Community | Mount Sinai Today

A Passion for Community Wellness Drives New Graduate Gavriella Hecht, MPH

Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Community, School

Gavriella Hecht, MPH, was one of 201 students receiving a master’s degree from Mount Sinai.

At a time when the world is focused on public health, the students in the Master of Public Health (MPH) program at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai are as committed as ever to preventing disease, protecting the environment, and promoting good health at the local level and in populations around the globe.

Gavriella Hecht, who graduated from Mount Sinai’s MPH program on Friday, June 26, pursued the epidemiology track, taking on a variety of projects to gain knowledge and experience. She served as a research assistant on data management for the Integrated Care at Mount Sinai study on substance use among HIV patients. The study was conducted at outpatient HIV clinics within the Mount Sinai Health System.

In 2019, she presented research on opioids and HIV at the annual conference of the American Public Health Association. Earlier, Ms. Hecht had the opportunity to participate in county-level New York State projects that included lab work with mosquitoes and research on how certain species impact the West Nile virus.

“One of the great things about the Mount Sinai MPH program is that students have the opportunity to do significant work and really make a difference,” she says. “It allowed me to pursue my passions and to feel valued for my work. The faculty and staff are very committed to the success of their students.”

Today, Ms. Hecht is continuing her training through a two-year Centers for Disease Control and Prevention / Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists Applied Epidemiology Fellowship at the Arizona Department of Health Services. She is assigned to its Public Health Preparedness/Epidemiology and Disease Control Office of Infectious Diseases, working primarily on projects involving data management related to COVID-19, including the evaluation of electronic laboratory reporting and contact tracing.

At the Master’s Achievement Ceremony that preceded Commencement, Ms. Hecht was recognized for her accomplishments with the Excellence in Public Health Leadership and Service Award. She is also a member of the Delta Omega Honorary Society.

Ms. Hecht plans to continue her focus on epidemiology, studying patterns of zoonotic and vector-borne diseases, an emerging field she became interested in after taking a class on the topic at Mount Sinai. “My biggest passion,” she says, “is understanding how human, animal, and environmental health all impact each other.”

Pamela Abner Receives Seed to Bloom Award for Corporate Community Service at Mount Sinai

Updated on Nov 14, 2025 | Community, Engagement

Pamela Y. Abner, MPA

Pamela Y. Abner, MPA, Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer, has received the 2020 Corporate Community Award from the nonprofit group Seeds of Fortune Inc. The award, which Ms. Abner accepted at a virtual gala on Saturday, June 13, recognizes “a corporate employee or company that leverages their resources, expertise, and talent to make a positive impact.”

The group praised Ms. Abner for her thought leadership and strategic management, saying that she “continuously seeks to implement initiatives to identify disparities and eliminate barriers to medical care, employment, and education for underserved and underrepresented groups as well as foster relationships with community partners.” The honor was one of several Seed to Bloom Awards, which celebrate women who are inspiring the next generation of women in finance, entrepreneurship, and community activism. The awards are an initiative of Seeds of Fortune, a scholars program that aims to financially empower young women of color—helping them apply for college scholarships and build financial and career skill sets during their college years and beyond.

A Stirring Musical Performance Lifts Spirits at The Mount Sinai Hospital

May 21, 2020 | Community, COVID-19, Featured

Actor, singer, and Broadway performer Ciarán Sheehan thanked health care workers at The Mount Sinai Hospital with a repertoire of emotional, uplifting Broadway tunes on Tuesday, May 19. Mr. Sheehan completed the stirring musical performance before dozens of socially distanced patients, staff, and onlookers in the Guggenheim Pavilion with the hopes that his voice would echo throughout the Hospital.

“Mount Sinai holds a special place in my heart because my first son was born here,” said Mr. Sheehan of his desire to perform at the Hospital. “I wanted to say thank you for all that they are doing. I hope they enjoy it.”

