A member of the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary (RSHM) for 64 years, Sr. Rita was a Trustee and former French teacher of Marymount Manhattan College, a Trustee of Marymount School in New York City, and a board director for the Partnership of Global Justice. She was a former director of the American Institute for Foreign Studies. Sr. Rita completed her undergraduate studies at Marymount College in Tarrytown, N.Y. and held a Doctorat d’Université from the Université de Rennes, France.

In June 2008, Sr. Rita was elected to the UN NGO Department of Public Information Executive Committee where she worked to further the UN’s millennium development goals and contributed significantly to the Committee’s outreach programs and newsletter, the NGO Reporter. In this latter role, Sr. Rita instituted and directed the translation of NGO Reporter articles into the five official UN languages.

On Thursday, 16 April, a memorial service in honor of Sr. Rita, sponsored by the Committee on Teaching about the UN (CTAUN), was held in the Chapel of the Church Center at the United Nations.