Alumnae Recognized for Professional & Volunteer Work

On May 6, National Cathedral School held a ceremony to recognize eight alumnae with awards honoring their professional and volunteer accomplishments. The ceremony, in Hearst Auditorium, was held in connection with the school's annual Reunion festivities.

 

Nancy Stead Atwood '62 and Lisa Williams-Fauntroy '87 were each honored with Outstanding Professional Achievement awards.

 

Atwood has devoted her life to the education of future medical practitioners and to patients' rights. She was a professor of medicine at Duke University and the Medical College of Georgia. Later, she opened a medical practice in Gainesville, Ga., becoming only the second woman in that city to provide medical care for adults. Today, the not-so-retired Atwood educates consumers about their rights as patients through her website steadfasthealthcare.com. She holds degrees from Duke University and completed a fellowship in hematology at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston.

 

Williams-Fauntroy is blazing trails in global media. A senior vice president at Discovery Communications, she manages business and legal affairs for Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, and Science Channel. She serves as a co-chair and executive sponsor of Discovery's employee resource group, the Black Cultural Alliance, and she has been recognized as one of Cablefax's Most Influential Minorities in Cable. A graduate of Syracuse University and the Georgetown Law Center, Williams-Fauntroy is a national board member for the National Association for Multi-Ethnicity in Communications and long served on the board of the Duke Ellington School of the Arts.

 

Alexa Chopivsky '97 and Emily Repp Geiger '97 were each recognized for Outstanding Professional Achievement by a Young Alumna.

 

Chopivsky was honored for her work advancing global initiatives. She is executive director at the American Center for a European Ukraine; chief executive officer and founder of the Transnational Education Group; and director of the Program on the World Economy at the Aspen Institute. A graduate of Yale, Columbia and Johns Hopkins universities, she is also a Council on Foreign Relations Term Member.

 

Geiger was celebrated for her commitment to education. She is a math teacher and 9th-grade class dean at St. Stephen's & St. Agnes School in Alexandria, which bestowed on her a Faculty Excellence Award in 2012. A graduate of Bowdoin College and George Washington University, she has also served as a mentor for other teachers and coached the cross-country team.

 

Jeremy Hardy FitzGerald '57 received the Bettie Warner Thompson '46 Lifetime of Service Award in recognition of the myriad ways in which she has contributed to NCS. They include leadership on the Alumnae Advisory Group and, before that, the Board of Visitors; membership on the Library Council; helping to coordinate Reunion events; and inviting classmates into her home. This spirit of generosity extends into FitzGerald's many philanthropic interests, including the Girl Scouts of the Nation's Capital, Children’s National Medical Center, MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital, and the Junior League of Washington.

 

Vicki Van Rensselaer '67 and Hutchey Brock Doley '82 each received awards for Outstanding Volunteer Achievement, while Monica Barnes '97 received the award for Outstanding Volunteer Achievement by a Young Alumna. All three honors recognized the recipients' many years of commitment to building and sustaining connections among their various classes.

 

Congratulations to each of these women for their much-deserved accolades!