Overdue

Anthony Decarlo

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In 1948, Beatrix McCleary Hamburg ’48MD became the first self-identifying Black woman to graduate from the Yale School of Medicine. Now, she is the first Black woman to have her portrait in the school’s Sterling Hall of Medicine. The portrait, painted by Elizabeth Colomba (left), was unveiled in June. The installation comes after students noted the building’s existing portraits—52 white men and 3 white women—and urged the school to be more inclusive about whom it honors.

Hamburg, a psychiatrist, was a professor at Stanford, Harvard, Mount Sinai, and Cornell. Her research interests included peer counseling and violence prevention among adolescents. She died in 2018. “She really felt that Yale was a place that allowed her to develop her passion for medicine and science and to become a better person,” said her daughter, Margaret Hamburg (right).