March 2, 2012

Drexel University College of Medicine's Institute for Women's Health and Leadership has been recognizing outstanding women leaders in the Philadelphia community and raising scholarship funds for talented minority women medical students at Drexel University College of Medicine for 10 years with the Woman One program. This year's Woman One Honoree is community leader Dianne Semingson, who will be honored on Monday, April 23 at the Rittenhouse Hotel in Philadelphia.

Semingson is the founder and president of DLS International, Inc., a strategic planning and marketing communications firm. Previously she had been an executive with Arco Chemical Company and Hill International. A leader in both the private and public sectors, she currently is on the corporate boards of Semingson Enterprises and St. Christopher's Hospital for Children, advisory boards for RevolutionCare/CareKinesis, Inc. and PNC's Women's Financial Services, and the community boards of Avenue of the Arts, Inc., Committee of Seventy, United Way of Southeastern PA, Wilma Theater, and YMCA of Greater Philadelphia & Vicinity. She is a member of the Pennsylvania Women's Forum and Forum of Executive Women and author of Women-Owned Businesses: Work in Progress.

"We are proud to honor Dianne Semingson as Woman One 2012 for her leadership in the Philadelphia community that spans three decades," said Lynn Yeakel, Institute director. "Dianne's record of public service, including her appointment as the first woman Regional Director for the U. S. Department of Commerce for the Mid-Atlantic States and first woman City Representative for the City of Philadelphia, along with her leadership of the Abraham Lincoln 200th Birthday Festival and the city's celebration of the bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution,, is unsurpassed and continues today with her many civic commitments."

The annual Woman One program has a dual purpose: to honor a woman of outstanding leadership and to raise funds for medical scholarships for talented under-represented minority women at Drexel University College of Medicine. Amber Peterson, a first year medical student and native of Oxon Hill, Maryland, was named as the WMC/MCP Trust Fund Woman One Scholar this year. Peterson joins the ranks of nine current Woman One scholars and eight Woman One scholars emeritae. She will receive $80,000 over four years for her medical education.

Past Woman One award recipients have included Estelle Richman ('03); Leslie Anne Miller ('04); Dawn Staley ('05); Suzanne Roberts ('06); Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, MD, ('07); Stephanie Naidoff ('08); Jane Pepper ('09); Eliana Papadakis ('10); and Sara Manzano-Díaz ('11).

For more information or to attend the event, contact the Institute for Women's Health and Leadership at iwhl@drexelmed.edu or 215-991-8190.