Mr. Sheehan, who starred in Les Miserables and Phantom of the Opera on Broadway, performed various theatre standards including “Bring Him Home” and “Music of the Night” from the respective productions. He also performed “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from Carousel—a musical drama about love and loss—which may resonate with the difficulty faced by both patients and health care workers, many of whom have been compelled to distance themselves from friends and family during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It is my favorite Rogers and Hammerstein song about overcoming adversity in life and being guided and cared for by those who love you, whether you can see them or not.”

Watch a short clip of Mr. Sheehan's performance

From left: David L. Reich, MD, President, The Mount Sinai Hospital; Ciarán Sheehan; and Erica Rubinstein, LCSW, CPXP, Vice President, Patient Experience, Mount Sinai Health System, prior to the performance.

Staff look on as Mr. Sheehan performs.

Mone Zaidi, MD, PhD, Receives a Lifetime Honor

Mar 31, 2020 | Community, Research

Mone Zaidi, MD, PhD, left, accepting the honor in February from Steven Chu, PhD, President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Nobel laureate in Physics.

Mone Zaidi, MD, PhD, Director of the Mount Sinai Bone Program, and Professor of Medicine (Endocrinology, Diabetes and Bone Disease) at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society. Dr. Zaidi, who accepted the award on Saturday, February 15, at the AAAS conference in Seattle, Washington, was selected for his seminal contributions to endocrinology and skeletal biology, particularly the discovery of pituitary-metabolic circuits that regulate body fat, bone mass, and metabolism.

The lifetime honor was awarded to 443 scientists, of whom 35, including Dr. Zaidi, are in medical sciences. He says, “I am grateful that the research conducted by my laboratory colleagues is appreciated as having an impact on the scientific community.”

‘Drag Race’ Supports LGBTQ Youth

Updated on Nov 14, 2025 | Community

The host, Ritzy Bitz, third from right, with the contestants, from left: Tyler Martinson, Phil Cohen, Julio Ramos, Christopher Panebianco, Ben Ben-Zvi, and Felipe Garzon.

Delivering a good time for a good cause, the Second Annual Mount Sinai Charity Drag Race was held in Stern Auditorium on Thursday, February 6. More than 400 people attended the event, which was inspired by the reality television competition RuPaul’s Drag Race and raised $7,800 for the Ali Forney Center—a Harlem-based nonprofit dedicated to supporting homeless LGBTQ youth. The Drag Race was organized by oSTEM (Out in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) at Mount Sinai and the Stonewall Alliance.

The event was hosted by drag star Ritzy Bitz and featured six contestants: four Icahn School of Medicine students, a research associate, and a New York University graduate student.

“This event hits everything we stand for—increasing visibility of the LGBTQIA+ community, bringing together diverse students, faculty, and staff, and actively engaging the broader New York community,” says an organizer and contestant, Christopher Panebianco, PhD candidate in Biomedical Sciences. “And it’s a fun night.”

Mental Health Aid in Hard-Hit Puerto Rico

Mar 10, 2020 | Community

Hansel Arroyo, MD, and Lyse Aybar, LCSW

Two Mount Sinai mental health professionals traveled to Puerto Rico in February to aid residents recovering from recent disasters—Hurricane Dorian in August 2019 and a 6.4 earthquake in January 2020. Thousands of displaced people are living in government camps, as smaller quakes still shake the island.

“This is a serious ongoing crisis. People have been traumatized, and they need mental health assistance,” said Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York, who on Monday, February 3, sent a delegation of 26 bilingual volunteers to Puerto Rico, including Hansel Arroyo, MD, Director of Psychiatry at Mount Sinai’s Institute for Advanced Medicine and Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery; and Lyse Aybar, LCSW, Clinical Manager of the Comprehensive Emergency Psychiatric Program at Mount Sinai Beth Israel.

Deployed from four days to a week, volunteers provided crisis counseling in government camps and in the cities Yuaco and Villabla; conducted mental health canvassing; and staffed a crisis telephone hotline.