Marion Spencer Fay Award
The Call for Nominations for the 2025 Marion Spencer Fay Award Is Now Open!
The Lynn Yeakel Institute for Women’s Health and Leadership of Drexel University College of Medicine invites you to nominate a woman physician or scientist who has made an exceptionally significant contribution to health care as a practitioner, medical educator, administrator or research scientist. This award is intended to recognize past contributions and support the ongoing work of an outstanding woman physician or scientist. The selection committee gives special consideration to the nominee’s potential for future impact. (Note: The Marion Spencer Fay Award is not meant to be a "lifetime achievement award.")
The award will be presented in fall 2025 in Philadelphia and includes a $10,000 prize.
If you would like to nominate an outstanding woman for the Marion Spencer Fay Award, please visit the online nomination portal. Before you begin the submission process, please read all of the information below.
The closing date for nominations is Friday, March 28, 2025.
Please expand each section below to view detailed information about what will be required as part of the online nomination.
Nominators may submit multiple nominations via the same account (i.e., you do not need to create separate login credentials for each nomination by the dean/director of your institution). Please carefully follow the instructions after submitting your first nomination and you will be directed to a screen that allows you to enter information for another candidate.
- Name, title and email and mailing address of nominator (the nominator should be the nominee's dean, director, department chair or a past Marion Spencer Fay Award recipient)
- Name, title and email address of submitter (if not dean, director, chair or past recipient)
- Name and email address of nominator’s assistant (if different than submitter)
- Institution of nominator
- Phone number of nominator
- Name
- Title
- Institution
- Mailing address
- Email address
- Phone number
- Field of expertise
In up to 300 words, you must summarize the merit of the nominee to receive the Marion Spencer Fay Award.
Letter must be on official letterhead and addressed to “Dear Marion Spencer Fay Award Committee.”
In no more than three pages, the dean, department chair, past Marion Spencer Fay Award recipient, or director of an institute should write a letter of nomination that explains the substance and significance of the nominee’s contributions to health care.
One or more of the following activities should be addressed:
- Patient care
- Public policy
- Health care delivery
- Research
- Interdisciplinary professional relationships
- Education
- Application of basic sciences to health care
- Local, national and international impact of the nominee’s work
- Recognition in her field
- Mentoring, particularly of women, but not exclusively
- Leadership
- Future potential
Please note: The nomination letter must be written and signed by the dean, director, department chair or past award recipient.
If you'd like, you can download a nomination letter template [PDF].
You must attach the nominee’s CV.
You must attach at least two letters of recommendation, preferably from outside institutions. Recommendations must be on official letterhead and include the signature of the person recommending the nominee.
Any re-nominations must include updated materials (CV, nomination and recommendation letters) with details about new achievements, accomplishments and awards since the previous nomination.
Note: It is the policy of the Marion Spencer Fay Award Committee that a candidate who is nominated three years consecutively is not eligible for re-nomination in her fourth year, but may be reconsidered at a future date.
Important information for uploading attachments (letters and CV) to the online nomination portal:
- Accepted file size: No more than 5 MB per file
- Accepted file format: .doc, .docx, .rtf or .pdf
Please rename your files and omit any special characters before uploading them. Please follow the suggested file-naming format below:
- For nomination letter: NomineeLastName_Nomination_2025.doc
- For curriculum vitae: NomineeLastName_CV_2025.doc
- For recommendation letter 1: NomineeLastName_Recommend1_2025.doc
- For recommendation letter 2: NomineeLastName_Recommend2_2025.doc
Marion Spencer Fay News
September 16, 2024: Nina Schor, MD, PhD, the 2022 Marion Spencer Fay Award honoree, has been selected as one of the 2024 awardees of the Society of Neuroscience's Bernice Grafstein Award for Outstanding Accomplishments in Mentoring. Read more.
April 2024: Marina Picciotto, PhD, the 2020 Marion Spencer Fay honoree, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The academy was founded in 1780 to honor "exeptionally accomplished individuals" and "convenes leaders to examine new ideas, address issues of importance to the nation and the world, and advance the public good." Picciotto is the Charles B. G. Murphy Professor of Psychiatry, and a professor of neuroscience and pharmacology in the Child Study Center at Yale School of Medicine.
About the Marion Spencer Fay Award
The Marion Spencer Fay Award is a national award to honor achievement and excellence in medicine and science and is presented to a woman of distinction, innovation and leadership. Past Marion Spencer Fay Award honorees include Julie Overbaugh, PhD, of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, and Nancy C. Andrews, MD, PhD, dean of Duke University's School of Medicine. Learn more about past honorees.
Marion Spencer Fay, PhD, was dean and president of Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania from 1946 to 1963. The National Board for Women in Medicine established an award in her name in 1963 to recognize her pioneering leadership.
This national award is given annually to a woman physician and/or scientist who has made an exceptionally significant contribution to health care as a practitioner, medical educator, administrator and/or research scientist and who exhibits significant future potential.
Formerly administered by the National Board for Women in Medicine, the award continues under the guidance of the Lynn Yeakel Institute for Women's Health and Leadership of Drexel University College of Medicine, which maintains the traditions of the Woman's Medical College and the Medical College of Pennsylvania that reflect a 160-year legacy of excellence.
- The award recipient is selected from nominations submitted to a special committee, appointed by the Institute, dedicated to the principles of the Marion Spencer Fay Award.
- The presentation ceremony is attended by distinguished academic, medical and scientific leaders and the award includes a $10,000 honorarium to support the recipient's work.
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