Alec C. Kimmelman, MD, PhD, keynote speaker at Mount Sinai’s Lab Coat ceremony

Alec C. Kimmelman, MD, PhD, stepped to the podium as the keynote speaker at Mount Sinai’s Lab Coat Ceremony, the celebratory start of academic research and training for the newest PhD and MD-PhD students. He recalled how he had felt a few decades earlier when he was a Mount Sinai student. “I remember sitting in the same place,” he said, “and I was wondering what the future would hold.”

For Dr. Kimmelman, who received both his MD and PhD degrees at Mount Sinai in 2003, it would be a future of extraordinary successes—starting with his own research thesis, which set the theme for his career investigating RAS-gene-driven cancers. As a student, he would also identify and characterize a novel member of the RAS family of oncogenes, and publish three first-author papers on this topic. Today, Dr Kimmelman, one of the world’s foremost authorities on the biology of pancreatic cancers, is the newly named Dean of the NYU Grossman School of Medicine and Chief Executive Officer of NYU Langone Health.

“New tools like artificial intelligence may change the scale of discovery but they don’t change its heart,” Dr. Kimmelman told the students. “At its core, science is built on people, and the way we choose to lead each other. When I was a trainee, I didn’t think of myself as a leader in any formal sense. Leadership seems like something reserved for deans or department chairs, but I soon learned that leadership often begins in the lab.” It is where building trust and “other small acts—mentoring, collaborating, encouraging—taught me that leadership is less about hierarchy and more about responsibility,” he said.

Celebrating PhD and MD-PhD students after getting their lab coats.

“Years later, when I was asked to lead a lab, and then a cancer center and, now, a health system, the principles were the same: create an environment where curiosity can thrive, where people support one another, and where integrity is never compromised. The qualities you demonstrate every day at the bench—generosity, persistence, intellectual courage—may one day prepare you for opportunities you cannot yet imagine. Leadership is not something that you wait for a title to give you. It’s something you practice, here and now, in how you approach your science and your colleagues.”

Marta Filizola, PhD, Dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, presided over the ceremony, which was held Thursday, September 4, at Goldwurm Auditorium.

“At Mount Sinai, we continue to advance into frontiers of research that integrate cutting-edge approaches across disciplines, from artificial intelligence and data science, to stem cell biology and regenerative medicine, all aimed at improving human health and quality of life,” she said. “Our students are at the heart of this work, bringing diverse perspectives, creativity, and a relentless drive to push the boundaries of both basic and translational research.” Dr. Filizola is also the Sharon & Frederick A. Klingenstein/Nathan G. Kase, MD Professor of Pharmacological Sciences, Professor of Neuroscience, and Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Human Health.

From left: Sarah E. Millar, PhD, Dean for Academic and Scientific Affairs, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai; Eric J. Nestler, MD, PhD; Alec C. Kimmelman, MD, PhD; and Marta Filizola, PhD, lead the students in reciting the Oath for Doctoral Students.

Eric J. Nestler, MD, PhD, Interim Dean and Nash Family Professor of Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer of the Mount Sinai Health System, welcomed the students and guests and spoke about the vast advances in health care made possible by science, today’s challenges to scientific inquiry, and, significantly, the need for optimism and new discoveries.

“Advances now occurring in the laboratory and clinic, driven in part by the power of computational and molecular biology and artificial intelligence, and informed by unprecedented volumes of biomedical data,” Dr. Nestler said, “will fundamentally transform the way we understand, diagnose, treat, and prevent disease. We must shout this from the mountaintops.”

However, “We live in a time when some people do question the value of scientific inquiry,” he added. “Efforts to politicize science are most unfortunate. Today, we are seeing an unprecedented assault on the nation’s scientific enterprise.”

Still, “We must remain optimistic,” he urged. “The importance of biomedical research is too strong and too widely held for us to back away, and the biomedical research enterprise is more exciting and promising today than ever before in world history.”

Click on the arrows below for a slideshow of faculty and students.

Ally Parpounas, MS

Ally Parpounas, MS, is a second-year student in the MD program at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She previously completed the Master of Science in Biomedical Science (MSBS) at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.

It was her decision to attend the MSBS program at Mount Sinai, along with her eventual participation in a number of different programs sparked by her desire to help people in need, that would lead to medical school, which in turn has opened a number of different career pathways.

