Linda Dairiki Shortliffe ’71, RI ’09 entered urology at a time when very few women were practicing in that surgical subspecialty.

Today, she is the Stanley McCormick Memorial Professor and chair of the Department of Urology at the Stanford University School of Medicine. She is also the chief of urology at Stanford University Hospital and Clinics and chief of pediatric urology at the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. During the span of her career, urologic surgery has opened to ever-growing numbers of women.

As the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Fellow at Radcliffe, Shortliffe is poring over national data to examine outcomes for those who enter the field of urology and to understand how their gender and background may affect these outcomes.

“Being a Radcliffe fellow has strengthened my belief that diversity of all sorts, including of the mind and spirit, is needed within the corridors of medicine,” she says.

Photo by Webb Chappell. With special thanks to Hauwa Ibrahim RI ’09 and her sons, Nico and Silvio; Elizabeth McCracken RI ’09 and her daughter, Matilda; and Manuel Vargas RI ’09 and Stephanie Vargas and their daughters, Athena, Nike, and Satya.