Dr. Pinn has just completed a national initiative to reexamine priorities for the women’s health research agenda for the 21st century, involving more than 1500 advocates, scientists, policy makers, educators and health care providers in a series of scientific meetings and public hearings across the country to determine progress as well as continuing, or emerging areas in need of research. This new strategic plan for the coming decade, Moving into the Future with New Dimensions and Strategies: a Vision for 2020 for Women’s Health Research, was presented publicly at the September 2010 scientific symposium and celebration of the 20th anniversary of the ORWH.

Dr. Pinn, a native of Lynchburg, Virginia, earned her B.A. from Wellesley College in Massachusetts, and received her M.D. from the University of Virginia School of Medicine in 1967, where she was the only woman and minority in her class. She returned to Massachusetts to complete her postgraduate training in Pathology at the Massachusetts General Hospital, during which time she also served as Teaching Fellow at the Harvard Medical School. She is a member of long standing in many professional and scientific organizations, in which she has held many positions of leadership. Dr. Pinn has held numerous positions in the National Medical Association, including serving as speaker of the House of Delegates, Trustee, and the 2nd woman President in 1989.

Dr. Pinn has received numerous honors, awards, and recognitions, and has been granted 11 Honorary Degrees of Laws and Science since 1992. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 1995. Among her honors are the Alumni Achievement Award from Wellesley College in 1993, and she served on the Wellesley College Board of Trustees. She also received the second annual Distinguished Alumna Award from the University of Virginia, was honored by the UVA medical school as one of their Alumni Luminaries and was invited to serve as the 2005 speaker for the Universiy of Virginia Commencement. The UVA School of Medicine has established the ‘Vivian W. Pinn Distinguished Lecture in Health Disparities,’ and further honored her in the fall of 2010 by naming one of its four advisory colleges for medical schools in her name.

Dr. Vivian W. Pinn is the first full-time Director of the Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an appointment she has held since 1991 and as NIH Associate Director for Research on Women’s Health since 1994.Dr. Pinn came to NIH from Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, D.C., where she had been Professor and Chair of the Department of Pathology since 1982, and has previously held appointments at Tufts University and Harvard Medical School. She has been invited to present the ORWH’s mandate, programs and initiatives to many national and international individuals and organizations with an interest in improving women’s health and the health of minorities. One of her recent areas of focus has been to raise the perception of the scientific community about the importance of sex differences research across the spectrum from the cellular to translational research and implementation into health care. Dr. Pinn is currently co-chair, along with the Director of NIH, of The NIH Working Group on Women in Biomedical Careers which is developing and implementing programs and policies to improve the advancement of women in biomedical careers.

Dr. Pinn has just completed a national initiative to reexamine priorities for the women’s health research agenda for the 21st century, involving more than 1500 advocates, scientists, policy makers, educators and health care providers in a series of scientific meetings and public hearings across the country to determine progress as well as continuing, or emerging areas in need of research. This new strategic plan for the coming decade, Moving into the Future with New Dimensions and Strategies: a Vision for 2020 for Women’s Health Research, was presented publicly at the September 2010 scientific symposium and celebration of the 20th anniversary of the ORWH.

Dr. Pinn, a native of Lynchburg, Virginia, earned her B.A. from Wellesley College in Massachusetts, and received her M.D. from the University of Virginia School of Medicine in 1967, where she was the only woman and minority in her class. She returned to Massachusetts to complete her postgraduate training in Pathology at the Massachusetts General Hospital, during which time she also served as Teaching Fellow at the Harvard Medical School. She is a member of long standing in many professional and scientific organizations, in which she has held many positions of leadership. Dr. Pinn has held numerous positions in the National Medical Association, including serving as speaker of the House of Delegates, Trustee, and the 2nd woman President in 1989.

