Siena Medalists

Year Recipient Accomplishment
1937 Agnes Regan First Executive Secretary of the National Council of Catholic Women
1938 Mary Merrick Founder & lifetime director of the National Christ Child Society
1939 Agnes Repplier Essayist
1940 Jane M. Hoey Director of the Public Assistance Bureau of the Social Security Board
1941 Anne O'Hare McCormick Editor/reporter for The New York Times; first woman recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in Journalism, 1937
1942 Anne Sarachon Hooley President of the National Council of Catholic Women
1943 Rev. Mother M. Katherine Drexel Founder and lifetime superior of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians & Colored People
1944 Helen C. White American Assoc. of University Women President; American Assoc. of University Professors President
1945 Alleta Sullivan Mother of five sons lost off Guadalcanal on the U.S.S. Juneau in World World War II
1946 Frances Parkinson Keys Novelist and biographer
1947 Mary Theresa Norton 1925-1951 United States Congresswoman from New Jersey; chairman of the House Committee on Labor
1948 Sister M. Madeleva, C.S.C. Educator, author, poet; President of St. Mary's College; President of the Catholic Poetry Society of America
1950 Loretta Young Actress
1951 Anne Laughlin Administrator of National Youth Administration, UN Relief & Rehabilitation Administration, and UNICEF
1952 Elizabeth Salmon First woman President of American Catholic Philosophical Association
1954 Sister M. Ignatia, C.S.A. First to cooperate with the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous in the hospitalization of alcoholics in 1939
1956 Phyllis McGinley 1 of 250 Americans elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters; 1961 Pulitzer Prize recipient
1958 Mary Harden Looram Motion Picture Department of the International Federation of Catholic Alumnae Chairman
1960 Mary Ellen Kelly Immobolized arthritic who founded the League of Shut-In Sodalists
1962 Maria Augusta Trapp Leader of the Trapp Family Singers
1964 Irene M. Auberlin Founder and President of World Medical Relief, Inc
1966 Dorothy Julia Willman Co-founder of the Summer Schools for the Christian Apostolate; Associate Editor of Directions magazine
1968 Rosemary Kilch Women in Community Service, Inc President; Religious Heritage of America's Churchwoman of the Year 1967
1976 Hattie Larlham Co-founder and former administrator of the Hattie Larlham Foundation
1986 Candy Lightner Founder of Mothers Against Drunk Driving
1988 Anne M. Burke Court of Claims Judge for the State of Illinois; Founder and Director of the Special Olympics
1990 Helen Thomas White House UPI Chief of Staff; White House Correspondents Association 1st woman member/president
1992 Eileen Stevens Founder of C.H.U.C.K. (Committee to Halt Useless College Killings)
1994 Linda Caldwell Fuller Co-founder of Habitat for Humanity International
1996 Nancy Goodman Brinker Founder of The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation
1998 Barbara McKillip Founder of The Libri Foundation, an organization dedicated to providing children's books to rural libraries
2000 Kaye Redfield Jamison, Ph.D Expert/advocate in the field of manic depressive illness
2002 Dr. Pamela Martin Executive Director of Homeward Bound
2004 Susan Davenney Wyner Acclaimed soprano soloist who became a top conductor in America after a serious accident
2006 Andrea Cooper Mother who shares the story of her daughter's rape and subsequent suicide with college students
2008 Diane Straub, M.D., M.P.H. U.S. Paralympic team gold medalist and world record holder (1992, Barcelona; swimming)
2010 Emily Elizabeth Douglas Founder of Grandma's Gifts, Inc, in 1993, at the age of eleven, in memory of her grandmother, Norma Ackison
2012 Elizabeth Smart (Gilmour) Activist for sexual predator legislation and the AMBER Alert system after her own kidnapping
2014 Rachel Simmons Author of Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls
2016 Terry Grahl Founder and CEO of Enchanted Makeovers
2018 Ginny Carroll Founder of Circle of Sisterhood
2020 Nikole Collins-Puri Founder of TechBridge Girls
2022 Dolly Chugh Award-winning professor at the New York University Stern School of Business and author
2024 Kristin Smedley Kristin is an activist & educator about blindness being the mother of two blind children; she is dedicated to her nonprofit, thrivingblindacademy.org