Sharon Whelan Weiss was the oldest of six children in a family was willing to make the necessary sacrifices for her to receive a Wellesley College education. Her father, an army surgeon, had declared that any daughter of his who got into Wellesley would go. At Wellesley, Weiss decided she was going to pursue a career as a doctor and has since become an international expert in her fields of study: pathology and soft tissue tumors. After graduating and marrying Bernard Weiss, a physician, Sharon attended the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Alpha Omega Alpha. She started out as an intern at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, and worked her way up to become resident and, later, chief resident of the department of pathology. Prior to her job as the director of anatomic pathology at the University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor, a title she still holds today, Weiss was the chairwoman of the Department of Soft Tissue Pathology at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. Currently, Weiss is also a professor of pathology at the University of Michigan’s School of Medicine and has written over forty peer-reviewed journal articles and a textbook, Soft Tissue Tumors. Her textbook, which was co-written with Dr. Franz Enzinger, is considered the most authoritative book in its field. In 1988, Weiss also became head of the World Health Organization International Reference Centre for the Histological Classification of Soft Tissues Tumors. Her daughter, Francine, graduated from Wellesley in 1995.
For more information about the Alumnae Achievement Awards, please contact us by email at specialprograms@alum.wellesley.edu or call the Alumnae Association at 781-283-2331. |
