Southwestern Magazine | Spring 2021

SOUTHWE S T E RN | 2 7 Distinguished Professional: Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli ’92 Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli is the senior pastor of the historic Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington, DC. A religious studies major at Southwestern, Gaines-Cirelli received her master of divinity from Yale University. After serving other congregations in the DC area, she was named Foundry’s first female senior pastor in the church’s 200-year history in 2014. Following the 2016 presiden- tial election, Gaines-Cirelli began exploring the role of the church in fighting injustice. She helped found Sanctuary DMV, an organization that works to protect immigrants and marginalized communities in the DC, Maryland, and Virginia (DMV) area, and established a Sacred Resistance Ministry Team at Foundry. Her book, Sacred Resistance: A Practical Guide to Christian Witness and Dissent , was published in 2018, the same year she received a Washington Women of Excellence Award from Washington, DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser. Distinguished Professional: Molly McKee Lopez ’91, P’21 Molly McKee Lopez is the director of the Texas Institute for Excellence in Mental Health at the University of Texas at Austin Steve Hicks School of Social Work. Lopez also is a licensed clinical psychol- ogist and research associate professor. Throughout her career, Lopez has focused on identifying ways to better serve children with mental-health challenges and their families. After graduating from Southwestern with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, Lopez earned her master’s degree and doctorate in clinical psychology from Texas A&M University. She served in several leadership roles at the Texas Department of State Health Services, where she provided policy and programmatic oversight of children’s mental-health services. Lopez has served as the principal investigator on multiple grants funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and other organizations.