Today, five women—Ann Cudd (A&S ‘84G, ‘86G, ‘88G), Kathy Humphrey, Heather Lyke, Geovette Washington and Kris Davitt—sit on Chancellor Patrick Gallagher’s 11-member senior leadership team. Together, they help to steer the University forward, providing representation and inclusion for all Pitt students and ensuring the Light of Learning continues to burn bright.

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When Divia Thani landed the role of editor-in-chief at Condé Nast Traveller India in 2010, she became the youngest Condé Nast magazine editor in the world.

Of course, it wasn’t much of a surprise to those who were familiar with her already impressive list of achievements. Thani graduated summa cum laude from Pitt and has received numerous awards from her alma mater, both during her time studying at the Pittsburgh and Bradford campuses and beyond. Among her accolades are the Robert C. Laing Award for Creative Writing, the Brackenridge Fellowship, the Sheth International Young Alumni Achievement Award and the Pitt-Bradford Alumni Association’s Alumni Award of Distinction.

Since graduating from Pitt, Thani has put her English and creative writing degree to work at several international publications, such as Seventeen India, L’Officiel, and TIME OUT Mumbai.

She joined the Condé Nast team in 2007 as a features editor for Vogue. Three years later, she was promoted to editor-in-chief at Condé Nast Traveller India. And, in December 2020, she was picked to lead the entire host of Condé Nast Traveler publications as the global editorial director.

Click on the link below to read some of Thani’s work.

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By day, she’s Dr. Brittany Baker, a dentist at a private practice in Florida. But on Wednesday nights on TNT, she transforms into Dr. Britt Baker, DMD, All Elite Wrestling star and resident heel (that’s wrestling speak for villain). The path to her dual career began in Pittsburgh in 2014, when she enrolled at Pitt’s School of Dental Medicine and the International Wrestling Cartel’s training academy in the South Hills. By 2019, she’d gone pro twice.

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Following a spinal fusion surgery in 2016, Jade Richardson went looking for spinal fusion and scoliosis support groups, but she found she didn’t fit into any of them. So, she created her own community, one that showed Black scoliosis survivors they were not alone. When people began responding, Richardson realized she was going to need a bigger stage if she wanted to spread her message. In 2018, she walked across the biggest stage she could find—at the Miss Black Pennsylvania pageant.

Spoiler alert: She won.

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As a former high-school drum major, Crissy Shannon (A&S ’20) had a general understanding of the prerequisites necessary to lead a marching band. But, becoming head drum major for the University of Pittsburgh’s Varsity Marching Band would take more than marching technique and polished pregame performances. In the 108-year history of the program, Pitt Band had never been led by a woman. Shannon, who joined Pitt Band as a first-year student, was named assistant drum major her junior year, before officially becoming Pitt’s first female drum major as a senior in 2019.

The duties of a collegiate drum major typically include running the band in the absence of the band director and assistant band director. However, the demands of being head drum major for Pitt Band required Shannon to be flexible—that is, literally flexible, as she had to execute a dramatic back bend on the 50-yard line as part of the pregame entertainment.

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For bestselling author Rebecca Skloot, grade school and high school felt pointless. She knew she wanted to study science and become a practicing veterinarian, but getting through the monotony of traditional schooling frustrated her. As an undergraduate student at Colorado State University, Rebecca studied biology, but a general education requirement compelled her to sign up for a creative writing course. It was in this course that she discovered her passion for storytelling.

In 1994, Rebecca enrolled in classes at University of Pittsburgh to pursue a graduate degree in creative nonfiction writing. By day, she worked for the University’s medical alumni magazine, Pitt Med, and by night, she worked on her thesis—a book on women forgotten by science. After more than 10 years of researching, fact-checking, writing, and editing, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” was released in 2010 to critical acclaim, spending more than seven years on the New York Times Best Seller list.

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Activist and co-founder of Banned Books Week Judith Fingeret Krug fought tirelessly during her lifetime to promote the fundamentals of the First Amendment, protecting free speech through the abolition of censorship in libraries and on the internet. As director of the American Library Association’s Office of Intellectual Freedom, and later as executive director of the ALA’s Freedom to Read Foundation, Krug championed the right of U.S. readers to have comprehensive access to information.

“You should have access to ideas and information regardless of your age. If anyone is going to limit or guide a young person, it should be the parent or guardian — and only the parent or guardian,” Krug famously said.

