Matilda Raffa Cuomo (1931- )

Advocate for women, children and families, Matilda Raffa Cuomo has been described as the “most active first lady in New York State history.” As First Lady (1983-1995), she established the first state-wide, school-based, one-to-one mentoring program. By 1995, ten thousand children had been mentored by volunteers from corporations, schools and government and the groundwork laid for Mentoring USA and international extensions. Since its establishment, the program has expanded ages it serves and offerings to address LGBT, Bias Related Anti-Violence Education, fostercare and workplace mentoring. Matilda Cuomo co-chaired the Governor’s Commission on Child Care; chaired NY Citizens’ Task Force on the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect; led New York in the UN’s World Summit for Children and the US ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Born in Queens, Matilda Cuomo’s experiences as a first-generation American engendered her lifelong dedication to mentoring. Having had whole worlds opened by a teacher, she graduated cum laude from St. John’s University Teachers College and taught at Dutch Broadway School (Long Island). Wife and mother of five children, fourteen grandchildren, and one great grandson, Matilda Cuomo wove together her life and life’s passion into mentoring understood as relationships building awareness and respect for one’s own and others’ cultural heritage. As she said to Kingsborough College graduates: “do what must be done to encourage a more intelligent, constructive and reasonable acceptance of our nation's unique diversity, through dialogue … hard work and respect…. a whole new world awaits building.”

Matilda Cuomo received the first Liberty Partnerships Lifetime Achievement Award and honorary degrees from Marymount Manhattan and Siena College. Author of “Simple Acts of Kindness” in What We Know So Far (1996) and editor of The Person Who Changed My Life: Prominent Americans Recall Their Mentors (1999, 2011), Matilda Cuomo currently chairs New York’s re-instated Mentoring Program.

Temple Grandin (1947- )

Temple Grandin has, as far back as she can remember, been an inventor. Growing up she learned to “convert abstract thought into visual pictures,” experimenting with designs such as model airplanes and bird-shaped paper kites and, by 18, after visiting her aunt on a cattle ranch, a “squeeze machine” to alleviate her stress and nervousness. “Thinking with pictures” is part of her invention equation. Another is using her experiences of anxiety and feeling threatened by her environment. Seeing situations from the visual perspective of others, including animals, Temple Grandin applied her insights to design a cattle dip vat, corrals and other devices, and quality standards in livestock industries. Diagnosed at two with Autism Spectrum Disorder, her life and work have as much “revolutionized the study of autism” as understandings that “The World Needs All Kinds of Minds.” Her twinned paths -- opening the doors on autism and reimagining humane treatment of animals -- undergird Dr. Grandin’s research, teaching and international consulting as a renowned expert on cattle behavior and on autism.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1947, Temple Grandin’s early years were filled with speech therapy, being read to by her mother, and play intended to draw her out. Her parents sought supportive private schools, enabling her to go on to a B.A. in psychology and Masters and Ph.D. (University of Illinois) in animal science. While completing her Masters work, she founded her own company, Grandin Livestock Handling Systems. Author of 12 books and several hundred publications, Temple Grandin’s steadfast determination to learn about herself and the world, to invent and to do things, and to educate has brought her well-earned recognition, including in the HBO award winning “Temple Grandin,” recognition as one of Time Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in the World” and induction into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965)

A groundbreaking playwright, essayist and advocate for change, Lorraine Hansberry authored A Raisin in the Sun, becoming the first African American woman to have a Broadway show produced, the first black playwright and youngest American to receive, in 1959, the prestigious New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best American Play, and the first African American to win the distinguished Drama Desk Award. To Hansberry, the play expresses an America that knows “we have among our miserable and downtrodden ranks people who are the very essence of human dignity.” As Hansberry reminded Studs Terkel, “in order to create the universal, you must pay attention to the specific.” As importantly, Hansberry also stated: “the most oppressed group of any oppressed group will be its women,” and those who are “twice oppressed” may become “twice militant.” Both reminders resonate in revivals of her best-known play as Hansberry captured the particularities of Southside Chicago racism, African American women’s lives, and the universality of human dignity, commitments equally manifest in her civil rights and justice efforts.

