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Notable Alumnae Honored During Alumnae Weekend Luncheon

Two receive special recognition
In 2017 GPS established a Notable Alumnae Awards Program to recognize outstanding graduates. One alumna from each reunion class is chosen through a selection process that includes nominations by her classmates and then honored during our GPS Alumnae Weekend.

Notable Alumnae Awards are given to GPS graduates who are considered to be the most outstanding in their classes, including leaders in their communities, directors of organizations or businesses, elected officials, high-ranking military officers, and those who have made a significant difference in the lives of others. The Distinguished Alumna and the Lupton Award of Excellence recipients are chosen from the Notable Alumnae Awards honorees. Notables from the 5th and 10th reunion classes are considered Rising Notables. One Notable Alumna is selected from the combined 65th, 60th, and 55th reunion classes.

This year the Class of 1969, in celebration of their 50th reunion, chose to be recognized as a class. Corinne Anderson Adams wrote a manifesto as a tribute to their entire class and read it at the luncheon. Her poetic commendation can be read here.


GPS 2019 Notable Alumnae Honorees
To read the full bio for each of the honorees, please click here.

Helen Burns Sharp, Class of 1964
Community Advocate, Former Urban Planner and Developer

The Class of 1969
Special 50th Reunion Recognition—for resilience, compassion, determination

Dr. Mary Katherine Lawrence, Class of 1974
Board-Certified Internist, Medical Clinic Founder and Director, Philanthropist

Dr. Laurel Carney, Class of 1979
Auditory Neuroscience Physician, Professor, Award-Winning Researcher

Dr. Janet West Batanghari, Class of 1984
Scientist, Teacher, Editor, Champion of Underserved Women and Children

Amy Edgar Sklansky, Class of 1989
Children’s Book Author

Lela Moore, Class of 1994
National Writer and Reporter

Marissa Shrum, Class of 1999
Creative Marketer, Brand and Community Strategy Leader

Taylor Warren, Class of 2004
Field Epidemiologist, Health Volunteer, Consultant

Chelsey Smith, Class of 2009
Bioengineering Ph.D. Candidate, Graduate Research Program Fellow

Anna Carroll, Class of 2014
Product Engineer, Philanthropist


2019 Distinguished Alumna | Laurel Hawthorne Carney ‘79
Dr. Laurel Hawthorne Carney is a full professor and researcher in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Rochester. Laurel and her team explore the intricacies of the human auditory system in an effort to help those with hearing loss, particularly in noisy backgrounds. Laurel received her bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from MIT and her master’s and doctoral degrees, also in electrical engineering, from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in psychology at the University of Pennsylvania before going onto a distinguished career as a professor and researcher. In addition to writing 85 published studies, Laurel has won numerous accolades, including the 2015 William and Christine Hartmann Prize in Auditory Neuroscience from the Acoustical Society of America. Laurel is a fellow of the Acoustical Society of America and of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and has served as associate editor for three distinguished journals. She is currently a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Neurophysiology. Laurel also received the Lupton Award of Excellence in 1999. She lives with her husband, David Cameron in Geneva, New York.

2019 Margaret Lupton Award of Excellence | Taylor Warren ‘04
Taylor Warren joined the World Health Organization this February as a technical officer in Geneva, Switzerland. In this new role she supports operational readiness; getting countries ready for emergency response. Before that she worked in the public health field in the African nations of Guinea, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Kenya, Darfur, South Sudan, and Nigeria. After earning her master’s degree in public health in forced migration from Columbia University, Taylor spent a year with Catholic Charities, working in infection prevention and control and supporting Ebola response in Guinea and Liberia. She then spent three years as a field epidemiologist for Médecins Sans Frontières (France’s Doctors without Borders), working with responses to measles, malaria, cholera, and Ebola, as well as developing training modules for incoming epidemiologists. While at Columbia, Taylor served as a teaching assistant and consultant intern for Catholic Relief Services. Taylor holds a bachelor’s degree in political science/history from Furman University. Her humanitarian work began soon after graduation when she became a health and youth development Peace Corps volunteer in Rwanda. Taylor is fluent in French and knows Kinyarwanda (the official language of Rwanda).

As we celebrate these Notable Alumnae, we also acknowledge their family members, teachers, and others who have supported them in their pursuits.
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