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Trecia-Kaye Smith is a three-time Olympian and one of the most decorated athletes in Pitt history. During her time as a Panther, Smith amassed over 50 NCAA indoor and outdoor titles, All-American championships, Big East championships, and Eastern College Athletic Conference championships. And in 1997, she swept the Big East Most Outstanding Field Performer awards for both the indoor and outdoor seasons. Smith was also a two-time finalist for a Honda Sports Award, presented to the best collegiate female in a given sport, named to the NCAA D1 Silver Anniversary Indoor Team, and designated an NCAA D1 Most Outstanding Student-Athlete.

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In 2020, the University of Pittsburgh honored Sundaa Bridgett-Jones with the University’s most prestigious award, the Distinguished Alumni Fellow, to acknowledge her high-impact global contributions. As director of global policy and advocacy for The Rockefeller Foundation, Bridgett-Jones directs support to pressing international development issues like climate change and equitable economic development. In the past, Bridgett-Jones has served as a representative of the U.S. government in South Africa, Kazakhstan, Iraq, and with the United Nations.

After completing her undergraduate studies at Georgetown University, Bridgett-Jones earned her master’s degree from Pitt’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA) in 1995. After graduation, she reconnected with the University, joining GSPIA’s Board of Visitors and Pitt’s Board of Trustees.

During Pitt’s 2020 Homecoming celebration, Bridgett-Jones sat down with GSPIA Dean Carissa Slotterback to discuss “Finding Purpose.”

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As a first-year student at the University of Pittsburgh, Margaret Weitekamp learned not to trust secondhand information but, rather, turn to primary sources and use them to probe deeper into particular moments in history. This research method sparked Weitekamp’s passion for inquiry and storytelling and eventually led her to her current profession.

Since 2004, Weitekamp has served as a curator for the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. In addition to managing a spaceflight collection of more than 5,000 historical artifacts—which includes a studio model of the starship Enterprise from the original “Star Trek” television show—Weitekamp was also appointed chair of the museum’s Space History Department in 2020.

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Michelle Rogan-Finnemore is a New Zealand-based geologist who has twice wintered in Antarctica and has a mountain there named for her—Finnemore Peak in Victoria Park. She helped found the Gateway Antarctica programme at Canterbury University and now is the executive secretary of COMNAP, the Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs.

After her last trip to Antarctica in 1994, she turned her attention from science to law, earning two law degrees and specializing in the study of Antarctic treaties. Her goal is to preserve the Antarctic as a place dedicated to internationally collaborative science.

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You may think that celebrated author and Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh Jeanne Marie Laskas (A&S ‘85G) lives a glamorous life, but, in reality, the writer often finds herself digging—both figuratively and literally—through the jumbled contents of someone’s past.

Laskas, author of the New York Times best-seller “Concussion,” is known for her distinct narrative-style nonfiction pieces, all of which hinge on highly detailed research into a particular individual’s life. Laskas, along with an informal team of Pitt graduate students and alumni, work together in a “story lab,” a little house just south of Pittsburgh where the team gathers to share their insights and findings. Their most recent collaboration? “To Obama, With Love Joy, Anger, and Hope,” which debuted worldwide in 2018 to critical acclaim.

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Dr. Margaret Larkins-Pettigrew is a lot of things: the holder of four degrees, a critical care nurse, a physician, a U.S. Navy veteran, a global healthcare strategist, a world traveler, a frequent keynote speaker, a published author, a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a mentor and an advocate.

But before all of that came this: “My primary identity is as an African American woman born in the 1950s. I have never been without the micro and macro aggressions that challenge and that can potentially derail the professional journeys of black women like myself.”

So, she dedicated her career to serving the globe’s vulnerable, minoritized and underserved people. In 2020, she returned to Pittsburgh to become Allegheny Health Network’s inaugural senior vice president and chief clinical diversity officer.

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Victoria Rich, a leader in healthcare and nursing education, is known for her decades of pioneering work in patient safety and cultural diversity. That work has taken her across the globe—from Switzerland to Botswana and England to Japan—advocating for nurses and the patients they serve. But it’s also taken her into communities right here in the United States, providing them with much-needed outreach and medical supplies. And it all started at the University of Pittsburgh.

“I really couldn’t have done much of what I did without the values and authenticity that were instilled in me while studying at Pitt,” Rich said.

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Susan Nelson took the non-traditional route to her degree, working a full-time job during the day and attending classes at night. But that tenacity paid off. Once she had her diploma in hand, she was promoted to assistant vice president at First Commonwealth, where she would spend more than 30 years of her career, steadily rising in the ranks and lifting others as she climbed.

