego.
Dr. Ranney headed the Department of Medicine at University of California,
San Diego, for 13 years. From 1986 to 1991, she was a distinguished physician
at the US Veterans Administration, the first woman to hold that post.
Dr. Ranney was a hematologist whose experiments in the 1950s elucidated
the genetic basis of sickle-cell disease, an inherited form of anemia
that affects one in 500 African Americans. She made her discovery by
developing a simple method of distinguishing normal hemoglobin, the ironrich
protein in red blood cells that transports oxygen, from the abnormal
hemoglobin found in patients with sickle-cell disease.
In recognition of her achievements, she was elected to the National
Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine and received
the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Medical Achievement Award. She served as
president of the American Society of Hematology and was named a master
of the American College of Physicians.
Dr. Ranney passed away in 2010.
+ Indicates deceased

HONOREE
ORA MENDELSOHN ROSEN ’56, MD +
National Academy of Sciences
Ora M. Rosen held the Abby Rockefeller Mauze
Chair of Experimental Therapeutics at Memorial
Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and, as an American
Cancer Society research professor, headed the
center’s laboratory of developmental and membrane
biology. She received her medical degree from
Columbia University. After studying cell biology and
biochemistry at New York University and at the Albert Einstein College of
Medicine, she joined the faculty at Einstein in 1966 and became chair of
the Molecular Pharmacology Department. She joined the staff of Memorial
Sloan-Kettering in 1984.
Dr. Rosen was a leading investigator of the ways hormones and other
factors control the development of cells. In 1985, she and her colleagues
at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, in collaboration with scientists at Genentech
Inc., achieved a breakthrough in cell biology by cloning the gene for the
human insulin receptor, the cell surface molecule to which insulin binds. By
accomplishing the cloning, they opened the way for detailed investigation
of how the insulin receptor transmits signals from the surface of the
cell to the interior. She and her associates then applied a wide range
of biochemical and genetic techniques to determine how the receptor
molecule gets its message to the cell’s metabolic machinery. Their work
also led to a broader inquiry into the role of insulin in normal cell function
and in diabetes and other disorders.
Dr. Rosen received numerous honors during her career, including the
Banting Award of the American Diabetes Association, the Award of
Achievement from the American Medical Women’s Association, the Louis
and Beth Freedman Foundation Award of the New York Academy of
Sciences, and the Joseph Mather Smith Prize from Columbia University,
among others. In 1989, she was elected a member of the National Academy
of Sciences.
Dr. Rosen passed away in 1990.
+ Indicates deceased

HONOREE
MYRIAM PAULA SARACHIK ’54, PhD +
National Academy of Sciences
Myriam Sarachik was a distinguished professor of
physics at City College of New York, where she
joined the faculty in 1964. She escaped from Belgium
during World War II and eventually emigrated to the
US in 1947. After graduating from Barnard, she earned
a master’s and doctorate from Columbia University
and then worked briefly at Bell Laboratories.
Professor Sarachik’s primary field of research was low-temperature
condensed matter physics. Her work provided the first experimental
confirmation of the Kondo effect, the scattering of conduction electrons
in a metal due to magnetic impurities. She and her colleagues also
provided important insights into quantum tunneling, a phenomenon where
an atom or other particle can appear on the other side of a barrier that
should be impossible for it to penetrate.
Professor Sarachik received numerous honors for her work, including
the Buckley Prize of the American Physical Society, the L’Oreal Prize, and
the American Physical Society’s Medal for Exceptional Achievement in
Research. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1995.
Professor Sarachik served as president of the American Physical Society
in 2003. In addition to her professional activities, she was an advocate
for women in STEM, mentored younger women in her field, and served on
committees that defended the rights of scientists around the world.
Professor Sarachik passed away in 2021.
+ Indicates deceased

HONOREE
ANNE A. SCITOVSKY ’37, MA +
National Academy of Medicine
Anne Scitovsky was chief of the Health Economics
Division at the Palo Alto Medical Research Foundation,
where she worked for over 30 years. In addition to
her degree from Barnard, she studied at the London
School of Economics and earned a master’s degree
in economics from Columbia in 1941.
Ms. Scitovsky was nationally recognized for careful patient-by-patient
analysis of cost and treatment patterns, decision points, and long-term
trends in healthcare; her research impacted both public and private
healthcare policies. She published extensively in the area of health
economics, including papers for the US Department of Health and Human
Services. Her most recent work focused on the demand for physician’s
services and the cost of medical care.
Ms. Scitovsky was appointed to the President’s Commission for the Study
of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research
in 1979. She was a member of the Institute of Medicine (now the National
Academy of Medicine), served on the faculty of the University of California,
San Francisco, Institute for Health Policy Studies, and was a member of
many national committees on medical care costs.
Ms. Scitovsky passed away in 2012.
+ Indicates deceased

Scan here to increase support!