(THE PICKET)—Dr. Mary J.C. Hendrix—chief scientific officer of Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and 1974 graduate of Shepherd—has been selected by the Board of Governors as the new president of Shepherd University.
This is the first time in 144 years that the president of the university has also been a former graduate of Shepherd.
Hendrix will be beginning her role as acting Shepherd University President in February 2016.
“I am deeply honored to accept the presidential leadership position and return home to my alma mater in Shepherdstown,” Hendrix said, according to an email sent by Marcia Brand, chair of the Board of Governors, earlier today.
While Hendrix is originally from Shepherdstown, she didn’t stay in the small hub of West Virginia that connects to the major cities of both Baltimore and D.C.
After she received a bachelor of science in pre-med/biology with a minor in English from Shepherd and a Ph.D. from George Washington University, she moved on to eventually be nationally recognized as a leader in cancer research and president of Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago’s Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
Among her roles at the Children’s Hospital of Chicago, Hendrix also holds the MERIT Award from the National Cancer Institute, the Distinguished Woman Faculty Award from Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine and an Award for Excellence and Achievement Among Women from the University of Iowa to name a few of her honors.
She was also awarded a post-doctoral fellowship to train at Harvard Medical School after finishing her Ph.D. program, and she has been credited with more than 270 research publications.
The selection of Hendrix is still waiting to be confirmed by the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission on Friday, Nov. 20.
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