WESTGATE, Marie-Noël (Saurel) of Boston and Stockbridge, MA passed away last month surrounded by her loving family. Daughter of the late Paul F. and Louise (Hoguet) Saurel, Marie-Noël grew up in New York City, spending summers and weekends in Stockbridge. A graduate of Smith College, Marie-Noël started her career as a teacher and completed graduate work in Education at Wheelock College. She then spent 20 years as part of a Genetics Research Unit at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital working with Lewis B. Holmes, M.D. and many others who inspired her. She supervised the Active Malformation Surveillance Program, which is part of the National Birth Defects Prevention Study and provides a basis for better understanding birth defects, their causes and possible paths for prevention and management. For two decades, she engaged parents upset to learn that their newborn had a birth defect and provided support and encouragement to help them at this difficult time. Her wonderful rapport with parents, nurses and pediatricians alike made the program more successful and her nurturing nature helped many of the young people who worked on the study to embark on their own careers. Marie-Noël was a loving mother of Ramsay and his wife Andrea of San Jose, CA and Katherine Westgate and her husband David Pascual of New York City. She was the proud grandmother of Sarah, Cecilia and Alison, and the devoted sister of Louise Kari, Christine Saurel, Paul Saurel and the late Ramsay Saurel. Services will be held at a later date. The family asks that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made in memory of Marie-Noël Westgate to Massachusetts General Hospital, where they will be used to advance research in Genetics and Teratology. Checks can be mailed to Massachusetts General Hospital, Development Office, 125 Nashua Street, Suite 540, Boston, MA 02114.