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Alumnae Awards

The Frances Riker Davis 1915 Award

The family and friends of Frances Riker Davis ’15 established this award in 1967 to honor the tradition of public service which Mrs. Davis embodied. The annual award recognizes Brearley alumnae for ongoing, dedicated service to the public good, as demonstrated professionally and/or through volunteerism. The award is given to alumnae who identify a need, create a solution and effect change, and whose unique efforts have made a significant impact on the lives of others over time. Each year’s honoree speaks at a Middle and Upper School assembly in the fall. Recent recipients include Margaret Kohn ’65, a lawyer who advocates for children with disabilities; Susan Popkin Wadsworth ’54, founder of Young Concert Artists; and Nina Schwalbe ’84, director of policy for the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development.

The Frances Riker Davis Committee considers candidates who have been nominated by their classmates and fellow alumnae. The committee then presents a short list of nominees to a selection committee comprising past honorees.

Recent Recipients

Amanda Eaken

Amanda Eaken

2023 Recipient | Class of 1995

As the director of transportation at the Natural Resources Defense Council, Amanda Eaken manages a team driving ambitious climate action in 25 US cities to create transportation choices such as walking, biking and public transit. Her work focuses on “decarbonizing” transportation, and over the last three years, Amanda’s work has become twofold: advancing policies that not only tackle climate change but also facilitate an equitable, socially just recovery from the global pandemic. The Climate Challenge teams prioritized actions for lasting fair and sustainable change; they shifted influential systems to become more deliberate about inclusivity of all communities and helped promote the perspectives of underserved and underinvested populations through advocacy and equitable policy making.

Molly Rauch

Molly Rauch

2023 Recipient | Class of 1990

Starting in 2010, Molly Rauch ‘90 was involved with Moms Clean Air Force (MCAF), serving until 2022 as public health policy director. MCAF is a grassroots advocacy group affiliated with the Environmental Defense Fund, with local chapters in 15 states and over one million members. MCAF works in collaboration with other climate change and clean air groups to inform the public about the health impacts of pollution and how to fight for clean air. During her 12 years with MCAF, Molly helped shape the growth of the program, building relationships, alliances and partnerships with public health organizations to develop and implement strategies to influence regulatory and policy decisions.

Marguerite Cullman

Marguerite Cullman

2022 Recipient | Class of 1954

For over 40 years, Maggy Cullman’s dedication to those in need of help—women prisoners, new immigrants, community college students, the elderly, and people of many faith communities—has been steady, generous, passionate and unassuming. Maggy has been called “a priceless gift to the community.”

Maggy received her BA from Manhattanville College and an MA in English from the University of Iowa. She is consistently engaged in multiple volunteer activities, using her expertise in education and administration to serve the needs of prisoners, immigrants, the elderly and interfaith communities. Maggy also devoted decades to the many social justice activities of the Episcopal Church and the Interfaith Alliance, and served as the bishop’s deputy for public policy in the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, where she represented the interfaith community in reviewing the policies of the Maryland state legislature, and often spoke at the State House before assembly and senate committees.

Martine Singer

Martine Singer

2022 Recipient | Class of 1978

After a successful career at the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, Martine Singer left the business world to devote herself to improving the lives of children and families affected by violence and adversity. As president and CEO of Children’s Institute she oversees one of Los Angeles’s largest social impact organizations, with an annual budget of $100 million and more than one thousand employees; her most recent accomplishment is the opening of a new, Frank Gehry–designed headquarters in Watts. She has become a major influence in the city, helping to shape policy and bring about systemic change for communities affected by decades of racism and underinvestment.

Krysia Bereday Burnham

Krysia Bereday Burnham

2021 Recipient | Class of 1978

Krysia is a hospice chaplain. After an 11-year stint living overseas, Krysia and her family settled in Newton, Massachusetts, where she was inspired to take courses at the Andover Newton Theological Seminary, and soon enrolled in a full-time program in the field. A member of the First Church in Cambridge Congregational, UCC since 2006, where she was ordained in 2016, Krysia serves as one of the parish’s community ministers. Krysia is a chaplain at the Visiting Nurse Association of Boston, where she created a virtual grief support group targeting the complex losses sustained in the community during Covid-19.

Nancy Krieger

Nancy Krieger

2021 Recipient | Class of 1976

Nancy is a world-renowned epidemiologist whose work has frequently been motivated and defined by the glaring fact that inequities in risk of health-harming exposures, in rates of illness and death, and in lack of access to appropriate care are driven by social injustice, including structural racism, and that social justice is vital to advance health equity. Based in the Boston area, Nancy is known as the People’s Epidemiologist. Since 1995, she has been a professor of social epidemiology in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where she also serves as the director of the school’s interdisciplinary concentration on women, gender and health. Nancy’s counsel and opinions are often sought by a range of professionals, including the media, and especially so amid the pandemic.

      • 1967

        Ethel Nathalie Dana

        Class of 1898
      • 1968

        Celestine Goddard Mott

        Class of 1919
      • 1969

        Phyllis Goodhart Gordan

        Class of 1931
      • 1970

        Katharine Strauss Mali

        Class of 1919
      • 1971

        Anne Rosen Stern

        Class of 1934
      • 1972

        Frances Hand Ferguson

        Class of 1925
      • 1973

        Beatrice Bishop Berle, M.D.

        Class of 1919
      • 1974

        Mary St. John Villard

        Class of 1930
      • 1975

        Nina Moore Galston

        Class of 1931
      • 1976

        Winifred Dodd Rouillion

        Class of 1922
      • 1977

        Elizabeth Loeb

        Class of 1955
      • 1978

        Ruth McAneny Loud

        Class of 1918
      • 1979

        Denise Mangravite Scheinberg

        Class of 1949
      • 1980

        Helen Coley Nauts

        Class of 1925
      • 1981

        Josephine Young Case

        Class of 1924
      • 1982

        Edith Wise Burpee

        Class of 1944
      • 1983

        Emily Townsend Vermeule

        Class of 1946
      • 1984

        Special Centennial Awards

      • Anne Lord Andrews

        Class of 1927
      • Mary S. Calderone, M.D., M.P.H.

        Class of 1922
      • Rhys Caparn

        Class of 1927
      • Rosamond Gilder

        Class of 1910
      • Virginia Grace

        Class of 1918
      • Frances Holden

        Class of 1917
      • Mabel Satterlee Ingalls

        Class of 1918
      • Dorothy Schiff

        Class of 1920
      • Janet G. Travell, M.D.

        Class of 1918
      • Mary Mattison Van Schaik

        Class of 1928
      • Bettina Warburg, M.D.

        Class of 1918
      • Barbara Lewis Zinsser

        Class of 1931
      • 1985

        Elizabeth Man Sarcka

        Class of 1911
      • 1986

        Lydia Davis Goodhue

        Class of 1935
      • 1987

        Patricia Hochschild Labalme

        Class of 1944
      • 1988

        Edith Humphreys Mas

        Class of 1958
      • 1989

        Glenda Garvey M.D

        Class of 1960
      • Kate Belcher Webster

        Class of 1942
      • 1990

        Joan Ridder Challinor

        Class of 1945
      • 1991

        Patricia Taussig Marshall

        Class of 1949
      • 1992

        Mary Marvin Breckinridge Patterson

        Class of 1923
      • 1993

        Geraldine Babcock Boone

        Class of 1940
      • 1994

        Mary Anne Goldsmith Schwalbe

        Class of 1951
      • 1995

        Shelah Kane Scott

        Class of 1950
      • 1996

        Linda Borden McKean

        Class of 1946
      • 1997

        Sheila Maynard Platt

        Class of 1954
      • 1998

        Susan Neuberger Wilson

        Class of 1947
      • 1999

        Yeou Cheng Ma

        Class of 1969
      • 2000

        Constance Carden

        Class of 1962
      • 2001

        Mary Langben Cooper

        Class of 1953
      • 2002

        Alice Thurston

        Class of 1975
      • 2003

        Anne Zabriskie Noble

        Class of 1944
      • 2004

        Nina Schwalbe

        Class of 1984
      • 2005

        Susan Popkin Wadsworth

        Class of 1954
      • 2006

        Margaret Kohn

        Class of 1965
      • 2007

        Alissa Rubin

        Class of 1976
      • 2008

        Ruth Wyler Messinger

        Class of 1958
      • 2009

        Ellen Poisson

        Class of 1964
      • 2010

        Laura Rockefeller Chasin

        Class of 1954
      • 2011

        Mary Margaret Gleason

        Class of 1989
      • 2012

        Jessica Sager

        Class of 1988
      • 2013

        Carolyn Buff

        Class of 1980
      • Katharine Doyle

        Class of 1978
      • 2014

        Robyn Young

        Class of 1992
      • 2015

        Carolyn Schmidt

        Class of 1968
      • 2016

        Tamera Stanton Luzzatto

        Class of 1975
      • 2017

        Alice R. Thomas

        Class of 1984
      • 2018

        Carolyn Goldmark Goodman

        Class of 1957
      • 2019

        Jean Loeb Troubh

        Class of 1956
      • 2020

        Alex Piper

        Class of 1984
      • Samantha Eisenstein Waston

        Class of 1996
      • 2021

        Krysia Bereday Burnham

        Class of 1978
      • Nancy Krieger

        Class of 1976
      • 2022

        Marguerite Cullman

        Class of 1954
      • Martine Singer

        Class of 1978
      • 2023

        Amanda Eaken

        Class of 1995
      • Molly Rauch

        Class of 1990

The Lois Kahn Wallace ’57 Writers Award

Established in 1999 by literary agent Lois Kahn Wallace ’57, this award honors and encourages an alumna at the beginning of her career as a writer. It may be awarded every two years, and carries an honorarium for the winner. The first honoree, in 2001, was Erica Wagner ’85, literary editor of the Times of London and author of Gravity, a book of short stories, and Ariel’s Gift: Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, and the Story of Birthday Letters. In 2004 the award went to Sarah Towers ’88, short story writer, essayist and journalist; and in 2007 it was granted to Marisa Silver ’78, author of No Direction Home. Alumnae are encouraged to apply for the award on their own behalf. To apply, please submit six copies of the work of your choice to the Alumnae Office.

Recent Recipients

Don’t Think, Dear: On Loving and Leaving Ballet

Don’t Think, Dear: On Loving and Leaving Ballet

Alice Robb | 2023 Recipient | Class of 2010

Congratulations to Alice Robb ‘10, the latest Lois Kahn Wallace Writer’s Award winner for Don’t Think, Dear: On Loving and Leaving Ballet. Her new book has been praised as “a beautiful, difficult, and compelling memoir” (Vanity Fair); “a nuanced, intimate mash-up of memoir, reportage and cultural criticism” (the Guardian); “enlightening, perceptive” (the Wall Street Journal); and “remarkable for its nuance and insight” (Times Literary Supplement). Alice’s first book, Why We Dream, was noted as “a spirited rebuke to the idea of sleep as a mere parting from consciousness” (the New Yorker) and a “cogent defense of dreams and dream-telling” (NPR) and was translated into over a dozen foreign languages. As a journalist, she has written for such publications as Vanity Fair, Vogue, the Atlantic and the New Republic, where she began her career. Alice lives in London.

Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me

Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me

Adrienne Brodeur | 2021 Recipient | Class of 1983

Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me tells the story of the complex, push-me-pull-you relationship Brodeur had with her mother after she made her teenage daughter her confidante and enabler of an extramarital affair. Beautifully written, full of insight, and deeply engrossing, the memoir explores the twisting paths we’re willing to go down for those we love.

