Alumnae of Distinction Honorees
Maria Cecilia Salazar, Cathedral High School class of 1987, has over thirty years of experience in the financial services industry.
Her career in finance started out thanks to a Junior Achievement program during her senior year at CHS, which led to an internship at the IBM Metro Employees Federal Credit Union, where she remained a part-time employee for several years while continuing her education.
In the ensuing years, she obtained a Bachelor of Science in applied mathematics from the City College of New York. Despite her interest in math, science, and English during CHS and several majors changes, the time at IBM Metro made her realize she wanted to remain in the financial services industry, working with people instead of numbers and building client relationships.
Upon graduation from CCNY, she began her career at The Bank of New York. She attended The Lubin School of Business at Pace University, where she received an MBA in Financial Economics. Since then, she has worked at Standard & Poor’s and has been at J.P. Morgan for the last twenty years.
Maria Cecilia has long served Cathedral High School, first as a member of the Development Committee and now as a member of the Principal’s Council. She delivered the school’s commencement address at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in 2018.
Denise De Las Nueces, MD, MPH, Cathedral High School class of 1999, is a board-certified internal medicine physician and addiction medicine specialist focusing on vulnerable populations.
She received her Bachelor of Arts from Columbia University and subsequently studied at Harvard Medical School, where she received an MD in 2008. She trained at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Internal Medicine Residency Program from 2008 to 2011. Upon completing residency training, Dr. De Las Nueces was granted a Commonwealth Fund Mongan Fellowship in Minority Health Policy, completing a Master of Public Health degree in Health Policy from the Harvard School of Public Health in 2012.
She joined the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program (BHCHP) in 2012. Dr. De Las Nueces was recognized in 2014 as one of Boston’s Top 40 under 40 Leaders by the Boston Business Journal and received a 40 Under 40 Leaders in HealthAward in 2018 from the National Minority Quality Forum.
She now serves as Chief Medical Officer of BHCHP and is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine.