Trailblazers and teachers, artists and advocates, entrepreneurs and environmentalists - women who dreamed big dreams and bettered the world as they distinguished themselves in their professions or communities.

These are the remarkable women role models on whom the Alumnae Association has bestowed its highest honor. Since 1978 the Laurel School Alumnae Association has honored one of its own as Distinguished Alumna of the year. The recipient is honored at Alumnae Weekend each May.

2008 DISTINGUISHED ALUMNA

Dr. Elizabeth “Lissa” D. McKinley ’78

Academic Society Dean, Case Western
Reserve University School of Medicine; Assistant Professor of Medicine and Biomedical Ethics;
Co-Director of the Core Physician Development Program at CWRU Medical School;
Staff Physician, Cleveland MetroHealth Medical Center

As the Academic Dean of the Emily Blackwell Society at Case Western Reserve
University’s School of Medicine, Dr. Lissa McKinley mentors medical students through
their four years at the medical school and “is recognized as warm, supportive and committed
to optimizing their medical school experience.”

In addition to being an assistant professor of medicine and biomedical ethics at CWRU School of Medicine, she has instituted “The Healer’s Art,” an innovative national course and she speaks widely on her research interest, “cancer survivorship.” As a cancer survivor herself, she isacutely aware of the importance of improving the process and outcomes of breast cancer care. Dr. McKinley is a graduate of Middlebury College, received her medical degree from CWRU School of Medicine, and a Master’s in Public Heath from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

2008 DISTINGUISHED YOUNG ALUMNA

Dr. Roopal Patel ’89

Technical Advisor, President’s Malaria Initiative in Rwanda,
Center for Disease Control

Prior to Dr. Patel’s current appointment, she served as an Epidemic Intelligence
Service (EIS) Officer in a prestigious two-year fellowship in medical epidemiology with
the Respiratory Disease Branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In her 11 years as a physician, Dr. Patel has served the global health field in a variety of positions — as a pediatrician in a Zimbabwe rural hospital as well as in Saipan and at the Northern Navajo Medical Center in New Mexico; as an urgent care physician in Denver; and as a medical advisor for HIV/AIDS prevention in Myanmar. She led an investigation of an
outbreak in bacterial pneumonia in the Atlanta homeless and assisted in the CDC’s post-Katrina
response in New Orleans. As noted by one of her colleagues, “Roopal has chosen a career in international public health and communicable disease control in order to have a positive impact on the world’s most vulnerable populations.”

Dr. Patel is a graduate of Northwestern University, received her medical degree from Tufts University School of Medicine, and a DTMH from the London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

Past Distinguished Alumnae