Born on May 19, 1930 in Chicago, Hansberry was shaped by her family history and the black intellectual world visiting her family, including sociologist W. E. B. Dubois and poet Langston Hughes. Working on the staff of Paul Robeson’s Freedom Magazine, writing letters to the Ladder and for the Village Voice, Hansberry’s voice was cut short by her death from pancreatic cancer at 34. In her unfinished play Les Blancs, produced most recently in 2015, investigations of colonialism and the Middle Passage represent Hansberry’s vision informed by art, the world, and her African scholar uncle, Leo Hansberry.

At her funeral, Martin Luther King Jr. observed "Her creative ability and her profound grasp of the deep social issues confronting the world today will remain an inspiration to generations yet unborn." Inspiring artists and citizens, Nina Simone’s song “Young, Gifted and Black” echoes Hansberry’s 1964 words to Readers Digest/ United Negro College Fund creative writing awardees: “though it be a thrilling and marvelous thing to be merely young and gifted in such times, it is doubly so, doubly dynamic – to be young, gifted and black.”

Victoria Jackson (1955 - )

Entrepreneur, innovator, author, and philanthropist, Victoria Jackson has built a company, a foundation and an exemplary life conjoining the idea that “When you look better you feel better” with a commitment to creativity, communication and change. Born in Long Island, NY, Jackson carved out a career as a Hollywood makeup artist, designing cosmetics rooted in her belief that the route to change comes through self-esteem. Her extensive volunteer work, including hundreds of hours in women’s prisons, youth support and cancer treatment centers, was also founded in her belief that helping women build inner self confidence “help[s] them take some control.” As founding CEO of Victoria Jackson Cosmetics, Jackson led the company to more than a billion in worth and millions of loyal customers. Her innovative use of infomercials coupled with her philosophy transformed not only her company but communication venues worldwide.

In recent decades, Jackson has turned her attention to her daughter’s Neuromyelitis Optica spectrum disease, and, by extension, autoimmune diseases more broadly. Self-described as a “mom on a mission,” Jackson, mother of three, co-founded, with her husband Bill Guthy, the Guthy-Jackson Foundation, bringing together 175 innovative problem solvers from 28 countries and working on over 50 scientific projects. Her insight into the power of collaboration and open exchange transformed the landscape of medical research approaches to “orphan diseases” by enhancing global collaboration, revamping research models and international clinical consortia, and increasing access to clinical trials.

Author of Saving Each Other: A Mother-Daughter Love Story (Vanguard, 2012) Redefining Beauty: Discovering Your Individual Beauty, Enhancing Your Self- Esteem[1] (Warner, 1993) and Make Up Your Life: Every Woman's Guide to the Power of Makeup[2] (HarperCollins, 2000), Victoria Jackson and her daughter Ali were invited speakers at the Vatican’s 3rd Annual Regenerative Medicine Conference and are global leaders devoted to improving and saving lives. Recipient of multiple awards, Jackson is a passionate advocate for women’s empowerment and entrepreneurship.

Sherry Lansing (1944-)

Visionary leader and filmmaker in the motion picture business for thirty years, Sherry Lansing shattered the glass ceiling of major film studios becoming the first woman president of 20th Century Fox, in 1980. Hollywood’s “Queen of Firsts,” she was also the first woman studio head honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and hand- and footprints in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater. Hailing from Southside Chicago, Lansing was born July 31, 1944, attending University of Chicago Laboratory Schools and Northwestern University, graduating cum laude with a bachelor of science. Her early passion for acting led her to Los Angeles where she auditioned while teaching high school math and English. Landing “parts in the 1970 movies ‘Loving’ and . . . ‘Rio Lobo,’” Lansing discovered she loved reading scripts more than acting. She worked as an independent producer and formed the production company, Jaffe-Lansing Productions. In 1992, Lansing became Chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures, remaining at the helm for an exceptional twelve years, keeping costs down and profits up while bringing to the screen movies wherein women protagonists or antagonists advanced the plot.

