Laurel School Celebrates its 2025 Distinguished Alumnae Award Recipients

Laurel School is pleased to announce its 2025 Distinguished Alumnae Awards honorees. Since 1978, the Laurel School Alumnae Association has honored alumnae who dream big, dare to follow those dreams, and in doing so, break barriers, become mentors, and assume leadership roles in all areas of their lives. This year’s extraordinary honorees truly embody what it means to be a Laurel Girl. 

Anne Conway Juster ’80, educator, civic leader, and philanthropist, is this year’s Distinguished Alumna, an honor given to one alumna who is prominent in her field of endeavor and who has already celebrated her 20th reunion.  

Anne graduated from Middlebury College with a degree in sociology. She then earned a master’s in education from Tufts University and served for over a decade as a middle school social studies teacher in Providence, RI, and Cleveland. In the late 1990s, she was hired as the first Facing History and Ourselves (FHAO) employee in Cleveland, tasked with launching the local office for the now international organization.

In 2012, Anne earned a second master’s in positive organizational development from Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management and went on to become Director of the Cleveland School Garden Partnership at the Cleveland Botanical Garden. There she designed and implemented a program engaging students from underserved communities in outdoor learning, feeding her passion for learning in partnership with nature. 

Anne also has held the position of Board Chair and President of the Martha Holden Jennings Foundation and co-founded and serves as board chair of Spice Field Kitchen, an organization that empowers individuals of all ages to grow, prepare, and engage with food in ways that transform their health and communities. 

Described as a mentor, a visionary, and a quintessential “servant leader,” Anne has consciously chosen to engage with organizations aimed at progressive social change. She chaired Laurel’s own Head of School search that brought Ann V. Klotz to Lyman Circle and subsequently served as Chair of Laurel’s Board of Trustees for six years. During her tenure as Board Chair, the two Ann(e)s oversaw an ambitious strategic planning process, steered and implemented a historic gift that launched the programmatic development of Laurel’s Butler Campus, and traveled the world to visit alumnae while also establishing cultural partnerships with schools in China and Japan. 

Mollie Barnard ’06, Molecular and Genetic Epidemiologist, cancer researcher, is this year’s recipient of the Young Alum of Distinction Award. A lifer at Laurel who was equally talented in math and art, competed on the tennis and swim teams, and served as class treasurer, Mollie earned her bachelor’s degree in biology from Swarthmore College.

In 2016, while earning her Doctorate of Science in epidemiology from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Mollie was awarded a highly competitive National Cancer Institute (NCI) F99/K00 Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Fellow Transition Award to study the role of inflammation and immunity in ovarian tumor development. In 2018, she took her NCI fellowship award to the University of Utah’s Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI), where her research resulted in several papers, including one titled “Endometriosis Typology and Ovarian Cancer Risk,” that was published in JAMA.

In 2022, Mollie joined the Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine as an Assistant Professor. She is a member of both the Department of Medicine and the Slone Epidemiology Center, where she continues to develop an impressive research program examining risk factors for breast and ovarian cancers. 

Striving to better the world in keeping with Laurel’s mission, Mollie has dedicated much of her leisure time to volunteering and mentorship.

Judith Wynn Rousuck ’69, theater critic and author, is this year’s Lifetime Achievement recipient. After transferring to Laurel in Eleventh Grade and serving in her Senior year as the editor-in-chief of the school newspaper, Judy recognized that she could combine her love for storytelling and journalism. She pursued both her interests as an English major at Wellesley College, where she won a major poetry prize and served as editor-in-chief of The Wellesley News.

After graduating from Wellesley, Judy returned to Cleveland for a job editing the program guide for WCLV, the fine arts radio station where she had completed her Laurel Senior Project. She then went on to work for The Cleveland Press and earn a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University. Judy then landed at The Baltimore Sun, where she spent the next 33 years, 23 of which were spent as a theater critic; she was a fixture in the Baltimore theater scene as one of the country’s most highly respected theater critics. 

Living an ethos to educate and encourage the next generation of writers, Judy has taught theater and writing at Goucher College, at the O’Neill Theater Center, at the National Endowment for the Arts Journalism Institute in Theater at the University of Southern California, and in a talented youth program at Johns Hopkins University. 

Judy’s second act emerged 18 years ago when she left The Sun and found a new home at WYPR, Baltimore’s National Public Radio station, where she provides weekly critiques of area theater productions. Over the years, her short stories, articles and commentary have been published in magazines ranging from American Theatre to Dog World. Her debut novel, Please Write: A Novel in Letters, which tells its story through correspondence between two literate terriers and their very human grandmother, recently received the Dog Writers Association of America’s Best Novel award.

In recognition of the role Laurel played in building Judy’s strong foundation in writing and critical thinking, her mother established the Judith Wynn Rousuck Journalism Award, which is given annually to an Upper School student.

These Distinguished Alumnae will be honored during Laurel’s Annual Alumnae Weekend May 16-18. You can find more information about their inspiring lives here.