She has changed the course of cancer treatment, shaped Staten Island’s CUNY system | Staten Island Woman of Achievement Jill O’Donnell-Tormey

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — For as long as Jill O’Donnell-Tormey can remember, she has been fascinated by science. There were no doctors in her family, no researchers to emulate; her father worked in construction and her mother took care of the home. But somehow, she found a love for chemistry sets and microscopes and performed tiny experiments in her basement whenever she had the chance.

“When I was in the first grade, I can clearly remember Mother Saint Patrice coming into the classroom and telling us to line up so we could visit the lavatory,” Jill said recently, chatting in her Grymes Hill living room about her education at Notre Dame Academy – years that she says truly shaped her.