Envisioning life as a series of chapters, Lansing left the motion picture business in 2005 having been involved in the production, marketing, and distribution of over 200 films, including Academy Award winners The Accused (1988), Forrest Gump (1994), Braveheart (1995), Titanic (1997) and signature films Fatal Attraction (1987) and The China Syndrome (1979). Lansing turned her enormous skills to creating The Sherry Lansing Foundation. Inspired by her mother’s fortitude and loss to cancer, Lansing’s next chapter features the foundation, dedicated to cancer research, health, public education, and encore career opportunities. Recognized with many honorary doctorates, including from her alma mater, and a profusion of honors, Lansing greets life’s chapters as about “having new curiosity, and new things that come into your life.”

Clare Boothe Luce

Anne Clare Boothe Luce came into this world in New York City in the spring of 1903. The product of creative parents, she pursued careers in journalism, diplomacy, politics, and the theatre. She was involved in the Suffrage movement early on.

She worked as associate editor for the Vanity Fair, then progressed to writing plays and in 1935 she married Henry R. “Harry” Luce, co-founder and editor in chief of Time, Incorporated. She contributed significant magazine articles and opinions throughout her marriage to Luce. As a playwright, her greatest success was “The Women.” As a journalist who spent four months in Europe as World War II was underway, she expressed her impressions in a non-fiction book called Europe in the Spring, published in 1940. Her observations of life in Europe and the Far East hit their mark with world leaders, some of whom revamped policies as a result of her introspective remarks in print. She expressed concern about isolationism, and voiced opinions about political situations and leaders of the time, propelling her to successfully run for Congress in 1942 and re-election in 1944.

Political committee service and political office brought her to the attention of Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, the latter appointing her to the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board in 1981 and who bestowed upon her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1983. In addition, Clare Boothe Luce served as the first American woman appointed to a major ambassadorial position, that of Ambassador to Italy.

Following years of influential life as a socialite, a writer, politician, ambassador, wife, mother, and traveler, Clare Boothe Luce passed away in 1987. Thinking beyond her own career choices and to benefit and support women motivated by science, math, and engineering, she established a source of funding that allows women to build a pathway to success in those underrepresented fields.

Aimee Mullins

Aimee Mullins has broken through barriers consistently and is a woman of achievement in numerous categories. Undergoing a double leg amputation at the age of one, she learned to adjust for the loss of limbs by achieving in the classroom, becoming an athlete, a model whose appearance emphasized her prostheses, an actress with soul, a TED talk presenter who stood at any height she wished on the limbs of her choice, and an athlete who could excel on the track thanks to determination, training, and woven carbon-fiber prostheses that are modeled after a cheetah’s hind legs.

Ms. Mullins participated vigorously in swimming, skiing, soccer, biking, and softball. She graduated from high school with honors and was awarded a full academic scholarship to Georgetown University pursuing a career in the School of Foreign Service. She earned a top- secret security clearance in the Pentagon at the age of 17 and worked there as an intelligence analyst during her summer breaks. The spirit of competition propelled her to conversation with track coach Frank Gagliano and their collaboration led to Aimee’s NCAA Division One honors in breaking world records in the 100 meter, 200 meter, and the long jump as an amputee using her prototype prosthetic sprinting legs.

Ms. Mullins turned to modeling, film, and magazine coverage because of interest in the unique image she projected. Soon she was speaking about design, aesthetics, femininity, and beauty and took to the runways, modeling clothing by Alexander McQueen. She was named as one of People Magazine’s 50 most beautiful women in the world and was named as L’Oréal Paris Global Brand Ambassador in 2011.

Aimee Mullins is an advocate for a positive approach to life despite obstacles. She is a woman who is innovative, driven, intelligent, educated, adaptable, and who stands tall in every endeavor she confronts.

Lt. General Carol A. Mutter , USMC (ret.) (1945-)

Growing up on a farm in Colorado where her parents were sharecroppers, Carol Mutter (née Schneider) learned the value of hard work and perseverance. In high school her math teacher also served as a valuable mentor, a benefit not forgotten by Mutter. She earned her first degree, a B. A. in Mathematics Education from the University of Northern Colorado, but in her junior year she spent the summer experiencing military life without having to fully commit to the military, a unique opportunity in the 1960’s. Following graduation, she was commissioned as a Marine officer and that set the stage for a career Carol Mutter had not envisioned, but that brought her success through exceptional effort and commitment to each task she undertook.

