Barbara Gaines

Distinguished Alumnae Award Recipient, 2001

The Alumnae Award recognizes a woman who has brought honor to Northwestern University through outstanding professional contributions in her field and who has attained national recognition. Established in 1976, the Alumnae Award has been presented every year to an alumna who has had a significant impact in her field of endeavor. Educators, journalists, doctors, scientists, and artists are included among The Alumnae’s roster of awardees.

Founder and Artistic Director, Chicago Shakespeare Theater

Laura Washington

Recipient, 2002

Print and Broadcast Journalist

Lois Weisberg

Recipient, 2003

Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs

Martha Lavey

Distinguished Alumnae Award Recipient, 2004

The Alumnae Award recognizes a woman who has brought honor to Northwestern University through outstanding professional contributions in her field and who has attained national recognition. Established in 1976, the Alumnae Award has been presented every year to an alumna who has had a significant impact in her field of endeavor. Educators, journalists, doctors, scientists, and artists are included among The Alumnae’s roster of awardees.
 
MARTHA LAVEY, Artistic Director, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, 1995-2015
 
“Under her transformative leadership, Steppenwolf became a national leader in producing new plays and commissioning playwrights.”  With dozens of Steppenwolf productions going to Broadway and abroad, she “gained national and international recognition for the company and Chicago as a vital theater destination. During her tenure Steppenwolf was awarded the National Medal of the Arts – the only theater to ever receive the honor, as well as the Illinois Arts Legend Award and nine of the company’s 12 Tony Awards.  She established several programs including:  Steppenwolf for Young Adults, the Professional Leadership for emerging arts managers, The First Look Rep of New Work for plays in development.  Lavey was named on of the “100 Most Powerful People” by Chicago Magazine twice, selected one of the city’s “10 Most Powerful Women in the Arts,”’by the Chicago Sun-Times and awarded the title of “2010 Chicagoan of the Year” by the Chicago Tribune.  While serving as Artistic Director, she performed in more than 30 Steppenwolf productions, as well as performing. at the Goodman, Victory Gardens, & Northlight.  A recipient of the Sarah Siddons Award, she earned a doctorate in Performance Studies from Northwestern.  In addition to the Alumnae Award, she received an Alumni Merit Award and an Honorary Doctorate from Northwestern University.  Born in 1957, she passed away in 2017. " (Steppenwolf.)
 


 
 

Carole Browe Segal

Distinguished Alumnae Award Recipient, 2005

The Alumnae Award recognizes a woman who has brought honor to Northwestern University through outstanding professional contributions in her field and who has attained national recognition. Established in 1976, the Alumnae Award has been presented every year to an alumna who has had a significant impact in her field of endeavor. Educators, journalists, doctors, scientists, and artists are included among The Alumnae’s roster of awardees.

Carole Segal is co-founder of Crate & Barrel (with husband Gordon), founder and former CEO of Foodstuffs, and president of the Segal Family Foundation.  She is also co-chair of the Illinois Business Immigration Coalition, trustee of several local institutions and on the Board of Directors of the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, Lincoln Park Zoo and Chicago Public Media-WBEZ. Awards include the Alumni Service Award from northwestern University, Lifetime Humanitarian Award from the Housewares Charity Foundation (with husband Gordon), Alumni Trustee Medal from Northwestern University, and Making History Award for Distinction in Business Leadership (with husband Gordon) from the Chicago Historical Society.
 




 
 

Christine Brennan

Distinguished Alumnae Award Recipient, 2006

The Alumnae Award recognizes a woman who has brought honor to Northwestern University through outstanding professional contributions in her field and who has attained national recognition. Established in 1976, the Alumnae Award has been presented every year to an alumna who has had a significant impact in her field of endeavor. Educators, journalists, doctors, scientists, and artists are included among The Alumnae’s roster of awardees.

CHRISTINE BRENNAN, award winning journalist

Sports columnist for USA Today, television commentator, best-selling author and speaker, Christine appears on CNN, ABC News, PBS NewsHour and NPR’s Morning Edition.  “Named one of the country’s top 10 sports columnists three times by the Associated Press Sports Editors, she has covered the last 20 Olympic Games, summer and winter.  In March 2020, Brennan was named the winner of the prestigious Red Smith Award, presented annually to a person who has made ‘major contributions to sport journalism.’ . . . The first president of the Association for Women in Sports Media (AWSM), she  started a scholarship-internship program that has supported more than 175 female students over the past two decades. Brennan is the author of seven books.  Her 2006 sports memoir, “Best Seat in the House,” is the only father-daughter memoir written by a sports journalist.”  Since receiving the Alumnae Award, she received Northwestern’s Alumni Service Award in 2007 and Yale’s Kiphuth Medal in 2013. Both the NCAA and the Woman’s Sports Foundation honored her in celebrations for the 40th Anniversary of Title IX in 2012. www.christinebrennan.com  

Nancy Gustafson

Distinguished Alumnae Award Recipient, 2007

Opera Singer Artist-in-Residence, Northwestern University

The Alumnae Award recognizes a woman who has brought honor to Northwestern University through outstanding professional contributions in her field and who has attained national recognition. Established in 1976, the Alumnae Award has been presented every year to an alumna who has had a significant impact in her field of endeavor. Educators, journalists, doctors, scientists, and artists are included among The Alumnae’s roster of awardees.

