Updated on Jul 6, 2025 | Community
Nicolas Daviaud, PhD, postdoctoral fellow, neuroscience, explained his work to visitor Shauntay Williams.
To commemorate Brain Awareness Week—a global endeavor showcasing the progress and benefits of brain research—The Friedman Brain Institute sponsored its fourth annual “Art of the Brain” exhibition. Featuring photographs, medical illustrations, and sculptures that celebrate the beauty of the brain as seen through the eyes of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai scientists, the exhibition took place at the Grady Alexis Gallery in East Harlem.
The opening reception, held Monday, March 13, was attended by many of the researchers who displayed their work, which they created by using the latest technological advances in imaging and 3D printing to help them gain a deeper understanding of the brain. During the 18-day run, the exhibition drew Mount Sinai faculty and staff, and the public.
The gallery also hosted PS 171 middle school students for several hours of immersive, interactive brain-related activities, in an event organized by The Friedman Brain Institute.
PS 171 middle school students participated in brain-related activities.
Among the students’ scientific adventures was a guided tour of the exhibition by MiNDS volunteers Xin-an Liu, PhD, postdoctoral fellow in neuroscience; Denise Croote, a first-year PhD student in the neuroscience program; and Eric Rath, a former traumatic brain injury (TBI) patient at Mount Sinai, who is now a TBI and addictions counselor.
Additionally, teaching assistants helped students view their own brain waves through the NeuroSky® MindWave— educational software that uses an electroencephalogram sensor to detect brain activity. Meanwhile, medical illustrators Christopher M. Smith, MA, and Jill K. Gregory, MFA, brought additional pieces of their work and spoke with students about the rewards and challenges of creating beautiful, yet functional, images to accurately illustrate a scientific topic.
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Community
From left: Saadia Akhtar, MD, Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education, Mount Sinai Beth Israel; Vicki Lynn Shanker, MD; Adam I. Levine, MD; and Thomas J. Nasca, MD, MACP, Chief Executive Officer, Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.
Two physicians at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have received the 2017 Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach Award for fostering innovation in their residency programs.
Vicki Lynn Shanker, MD, Assistant Professor of Neurology, and Director of the Mount Sinai Beth Israel Neurology residency program, cultivated a program committed to supporting residents in research and subspecialty care. Adam I. Levine, MD, Professor of Anesthesiology (Perioperative and Pain Medicine), and Director of The Mount Sinai Hospital Anesthesiology residency program, developed a program that allows residents to refine their clinical and teaching skills with simulation. Dr. Shanker and Dr. Levine were among 10 clinical educators receiving the award on Friday, March 10, at the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) annual conference in Chicago.
“We are very proud,” says I. Michael Leitman, MD, FACS, Senior Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education, Icahn School of Medicine. “Their programs have become pioneers in the field.”
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Community, Featured
From left: Barbara Davis, Chief Operating Officer of The Actors Fund; Brian Stokes Mitchell; and Lisa Mazie, Chief Administrative Officer of Mount Sinai West.
Mount Sinai Doctors and The Actors Fund recently opened The Samuel J. Friedman Health Center for the Performing Arts, a medical facility in a very “Broadway” location—upstairs from the Actors Fund headquarters at 729 Seventh Avenue and up the street from the Times Square TKTS booths.
The Center is open to the general public, but its services and flexible hours are targeted to people in entertainment and the performing arts. Staffed by Mount Sinai physicians, it offers primary care services, including wellness checkups, urgent sick visits, and health screenings, and is planning to add specialty services in fields like orthopedics and otolaryngology later this year. “This really is a collaboration; it’s like putting on a show,” the actor Brian Stokes Mitchell, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Actors Fund, said at the ribbon-cutting ceremony on Thursday, March 2.
Partly funded by a $1 million donation from the Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman New York Foundation for Medical Research, the Center is a project special to the Friedman family, which has deep ties to both medicine and the arts. It is named for the late Samuel J. Friedman, a publicist who worked with performers Bette Davis and Gypsy Rose Lee—and who was the brother of the late Gerald J. Friedman, MD, founder of the Diabetes Institute at Mount Sinai Beth Israel that bears his name.
“Mount Sinai has a long history of providing primary and specialty care for the performing arts community, and we are proud to continue that legacy in our partnership with The Actors Fund,” says Evan L. Flatow, MD, President of Mount Sinai West.
Mar 20, 2017 | Community
Starting fifth from left: Alex Ky-Miyasaka, MD, Associate Professor of Surgery; Sanghyun A. Kim, MD, Assistant Professor of Surgery; and David A. Greenwald, MD, Professor of Medicine (Gastroenterology); with nurses and staff from The Mount Sinai Hospital’s Endoscopy Center.
The Mount Sinai Endoscopy Center hosted an array of educational activities for Colorectal Awareness Month on Wednesday, March 1. During a health fair at The Mount Sinai Hospital, participants picked up educational literature and giveaways and walked through a 20-foot-long inflatable model of a colon. Provided by the Colon Cancer Challenge Foundation and known as the “Rollin’ Colon,” the model exhibits polyps and other colon cancer symptoms.
Later that day, the Foundation launched a “Protect Your Butt” campaign focused on saving lives through colon cancer awareness, prevention, and translational research. Colon cancer survivors, advocates, and clinicians joined in a celebratory “booty shake” at the event, which was held at the Naumburg Bandshell in Central Park and co-sponsored by Mount Sinai, Epi proColon, and Bracco Diagnostics Inc.
Mar 20, 2017 | Community
Martial artist Leif Becker visits with patient Myles Lewis and his father, Fredrick Lewis. Mr. Becker breaks boards to symbolize the power of hope over adversity.
In partnership with the nonprofit enCourage Kids Foundation, Leif Becker, a martial artist and motivational speaker, recently met with pediatric patients at the Blau Center for Children’s Cancer and Blood Disease at Kravis Children’s Hospital at Mount Sinai. Mr. Becker holds a world record for breaking wooden boards (487 in one minute). In preparation for his visit, patients and families had decorated wooden boards depicting their personal obstacles or challenges. Mr. Becker shattered the boards to symbolize breaking through barriers.
“The smiling faces as he effortlessly broke the boards were a testament to the power to spread a message of hope over adversity,” says Cheryl F. Strauss, Zone Clinical Coordinator, Child Life and Creative Arts Therapy Department, Kravis Children’s Hospital. Pediatric patients who were unable to attend the visit shared stories and asked questions from their hospital rooms via a KidZone TV live broadcast.
Mar 20, 2017 | Community
HRH Princess Madeleine, center, with Becky, left, and Reba.
HRH Princess Madeleine of Sweden and Joanna Rubinstein, DDS, PhD, President and CEO of the World Childhood Foundation, USA, recently visited the Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center. Led by the Center’s Medical Director, Anne T. Nucci-Sack, MD, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, the dignitaries greeted patients, clinicians, and leaders. Two patients, Becky and Reba, shared their personal histories with Princess Madeleine, who works actively with the World Childhood Foundation. The organization was founded in 1999 by her mother, Queen Silvia of Sweden, to help children around the world who are at risk for sexual abuse or exploitation.
