On Tuesday, May 4, 2021, the College of the Holy Cross will present seven alumni with Sanctae Crucis Awards for their extraordinary commitment and leadership in critical fields throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The Sanctae Crucis Award is the highest non-degree accolade that the College bestows on alumni. The awards have been presented annually since 1998 to alumni who have distinguished themselves professionally and in the service of their community.
This year’s recipients are:
Helen W. Boucher, M.D., FACP, FIDSA ’86
Dr. Boucher is chief of the Division of Geographic Medicine and Infectious Diseases at Tufts Medical Center, director of Tufts Center for Integrated Management of Antimicrobial Resistance (CIMAR), director of the Heart Transplant and Ventricular Assist Device Infectious Diseases Program and professor at Tufts University School of Medicine.
John F. Brown, M.D., MPA ’78
Dr. Brown is medical director of the San Francisco Emergency Medical Services Agency, a position he has held since 1996. This position is responsible for the regulation of the pre-hospital dispatch, first response, ambulance transport and emergency medical care for the City and County of San Francisco. He is also associate clinical professor of emergency medicine at the University of California, San Francisco Medical School and attending physician at San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center.
Christopher A. Crean, M.D., FACEP ’97
Dr. Crean is a board-certified emergency physician. He earned his M.D. from Georgetown University Medical School in 2003. Chris completed his residency in Emergency Medicine at the Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, NC in 2006 and was awarded the Outstanding Resident Research Achievement Award. He then went on to join the faculty at the University of Massachusetts Medical School as assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine. He serves as the associate director and department chairman for the Emergency Department at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital – Somerset Campus.
Theresa A. Crean, RN, MA, CI/CT '97
Theresa Crean is a registered nurse in the critical care unit at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in Somerset, New Jersey. She worked for more than a decade as a sign language interpreter, holding the credentials of National Certificate of Interpretation and the National Certificate of Transliteration, before becoming a nurse in 2019. As a COVID critical care nurse, caring for the sickest people in the hospital, she makes use of her years of experience interpreting to help people on ventilators communicate with their families and staff.
Christine Carroll Krisch ’06
Christine Krisch, RN, is senior nurse in the Cardio-Thoracic ICU at New York Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. A leader in nurse education, she is also chief nursing officer at Daybreak Health in New York City, a digital startup which provides fast and simple COVID-19 rapid testing solutions developed by leading medical and technology experts. She also works part-time as senior nurse in the Cardio-Thoracic ICU at New York-Presbyterian Hospital.
Ronald R. Lawson ’75
Ronald R. Lawson is chief operating officer of Care for the Homeless (CFH), a nonprofit fighting homelessness by delivering high quality and client-centered health care, human services and shelter to homeless individuals and families, and by advocating for policies to ameliorate, prevent and end homelessness. Since Ronald joined in October 2016, CFH has operated 26 New York state-licensed health care centers and two shelters throughout Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan and Queens, and has plans to grow to more than 32 sites by 2024.
Erin C. McAleer ’02
Erin McAleer is president of Project Bread, the leading anti-hunger organization in Massachusetts. Erin has built on Project Bread’s legacy of innovative programming to develop new community-informed strategies that affect change. She identifies where and how to create large-scale change, whether through grassroots engagement and movement building, bringing together organizations to work collaboratively and strategically, policy advocacy or taking to scale impactful programs.
