College of Medicine Alumni

Leo Gordon, MD, is the Abby and John Friend Professor of Cancer Research at Northwestern University. His other positions at the Feinberg School of Medicine include director of the Lymphoma Program, medical director of the John and Lillian Matthews Cell Therapy and Processing Facility at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, and co-leader of Hematologic Malignancies at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Dr. Gordon received his undergraduate degree in biology at the University of Chicago before attending the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. He returned to Chicago after receiving his medical degree in 1973 to complete his internship and residency in medicine at the University of Chicago. Fellowships in hematology at the University of Minnesota and medical oncology back at the University of Chicago followed.

After joining the faculty of the Feinberg School of Medicine in 1979, Dr. Gordon became one of the country’s leading hematologists and lymphoma researchers. He has been actively involved in translational research with the overarching goal of improving the outcomes for patients with lymphoma. Working with fellow scientists in the United States and abroad, he is investigating novel signaling pathways in lymphoma by using cell lines and animal model systems. Among his many areas of research interest are studying CAR-T cells in lymphoma clinical trials, novel biologic agents to treat Hodgkins and non-Hodgkins lymphoma, and using stem cell transplantation in lymphoma patients.

Among Dr. Gordon’s many research and clinical contributions are his involvement in practice-changing clinical trials in both non-Hodgkins and Hodgkin’s lymphoma patients that have been published in such prestigious journals as the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of Clinical Oncology and Lancet Oncology. By conducting large, randomized clinical trials, he and his colleagues were able to establish the standard and accepted treatment paradigm for these diseases that led to Food and Drug Administration approval of new treatment modalities.

Further work by Dr. Gordon and his collaborators in lymphoma biology and treatment led to novel exploration of new treatments, from high-dose chemotherapy to the use of natural products to exciting discoveries on the use of nanoparticles as an immune response mediator in non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas. In collaboration with investigators around the world, he helped develop correlative studies in Hodgkin’s and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma that led to novel treatments and a new understanding of the biology of these diseases.

Dr. Gordon’s expertise is sought by many national organizations. He has served on several National Institutes of Health Study Sections and has been an external advisor to the Southwest Oncology Group. He currently serves on the Lasker Clinical Research Scholar Program, a National Cancer Institute Special Emphasis Panel, the External Advisory Committee of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and the Scientific Advisory Board of the Lymphoma Research Foundation which he chaired from 2015 to 2017.

Dr. Gordon has received numerous honors during his career, beginning while he was a UC medical student when he was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha and then received the Upjohn Achievement Award for Excellence in the Clinical Arts during his fourth year of medical school. Later, Dr. Gordon received the Hope Award from the Lymphoma Research Foundation; the Stephen A. Weisman, MD, Humanitarian Award for Cancer Care from the Cancer Wellness Center in Illinois; and the Mecklenburg Distinguished Physician Award from Northwestern Medicine.

2023 Distinguished Alumna

Janice Hutchinson, MD, MPH, is a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Howard University Hospital in Washington, D.C., and an associate professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the Howard University College of Medicine. She is also director of the college’s Psychiatry Residency Program. A native of Chicago, Dr. Hutchinson received her undergraduate degree in sociology from Stanford University before attending the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.

During her final year of medical school, Dr. Hutchinson worked at the John. F. Kennedy Hospital in Monrovia, Liberia, just the first of several instances in which she would serve as a medical missionary. Following graduation, she completed her internship at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and then returned to Cincinnati for her psychiatry residency at UC. She then completed a residency in pediatrics at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. Dr. Hutchinson also earned a master’s degree in public health from the University of Illinois.

In the early 1980s, Dr. Hutchinson joined the Rush University Medical School as an adjunct faculty member. She eschewed private practice to join the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps before taking a leave of absence to work in a refugee camp outside of Bangkok, Thailand.

When she returned to the United States, she completed a child and adolescent fellowship at the Institute for Juvenile Research at the University of Illinois. At the same time, she served as a public health physician with the American Medical Association, working on teen pregnancy and child abuse issues. Following the discovery of the HIV antibody, she became concerned about the devastating effect of the disease on children and helped to organize the American Medical Association's first major HIV conference in the mid-1980s.

Board certified in pediatrics and adult and child psychiatry, Dr. Hutchinson has taught and written extensively about many children’s health and social issues, including child abuse, domestic violence, teen pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, impulsivity and aggression, incarceration and mental illness, and the use of antidepressants with children and youth suicide.

In 2007, Dr. Hutchinson co-authored the book “Losing Control: Loving a Black Child with Bipolar Disorder.” The book is a true story of an African-American mother’s difficulties with her daughter’s mental illness, which is ultimately diagnosed as bipolar disorder.

Dr. Hutchinson received the American Psychiatric Association’s Irma Bland Excellence in Teaching Award in 2005. Earlier this year, she was honored with the Marian A. Spencer Mosaic Award by the University of Cincinnati Alumni Association. The award is presented annually to a UC graduate who has demonstrated leadership while enhancing shared community through cultivating collaboration, fostering inclusiveness, championing the cause of the underrepresented and promoting greater equity and opportunity for all.

Throughout her career, Dr. Hutchinson has worked to improve the quality of the lives of others through the power of medicine. She has done this through caring for her patients; undertaking multiple overseas medical missions; lecturing and writing on child abuse, teen pregnancy, sex trafficking, juvenile detention and childhood mental illness and other childhood issues; and volunteering in shelters for homeless men, women and children. Additionally, she has served as the chair of the Washington Psychiatric Association’s Advocacy Committee.