Here We Are

Here We Are

Aarti Namdev Shahani | 2021 Recipient | Class of 1997

Here We Are explores the parental bond, telling the story of an immigrant family’s move from India via Morocco to Queens. After years of struggle, Shahani’s father opens an electronics store and the family moves to the suburbs. But the “American dream” becomes a nightmare when her father is arrested for inadvertently selling to the Cali Cartel. Shahani spearheads her father’s defense and the family’s legal journey is intermingled with her coming of age in this vivid, moving memoir.

      • 2001

        Erica Wagner

        Class of 1985
      • Adrienne Brodeur

        Class of 1983
      • 2004

        Sarah Towers

        Class of 1988
      • 2007

        Marisa Silver

        Class of 1978
      • 2012

        Janice Pomerance Nimura

        Class of 1989
      • 2014

        Rachel Urquhart

        Class of 1981
      • 2016

        Anne Roston Korkeakivi

        Class of 1978
      • 2019

        Lindsay Stern

        Class of 2009
      • 2021

        Aarti Shahani

        Class of 1997
      • 2023

        Alice Robb

        Class of 2010

The Truth and Toil Award

The Truth and Toil Award, a recently established honor, annually recognizes a living alumna who has built a sense of connection across class years, embodies the values of Brearley and has had a significant influence on the community.

Recent Recipients

Wilhelmina Martin Eaken

Wilhelmina Martin Eaken

2023 Recipient | Class of 1964

Mina, who is also a past parent, worked as Brearley’s Alumnae Director from 1991 to 2014. During her tenure, Mina helped establish various committees of the Alumnae Association, expanded the reunion program into a weekend of activities for the community, helped further develop alum online communications and created programs that offered networking and mentoring opportunities.

Mina is a longstanding class agent, has served as reunion co-chair three times since she retired and is a member of the Lois Kahn Wallace Award Committee. Mina’s impressive knowledge of all alums makes her an invaluable member of the Brearley community. 

“Alums who make the community all the more close and strong with their time, energy, ideas and spirit, alums who inspire others in the community to do the same—these are the alums whom we seek to honor and thank every year going forward with this new award,” Megan Lui ’10, co-chair of the Truth and Toil Award Committee and Alumnae Association president, explains. “As a culture carrier, a leader who spearheaded the formation of many of our alum committees and as an alum who has been involved in the Brearley community in various capacities throughout the years, Mina is the true embodiment of the spirit of this award.”

Cecile Miller Eistrup

Cecile Miller Eistrup

2022 Recipient | Class of 1958

“I am happy that my presence here means something to you, because it means a lot to me.” So said Cecile Miller Eistrup ‘58 upon accepting Brearley’s first Truth and Toil Award at a ceremony and reception held in her honor on September 28 at the school. 

Entering Brearley in 1950 as a member of Class VI, Cecile was the first student of color to be admitted at the school. Years later, in honor of Cecile opening the doors for every Brearley alumna of color, Cherise Davis ’90, Lisa Downing ’85 and Andréa Matos ’88 created the Miller Society. The Miller Society has thrived and expanded ever since, becoming one of the most important alumnae groups at Brearley. Its purpose includes supporting current students and families of color and propelling diversity, equity and inclusion at the school.

At the celebration, which was attended by Cecile’s classmates and other alumnae, administration, trustees, faculty, staff and students, Cecile, who received a silk scarf on which "Truth & Toil" and other Brearley details were hand-painted by art teacher Rebecca Raney, was asked what advice she could give to current students. “Be yourself,” she responded. “Know who you are, what you stand for. Be willing to share and be as open and understanding and learn to respect each other.” To you, Cecile, for embodying the values of Brearley and continuing to inspire generations of students, we express our sincerest appreciation and gratitude.

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