The Graduate School Dean Teresa Woodruff has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine, the University announced in a Monday news release.

The academy recognizes individuals who have demonstrated “outstanding professional achievements and commitment to service” in the medical field, according to its website. Woodruff, who is also a Feinberg School of Medicine researcher and director of the Women’s Health Research Institute at Northwestern, was among the 85 new members elected — one of the “highest honors in the fields of health and medicine,” the release said.

Her team has made wide-ranging discoveries and innovations in reproductive health, and Woodruff was recognized for numerous accomplishments including “her work on preservation of fertility in cancer patients,” according to the academy.

“I’m thrilled about my election to the National Academy of Medicine, which recognizes not only my work but also that of my students over a 33-year career,” Woodruff said in the release.

Woodruff helped persuade the National Institutes of Health in 2016 to change policy to include sex as a biological variable in all federally funded research and five years earlier, received a Presidential award from Barack Obama.

In the release, she credited the University for supporting her research and achievements. “Northwestern University is the only place I could have made all our discoveries,” she said.

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