Dr. Pinn has received numerous honors, awards, and recognitions, and has been granted 11 Honorary Degrees of Laws and Science since 1992. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 1995. Among her honors are the Alumni Achievement Award from Wellesley College in 1993, and she served on the Wellesley College Board of Trustees. She also received the second annual Distinguished Alumna Award from the University of Virginia, was honored by the UVA medical school as one of their Alumni Luminaries and was invited to serve as the 2005 speaker for the Universiy of Virginia Commencement. The UVA School of Medicine has established the ‘Vivian W. Pinn Distinguished Lecture in Health Disparities,’ and further honored her in the fall of 2010 by naming one of its four advisory colleges for medical schools in her name.

Christine K. Cassel, MD, the first woman to serve as President and CEO of the American Board of Internal Medicine and the ABIM Foundation, is a leading expert in geriatric medicine, medical ethics and quality of care. She was also the first woman elected Chair of the ABIM Board of Directors, the first woman named President of the American College of Physicians and one of the few women to be Department Chair and Dean of major academic medical centers.

Dr. Cassel is among 20 scientists chosen by President Obama to serve on the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). She is the co-chair and physician leader of a PCAST working group that makes recommendations to the President on issues relating to the life sciences and health information technology.

Dr. Cassel was elected to membership in the Institute of Medicine in 1992, relatively early in her career. In addition to having chaired influential IOM reports on end-of-life care and public health, in 2009 she also served on the IOM's Comparative Effective Research Committee mandated by Congress to set priorities for the national CER effort. In recent years, Modern Healthcare has named Dr. Cassel to its list of top 100 most powerful people in health care in the U.S. An active scholar and lecturer, she is the author or co-author of 14 books and more than 150 journal articles on geriatric medicine, aging, bioethics and health policy. She edited four editions of Geriatric Medicine, one of the leading textbooks in the field. Her most recent book is Medicare Matters: What Geriatric Medicine Can Teach American Health Care. In the fall of 2010, Dr. Cassel was invited to a three-month sabbatical as a Visiting Scholar at the prestigious Santa Fe Institute, a multidisciplinary research center where she focused on the role of physician self-regulation within the context of complex adaptive systems.

A national leader in efforts to inspire quality care, Dr. Cassel is a member of the Commonwealth Fund's Commission on a High Performance Health System, and served on the IOM committees that wrote the influential reports To Err is Human and Crossing the Quality Chasm. She was appointed by President Clinton to the President's Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry in 1997.

Dr. Cassel is also respected as a scientific leader, having served on the Advisory Committee to the NIH Director, 1995 – 2002, and as President of the American Federation for Aging Research. She is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. In addition to being a former dean of the School of Medicine Oregon Health and Science University, Dr. Cassel has also served as Chair of the Department of Geriatrics and Adult Development at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, and Chief of General Internal Medicine at the University of Chicago.

Dr. Cassel, board certified in internal medicine and geriatric medicine, actively participates in Maintenance of Certification and other efforts to advance professionalism in the public interest. The recipient of numerous international awards and honorary degrees, including one from Jefferson University Medical School, Dr. Cassel is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Colleges of Medicine of the U.K. and Canada, the European Federation of Internal Medicine, and is a Master of the American College of Physicians.

F. Michael Angelo is the University Archivist and Special Collections Librarian for Thomas Jefferson University. He prepares exhibits about University history, coordinates donation and cataloging of alumni papers and departmental records, and prepares the content of the University Archives website.

Michael received a BA at Michigan State University and an MA in history and archival management and historical editing from New York University. Before he came to Jefferson in 2001, he worked as the Library Director and Archivist at Philadelphia's Independence Seaport Museum and Library, and prior to that, was the Director of Archives and Special Collections on Women in Medicine at the Medical College of Pennsylvania (now part of Drexel University).

Michael is a member of the Delaware Valley Archivists Group, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference (MARAC), and the Society of American Archivists (SAA). He has served on the local arrangement committees for SAA and MARAC and has presented papers at various archives and history conferences. He also has published essays, articles and contributed to several encyclopedias.

A longtime member of the Schuylkill Canal Association, he serves as Vice President on its Board of Directors. Very interested in historic preservation, he and his wife are (slowly) restoring a Berks County tavern and inn built in the 1830s.