Ms. Parpounas studied neuroscience at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. and studied abroad at the Danish Institute of Study in Copenhagen, Denmark. While at the Institute, she took a psychopharmacology course that sparked her interest in research. The course taught students how neural circuitry is implicated in various psychiatric conditions. She learned how to redirect it by developing a “pharmacological cocktail” that would minimize both side effects and symptoms.

“This experience unlocked my curiosity about the physiologic mechanisms that underlie disease, and so I  began to consider a career in medicine,” she says. She soon changed her major from psychology to neuroscience.

After completing her undergraduate program in 2020, she took a gap year working at an in-patient acute care psychiatric hospital in Washington D.C. She worked there for a year before deciding that she needed more basic research experience before medical school. A Master of Science in Biomedical Science seemed like a natural next step.

While looking at master’s programs, she noticed Mount Sinai’s MSBS program. She began looking into a few labs to determine what she wanted to study and focus on. She was drawn to the pharmacology research of the Daniel Wacker, PhD lab, where she would eventually be placed. She applied to a few other programs, but the MSBS program at Mount Sinai stood out because of the strong research component. She was also interested in living in New York City because it was close to where she grew up in Peekskill, New York, about an hour north of the city. She started the MSBS program in August 2021.

During her time in the program, she worked in a number of different areas that would eventually help shape her interest in a future career in medicine.

She volunteered and conducted clinical shadowing with the Mount Sinai Human Rights Program, which provides medical and psychological evaluations for people seeking asylum in the United States. The program helps people who are typically victims of human trafficking, political violence, and other difficult circumstances. They use these evaluations and affidavits to assist with asylum cases. She worked as one of the lead clinic managers.

“The program has shown me how we can leverage our roles as clinicians to protect the health and human rights of individuals, in addition to the traditional role providing direct medical care,” she says. “It’s incredible to see the impact you make on someone life beyond just their medical care.”

She also led the graduate school’s mentorship program. Mentors help first year students navigate decisions, such as determining what they want in a lab placement. Her positive experience doing this in her first year inspired her to act as a mentor for other students during her second year.

She was also a clinic manager at the East Harlem Outreach Partnership (EHHOP), the Icahn School of Medicine’s student-run, physician-supervised, free clinic. She has continued this work while in medical school as a part of the Access to Care Team, which helps patients gain access to medicines, healthy food, and legal assistance. She  is now on ACT team leadership as the ACT Resources Chair.

She believes that the opportunities she had to get clinical experience helped shape her drive towards medical school.

“My previous experiences helped inform my direction for medical school and the type of work I want to do when I become a physician,” she says. “My training in the MSBS program helped make me a more thoughtful and intentional applicant to medical school.”

“The program has shown me how we can leverage our roles as clinicians to protect the health and human rights of individuals, in addition to the traditional role providing direct medical care. It’s incredible to see the impact you make on someone life beyond just their medical care.”

The Graduate School provides support to help master’s students seeking to continue their education through PhD or MD programs. Ms. Parpounas  worked with a student advisor in the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) that helped with her medical school application process. The student advisors provide services such as creating an MCAT study schedule and essay review and revision help. This support was available as needed, but it was up to Ally to schedule meetings and manage the process.

“When I was studying for the MCAT exam, my friends in the medical school and the MSAP advisors (the MSTP student advisors) recommended study plans and resources, like Anki flashcards, that were more similar to what people use in medical school vs undergrad. I think studying in this way helped me get an MCAT score that I was proud of and made me feel more ready for the academic rigor of medical school,” she says.

She completed the MSBS program in June 2023 and received the Award for Excellence in Biomedical Science Leadership and Service Award for her volunteering and mentorship. She then applied to a few MD programs and was accepted to the program at the Icahn School of Medicine. Ally appreciates being in the first class to experience the new ASCEND curriculum, which was introduced in the fall of 2024. The objective of this curriculum revamp is to provide a personalized and active-learning approach aimed at transforming the way knowledge and clinical experiences are acquired.

Upon completing her MD, Ally is interested in a few different paths in medicine. She is currently working with Leah Habersham, MD, Director of the Bridge Program at Mount Sinai. The Bridge Program is an integrated clinic providing women’s health care, including obstetrics and gynecology, along with care for substance use disorder.

These experiences at Mount Sinai have sparked an interest in a wide variety of areas, including specialties such as obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, and internal medicine. But she believes it’s important to keep an open mind and will explore more once she begins her clinical clerkships in February 2026.