From left: Spirit honoree Alyson Moadel-Robblee, Ph.D., director, Bronx Oncology Living Daily program; Jill Martin, former Spirit Award winner and Today show contributor; and Spirit honorees Luz Towns-Miranda and Sandra Lee.

The Einstein Women’s Division hosted its 63rd annual Spirit of Achievement Luncheon on May 16 at the Rainbow Room in Manhattan. The honorees included Sandra Lee, a multiple Emmy Award winner and lifestyle expert; Alyson Moadel-Robblee, Ph.D., the director of the Bronx Oncology Living Daily (BOLD) program, and Luz Towns-Miranda, Ph.D., a former faculty member in Einstein’s departments of psychiatry and of family and social medicine. The afternoon’s emcee was Jill Martin, a contributor to NBC’s Today show and a past Spirit honoree. Women’s Division co-presidents Terri Goldberg and Trudy Schlachter organized the event, along with former Women’s Division president Carol Roaman and executive vice president Andrea Stark.

Proceeds from the luncheon benefited the Women’s Division’s initiative to support comprehensive healthcare for women through research, discovery and teaching, and to provide specialty care for all women in the diverse communities that Einstein and Montefiore serve.

Spirited Tributes

Steven M. Safyer, M.D., president and CEO of Montefiore, introduced Sandra Lee, highlighting her battle with breast cancer and her courage in speaking out to raise awareness of the need for early cancer detection. In accepting her award, Ms. Lee emphasized the importance of nutrition in health and her work as UNICEF’s special nutrition emissary and as national spokesperson for No Kid Hungry and Stand Up
to Cancer. 

Dr. Safyer also presented Dr. Moadel-Robblee with her Spirit award. Dr. Moadel-Robblee, a health psychologist, discussed her career in research, teaching and counseling, and her interest in the psychological, social and cultural factors that affect people with cancer. She shared a video about her work as founding director of the BOLD program at the Montefiore Einstein Center for Cancer Care, as well as the profound impact her mother’s battle with cancer has had on her life’s work.

Today show contributor Lilliana Vazquez presented the Spirit award to Dr. Luz Towns-Miranda, a member of the Einstein-Montefiore family from 1985 to 2009. Dr. Towns-Miranda has been involved with Planned Parenthood and has worked to improve mental health services for families, women and children throughout New York City. She is also the proud mother of Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creative force behind the Tony Award–winning Broadway musicals Hamilton and In the Heights, and Luz Miranda-Crespo, chief financial officer at the MirRam Group, a strategic consulting firm in New York City.

To join the Einstein Women’s Division’s initiative to support research on women’s and men’s cancers, or to learn more about the Women’s Division, please contact Mary Anna Smith at 718.920.6036 or maryanna.smith@einstein.yu.edu.