Nancy’s 30- year operatic career took her around the world singing regularly in the world’s greatest opera houses – from the Lyric Opera of Chicago to Europe’s Vienna State Opera, Teatro a La Scala Milan, London’s Covent Garden, the Paris Opera Garnier and many others.  She worked frequently with conductors such as Lorin Maazel, Riccardo Muti, James Levin, Sir Georg Solti.  Her recordings include La Boheme, Herodiade opposite Placido Domingo and Pavoritti and Friends 2. Ms. Gustafson has been an Artist-in-Residence at Northwestern’s Bienen School of Music since September 2006.  From 2011 to 2014 she was General Manager of the Castleton Festival with Maestro Lorin Maazel.  For the past 35 years, she has served as Artistic Director and Producer of Celebration – a benefit concert for Over the Rainbow, which provides affordable housing and resident services to support independent living for individuals with physical disabilities. Inspired by her own mother’s battle with Alzheimer’s, she founded the Songs by Heart Foundation in 2015.  Dedicated to enhancing the quality of life of people with memory loss through the joy of music, Songs by Heart offers interactive sing-along programs in memory care communities in six different states including 50 locations in Illinois.  

Teresa Woodruff

Distinguished Alumnae Award Recipient, 2008

The Alumnae Award recognizes a woman who has brought honor to Northwestern University through outstanding professional contributions in her field and who has attained national recognition. Established in 1976, the Alumnae Award has been presented every year to an alumna who has had a significant impact in her field of endeavor. Educators, journalists, doctors, scientists, and artists are included among The Alumnae’s roster of awardees.

Prior to receiving the Alumnae Award, Professor Woodruff founded they “‘Oncofertility” Consortium at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in 2007. In 2011 she was awarded the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science Mentoring by President Obama in an oval office ceremony.  A champion for sex equity in clinical trials, her work and its impact on NIH policy was featured on 60 Minutes in 2014. In 2015 she founded the Women’s Health Research Institute at Northwestern and served as Director.  As Vice Chair for Research and Chief of Reproductive Science in Medicine at the Feinberg School of Medicine, she initiated a Masters Program in Reproductive Science. In 2018 she and husband Tom, O’Halloran, inorganic chemist, made the ground-breaking discovery of the “zinc spark” at the moment of fertilization. That same year she became Dean of The Graduate School of Northwestern. In 2020 Woodruff was named Provost of Michigan State University and from 2022- 2024 she served as Interim President of MSU. Additionally, she is an MSU Foundation Professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, & Reproductive Biology and the Department of Biochemical Engineering. Among her many honors she was recipient of the Endocrine Society’s 2021 Laureate Award and elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2020.

 

Marie Arana

Distinguished Alumnae Award Recipient, 2009

The Alumnae Award recognizes a woman who has brought honor to Northwestern University through outstanding professional contributions in her field and who has attained national recognition. Established in 1976, the Alumnae Award has been presented every year to an alumna who has had a significant impact in her field of endeavor. Educators, journalists, doctors, scientists, and artists are included among The Alumnae’s roster of awardees.

Marie is the inaugural Library Director of the Library of Congress, director of the National Book Festival, the John W. Kluge Center’s Chair of the Cultures of the Countries of the South, and a Writer at Large for the Washington Post. For many years, she was editor-in-chief of the Washington Post’s literary section, Book World. She has also written for the New York Times, National Geographic, International Herald Tribune, Spain’s El Pais, and Peru’s El Comercio, among many other publications.  Author of fiction and nonfiction her biography of Simon Bolivar won the 2014 Los Angeles Times Book Prize. 

Meredith Aaron

Senior Woman's Award for Volunteer Service Recipient, 2011

Meredith (Merrie) Aaron, a senior in the School of Education and Social Policy, is the recipient of the 2010-2011 Alumnae Senior Woman’s Award. 

Merrie, from Port Washington, New York, is majoring in Human Development and Psychological Services, maintaining a GPA of 3.7 throughout her undergraduate years, which includes committed volunteer work and involvement in campus life and its organizations.

Within three months of stepping foot on campus, Merrie accepted her first leadership position as president of the first-year students at Hillel.  Through her initiatives and leadership, the organization increased its membership and outreach efforts, strengthening of Jewish life within the Northwestern community.  This past fall, Merrie was recognized by Hillel International, receiving the Philip H and Susan Rudd Cohen Student Exemplars of Excellence Award.

In addition to her leadership roles within Hillel, Merrie has participated in Dance Marathon all four years as a dancer, earning membership into the 120-Hour Club; has an active role in the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, where she currently serves as Senior Admissions Counselor and Tour Guide; and a member of the Delta Gamma sorority.  Also, Merrie was the Alumnae and Corporate Relations Chair and a member of the 2010 Homecoming Committee and has served as a partner and advocate for the Northwestern Alumni Association.

 

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