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Eva Tansky Blum is among the many accomplished Pitt alumnae we are proud to feature during our Light of Learning commemoration of the 100th anniversary of Lantern Night. However, Blum is unique among this esteemed group for not only achieving notable success in her career and for the many contributions she has made throughout the Pittsburgh region, but she also stands alone in how generously she has given of her time, talent and treasure to Pitt. In 2015, she was named a Distinguished Alumni Fellow, the most prestigious alumni award conferred by the University of Pittsburgh. Learn more about this highly respected and extraordinarily dedicated alumna by watching the 2020 video that commemorated Blum’s groundbreaking role as the first women to chair the Pitt Board of Trustees.

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During World War II, as men were drafted into service and shipped overseas, the U.S. government turned to women fill the void left in the workforce. It was their patriotic duty. But many women didn’t see that duty as a burden; they saw it as an opportunity.

Martha Wandrisco Neff was one of them.

Neff, who celebrated her 100th birthday last fall, graduated from Pitt with a degree in mathematics in 1942 and went on to work for the Gulf Oil Research Lab. Her job was to use seismic and gravitational data to map oil fields—by hand.

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Doris Smith-Ribner was the first Black women to serve on the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court. During her 21 years on the court, she was appointed to numerous statewide commissions, developed a judicial clerkship program to promote diversity and presided over a landmark desegregation case in the Philadelphia School District. In 2014, President Barack Obama appointed Smith-Ribner to the President's Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for African Americans, where she works to identify educational practices that lead to academic success.

Among the many accolades Smith-Ribner has won for her judicial service and education advocacy are the Thaddeus Stevens Award from the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia and the Trailblazer Award from the Allegheny County Bar Association.

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Born in Nyeri, Kenya, in 1940, Wangari Muta Maathai was one of the most influential environmental activists of her time, and the first African woman and first environmentalist to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Maathai was introduced to environmental reform during her time at Pitt, where local environmentalists fought to rid the city of air pollution. After finishing her undergraduate and graduate studies, she returned to Kenya to find rampant deforestation. Motivated by the devastation of her homeland, Maathai began a grassroots tree-planting project in 1977 called the Green Belt Movement. It has helped plant over 51 million trees across Kenya and encouraged Kenyans to advocate for sustainable development and social justice.

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At the time Elayne Arrington was beginning her undergraduate classes at the University of Pittsburgh, women made up only about 1% of all engineers in the workforce, regardless of ethnicity. And as the first Black woman to graduate from what is now Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering, Arrington essentially had two glass ceilings to break through—gender inequality and racism.

After graduating from the University in 1961, Arrington got a job as an aeronautical engineer, where she used math to analyze Soviet aircraft reconnaissance data. Her data would eventually help explain why Soviet rockets were outperforming their U.S. counterparts at the time.

While working, Arrington also pursued her master’s degree and PhD, becoming the 17th Black woman in the country to earn a doctorate in mathematics. After completing her graduate studies, she returned to the University in 1974 to teach the next generation of Pitt women.

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Francine McNairy-Nelson was the first in her family to attend and graduate from college, earning bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees from the University of Pittsburgh. It wasn’t a simple feat as she faced the challenges that come with being a first-generation African American college student in the 1960’s. Her tenacity, her family’s determination and support from devoted Pitt faculty and administrators helped her to become the first African American woman to head one of Pennsylvania’s 14 state-owned universities.

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While still a teenager living in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Frances Hesselbein had to choose between supporting her family and pursuing higher education. She was not able to complete her degree at what was then the Pitt Junior College, but Hesselbein was greatly inspired by the deeper lessons taught there. Those lessons of “caring about our people, about inclusivity, about diversity, and about values-based leadership” were the sparks that would help her to become one of the most highly respected experts in the field of contemporary leadership development. She served as the CEO of Girl Scouts of America, the preeminent leadership development organization for girls, and has received 22 honorary doctoral degrees, including one from Pitt’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA).

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Genevieve Blatt is known as the “First Lady of Pennsylvania Politics,” and for good reason. She was the first woman to hold statewide elected office, the first woman to be nominated by a major party to run for Senate, and the first to be seated on the state’s Commonwealth Court. By at least one historian’s account, if you add up all the votes she received in the 17 times she ran for local and state office, she would have more than any other person in Pennsylvania history.

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Sisters Margaret and Stella Stein were the first women to attend the University of Pittsburgh, back when it was known as Western University of Pennsylvania. Though their male classmates regarded them as “specimens,” they soon proved to be much more, studying mathematics and graduating first in their class with identical GPAs. Three years later, in 1901, they made history again when they became the first women to earn graduate degrees from Pitt. Their accomplishments blazed a trail for all future Pitt women to follow.

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