Fountain Hills resident Mary Burritt, Ph.D., professor emeritus of laboratory medicine at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, has received the 2023 Mayo Clinic Distinguished Alumni Award.

The award was established in 1981 by the Mayo Clinic Board of Trustees to acknowledge and show appreciation for exceptional contributions to medicine by Mayo Clinic alumni.

Burritt was the first female member of Mayo Clinic’s clinical chemistry faculty and the first woman to direct a clinical laboratory. She played a key role in establishing clinical chemistry as a discipline in laboratory medicine, a press release read.

After joining the Mayo Clinic staff in 1978, Burritt was instrumental in forming the Hospital Clinical Lab and Central Clinical Lab and shepherded Mayo Clinic laboratories through rapid change, moving from labor-intensive manual methods to the automated, high-throughput clinical laboratory essential for modern medicine, the release continued.

Burritt served in leadership positions in national and international organizations, including 30 years of participation in the American Association for Clinical Chemistry, serving as its president in 1996.

She also played a prominent role in the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and received its Distinguished Contributions in Education award in 2011.

Burritt consulted for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and served on its Clinical Laboratory Improvement Advisory Committee, providing scientific and technical advice to the U.S. government during the creation of the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act.

Burritt was director of the Mayo Clinic Clinical Chemistry Fellowship Program for eight years and has been a role model for women in clinical chemistry. She served as associate dean of Mayo Clinic School of Health Sciences for six years.

Burritt’s research career focused on plasma electrolyte methods, including ionized calcium, circadian rhythms of calcium and bone markers. She contributed to the emerging field of routine, electrode-based and colorimetric measurement, both of which are now routine tests in patient care.

“She was a pioneer in defining the limitations of these technologies and developing ways to support clinical care and improve the tests’ reliability,” the release said.

A native of Chicago, Burritt received an undergraduate degree from Clarke University in Dubuque, Iowa, and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Illinois Medical Center in Chicago. She completed a fellowship in pathology at Mayo Clinic School of Graduate Medical Education in Rochester, Minn.

Others who received the award with Burritt include Dr. Stephen Burkhart, Dr. Gerald Gleich, Dr. Morey Haymond, Dr. Celestia Higano and Dr. Ronald Petersen.