The Distinguished Alumni Award recognizes the outstanding achievement, the dedication, and the personal accomplishments of a Shipley alum in a particular field of endeavor, whether it be in a chosen profession, through formal volunteer activities unrelated to the School, or through a personal commitment to an issue, project, or cause.

Roxana Barry Robinson ’64 is the author of ten books - six novels, three collections of short stories, and the biography of Georgia O’Keeffe. Four of these were chosen as New York Times Notable Books, two as New York Times Editors’ Choices.

Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s, Best American Short Stories, Tin House, and elsewhere. Her work has been widely anthologized and broadcast on NPR. Her books have been published in England, France, Germany, Holland and Spain. Robinson is a scholar of American paintings and an environmentalist, and her essays, criticism, and Op-Eds have appeared in The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, The Chicago Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Washington Post, Bookforum, The Nation, and elsewhere. She has twice been a finalist for the Balakian Award for Criticism from the NBCC.

Her novel, Cost, won the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance Fiction Award for 2008, and it was listed as one of the Best Books of the Year by the Chicago Tribune, Library Journal, The Seattle Times, and The Wall Street Journal. It was named one of the Five Best Fiction Books of the Year by The Washington Post. 

Her novel, Sparta, won the Maine Fiction Award, the James Webb Award from the USMCHF, was named one of the Ten Best Books of the Year by the BBC, and was short-listed for the Dublin Impac Award. 

Roxana Barry Robinson ’64 has received fellowships from the NEA, the MacDowell Colony and the Guggenheim Foundation, and she was named a Literary Lion by the New York Public Library. Robinson has served on the Boards of PEN and the Authors Guild, and was the president of the Authors Guild from 2013-2017. In 2019 she received the Barnes and Noble “Writers for Writers Award,” given by Poets and Writers. She teaches in the MFA Program at Hunter College.