Lenah H. Sutcliffe Higbee was a pioneering Canadian-born United States Navy military nurse, who served as Superintendent of the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps during World War I. She is best known for being the first female recipient of the Navy Cross.
The United States Navy Nurse Corps was officially established by Congress in 1908; however, unofficially, women had been working as nurses aboard Navy ships and in Navy hospitals for nearly 100 years. The Corps was all-female until 1965.
Alene Bertha Duerk became the first female admiral in the U.S. Navy in 1972. She was also the director of the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps from 1970 to 1975. She is a 1974 recipient of a Distinguished Alumni Award of Case Western Reserve University's Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing.
Esther Voorhees Hasson was the first Superintendent of the United States Navy Nurse Corps. Prior to and after serving in the United States Navy Nurse Corps, she served as an Army nurse.
Josephine Beatrice Bowman was the third superintendent of the United States Navy Nurse Corps.
Myn M. Hoffman was the fourth Superintendent of the United States Navy Nurse Corps.
Sue S. Dauser was the fifth Superintendent of the United States Navy Nurse Corps, guiding the Nurse Corps through World War II.
Captain Nellie Jane DeWitt was the sixth and final Superintendent of the Navy Nurse Corps and became its first Director.
Winnie Gibson was the second director of the United States Navy Nurse Corps, serving in that position from 1950 to 1954.
Captain Wilma Leona Jackson was the third Director of the United States Navy Nurse Corps, serving in that position from 1954 to 1958.
Rear Admiral Joan Marie Engel held the position as the 18th Director of the Navy Nurse Corps from September 1994 to August 1998. She concurrently served as deputy commander for personnel management in the Health Sciences, Education and Training Command, and later as assistant chief for Education, Training and Personnel.
Rear Admiral Maxine Conder was a United States Navy rear admiral who served as Director of the United States Navy Nurse Corps from 1975 to 1979.
Frances Teresa Shea-Buckley was a United States rear admiral who served as Director of the United States Navy Nurse Corps from 1979 to 1983.
Retired Rear Admiral Mary Joan Nielubowicz was the Director of the Navy Nurse Corps from 1983 to 1987.
Mary Fields Hall was the Director of the Navy Nurse Corps from 1987 to 1991. She was the first U. S. military nurse to command a hospital. She became the commanding officer at Naval Hospital, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in July 1983, and later commanded Naval Hospital, Long Beach, California.
Rear Admiral Mariann Stratton was the Director of the United States Navy Nurse Corps from 1991 to 1994.
Captain Ruth Agatha Houghton was an American nurse who served as the Director of the United States Navy Nurse Corps from 1958 to 1962.
Captain Veronica M. Bulshefski was the Director of the United States Navy Nurse Corps, serving in that position from 20 April 1966 to 1 May 1970.
Elizabeth Leonhardt (1867–1953) was one of the Sacred Twenty, the first 20 nurses in the United States Navy Nurse Corps during World War I. She was the Chief Nurse of the US Navy Nurse Corps in 1919.
Edith DeVoe was an American nurse. She was the second black woman admitted to serve in the United States Navy Nurse Corps during World War II, was the first black nurse to be admitted to the regular Navy, and was the first black nurse to serve in the Navy outside the mainland United States.