From a first military position in data processing she progressed to Space Director at the US Space Command, then transferred to Okinawa, Japan with her husband Marine Colonel Jim Mutter. In 1991, she became a Brigadier General with reassignment to Marine Headquarters in Washington, DC. and in 1994 Carol Mutter became the first woman Major General which also designated her as the senior woman in all branches of U.S. military service. Reaching a Marine pinnacle in 1996 she was promoted to Lieutenant General, the first woman in the history of the U.S. Armed Forces to be appointed to a three-star grade.

Retiring in 1999 after 31 years in the Marine Corps she has used her background in financial management, military research, equal opportunity, and other career experiences to work in the private sector and serve in an advisory capacity on several boards. She used her leadership skills serving as President of the Woman Marines Association, an organization which has allowed her to support the history of women in the military, provide philanthropic and civic engagement, and assist veterans.

Janet D. Rowley

At the age of 15 Janet Davison entered the Hutchins College of the University of Chicago, simultaneously completing her final two years of high school and first two years of college. Miss Davison learned to value reading and independence, attributes critical to her career as a researcher. She earned a Bachelor of Philosophy in 1944 and a Bachelor of Science degree in 1946, but waited nine months to enter medical school because the University of Chicago had met its quota of women. Following her marriage, Dr. Janet Rowley worked at a clinic for children with Downs Syndrome, a genetic disorder caused by an extra chromosome 21.

In 1962, she returned to Chicago after a year at Oxford University where she learned newly developed techniques of chromosome analysis which she applied to study chromosomes from patients with leukemia. In 1971, she completed a second sabbatical at Oxford. Back home, while photographing the chromosomes of leukemia patients she arranged them in pairs, resulting in the discovery that the chromosomes of a patient with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) had made a trade. Specific chromosomes had broken off and moved to others: a translocation. She also discovered that patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) had a different translocation. The transfer from one chromosome to another meant that important genes regulating cell growth and division could not now be considered in their normal position. The ensuing result meant uncontrolled cell growth of cancer. Later she and colleagues found a third translocation in a different rare type of leukemia and her research was finally accepted and enabled the development of a highly successful cancer therapy drug.

Awards to Dr. Rowley followed and she received honorary Doctor of Science degrees from 14 institutions. She died in 2013 from complications of ovarian cancer at the age of 88 after a life that had an enormous impact in cancer research and treatment.

Alice Waters

Love of healthy fresh food, respect for people and for the land that produces food, support of farmers who till the soil, the desire to educate children about the benefits of “slow food” and how it’s grown, and the passion to cook and provide meals that are delicious have been values that have sustained Alice Waters.

A trip to London to study Montessori and a year in France where she discovered the joy of fresh foods were pivotal points in the life of Ms. Waters. Returning to the Berkeley, California area where she had earned her degree, she opened an “unorthodox restaurant” that gained fame for its original idea of serving fresh selections to appreciative patrons. Chez Panisse is still thriving! Alice Waters was the first woman named “Best Chef in America” in 1992 by the James Beard Foundation. Later she received their Humanitarian Award and in 2009 she was named to the French Legion of Honor, reconnecting her to the source of her life’s work.

Ms. Waters has improved the lives of children and adults by founding educational programs. In 1996 in Berkeley she worked with the Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School, teaching students through “The Edible Schoolyard” to cook and eat the food they grew. Then with “The School Lunch Initiative” she began her journey to assist students to respect their environment and future by dining on local fresh food as a boon to their health, a message that impacted teachers and parents as well. Her words and ideas for organic cooking have expanded nationally and are universally accepted.

Alice Waters has made the connection between education that allows each child to thrive and her love of fresh cuisine and respect for the environment. Her passions have inspired people of all ages and have reminded us of the benefit of nature’s beauty and bounty.