SUSAN LOVE
Susan Love was born on February 9, 1948 in New Jersey and spent her adolescence first in Puerto Rico and then in Mexico, where she founded a science fair, earned awards for research projects, and was named valedictorian. After her second year of pre-med studies at Notre Dame of Maryland, she joined the School Sisters of Notre Dame who sent her to Fordham University in New York to continue her studies. Love was among the five women who were the top graduates in the 1974 class of the State University of New York’s Downstate Medical School. Dr. Love completed her surgical training at Boston’s Beth Israel Hospital, and in 1988 was recruited to found the Faulkner Breast Center at Faulkner Hospital, with comprehensive care that allowed patients to see teams composed of radiation therapists, oncologists and surgeons. She was recruited by UCLA to found what later became the Revlon UCLA Breast Center. A founder of the breast cancer advocacy movement in the early 1990s, she helped organize the National Breast Cancer Coalition (NBCC). Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book, first published in 1990 is considered the global “bible” for people with breast cancer by The New York Times. In 1996, she retired from the active practice of surgery to dedicate her time to the urgent pursuit of finding the cause of breast cancer. In 1998, Love earned a business degree from the Executive MBA program at UCLA’s Anderson School. She was appointed by President Clinton to the National Cancer Advisory Board, a position she held from 1998-2004. As Founder and Chief Visionary Officer of the Dr. Susan Love Foundation for Breast Cancer Research, Dr. Love built and oversaw an active research program centered on the cause and prevention of breast cancer. The Love Research Army, which she launched in 2008, creatively accelerated cancer research by partnering volunteers and scientists for clinical trials and cancer research. Love died on July 2, 2023 and is survived by her wife, Helen Cooksey, MD, and their daughter Katie Patton-Love Cooksey.
"You have to make the world a better place for having lived."
