Tony-winning American actress who played Lieutenant Commander Susanna Leijten, La Forge's former shipmate who begins to transform into an alien creature, in the Next Generation episode Identity Crisis.
Maryann Plunkett is an American stage and screen actress who won a Tony Award for the musical Me and My Girl and has worked steadily in New York theatre, with later film roles including Little Women.
In Identity Crisis she plays Susanna Leijten, who served with Geordi La Forge on the USS Victory and led an away team to Tarchannen III five years earlier. When other members of that team vanish she comes to the Enterprise-D to investigate with him.
A parasite picked up on the planet starts to rewrite her body, and Plunkett plays the growing compulsion to return there. Cured by Dr Crusher, Leijten then coaxes the transformed La Forge back.