Amid loud cheers and applause, master’s students at Mount Sinai’s Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences celebrated their many accomplishments—and the promise they hold for advancing science, health, and medicine—at a Commencement ceremony on Friday, June 21.

There were 176 graduates in the Class of 2024 across nine programs: Master of Science in Biostatistics; Master of Science in Biomedical Science; Master of Health Administration; Master of Science in Health Care Delivery Leadership; Master of Science in Biomedical Data Science; Master of Science in Clinical Research; Master of Science in Genetic Counseling; Master of Science in Epidemiology; and Master of Public Health.

Student speaker Kiran Nagdeo, BDS, who had entered the Master of Public Health program two years earlier after having started her career in dentistry, addressed the graduates with optimism.

Student speaker Kiran Nagdeo, BDS

“Each of us chose Mount Sinai for different reasons, but we all shared a common goal: to advance human health and contribute to the well-being of society,” she said. “During our studies, we engaged with leading experts, participated in groundbreaking research, and immersed ourselves in hands-on experiences.

“As we move forward, let us carry with us the core values instilled by Mount Sinai: integrity, compassion, and a relentless pursuit of knowledge. Let us remain curious, continue to ask questions, and never settle for easy answers. The road ahead may be challenging, but we are well-prepared to face it with courage and determination.”

Presiding over the ceremony were Marta Filizola, PhD, Dean, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Eric J. Nestler, MD, PhD, Dean for Academic Affairs, Icahn Mount Sinai, and Chief Scientific Officer, Mount Sinai Health System.

Marta Filizola, PhD

“With your advanced degrees, you are now prepared to play a role in creating the future,” Dr. Filizola said. “You will work to understand and prevent threats to public health. You will compile and analyze biomedical data to generate new insights that can improve human health. You will build research studies that can yield the clinical breakthroughs that change patients’ lives. You will help families understand genetic risks, and prepare them for what may be the greatest challenge of their lives. You will be called upon to counsel health care professionals confronting the most complex bioethical challenges. You will help manage hospitals, and, perhaps one day, run a hospital—or an entire health system. All of this is very noble work.  Your future is bright, very bright, because science and medicine need you.”

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.

Eric J. Nestler, MD, PhD

In his speech, Dr. Nestler focused on Mount Sinai’s excellence in public health.

“Most of today’s graduates will be receiving their degrees in a field related to public health, and our nation needs your newly honed expertise more than ever,” he said. “This year marks a major milestone for Mount Sinai—this spring we created a new academic Department of Public Health and we recruited one of our own stars, Dr. Rosalind Wright, as the founding department chair,” he said as he introduced Rosalind Wright, MD, MPH, to the audience. “She will also serve as Mount Sinai’s first Dean for Public Health. These initiatives represent a major investment by Mount Sinai in public health, with a firm commitment to expand the scope and depth of our educational, research, and community outreach programs.” Learn more about Dr. Wright, a renowned physician, researcher, and educator, in this Q&A.

Dr. Nestler continued: “While our local and national communities represent a major focus of Mount Sinai’s work in public health, we must extend our efforts to international communities to advance global health.” He added, “And, a greater focus in public health is needed to identify and correct health disparities and the social and environmental factors that contribute to them. Mount Sinai’s Institute for Health Equity Research will be a crucial partner in our enhanced public health initiatives to achieve tangible progress in this important priority in health care.” Dr. Nestler is also Nash Family Professor of Neuroscience and Director of The Friedman Brain Institute.

Sandro Galea, MD, DrPH, MPH, Dean and Robert A. Knox Professor, Boston University School of Public Health, was presented with an honorary Doctor of Science degree. Dr. Galea is a population health scientist and epidemiologist, author, physician, and one of the most widely cited scholars in the social sciences. He has dedicated his career to understanding the social causes of health, mental health, and the consequences of trauma and working to shape the field to disrupt them and to change the lives and trajectories of people around the world.

Sandro Galea, MD, DrPH, MPH

In his Commencement address, he challenged each graduate to create a healthier world, guided by three pillars—epistemic humility, radical compassion, and reform through reason.

“Humility,” said Dr. Galea, “is the understanding that there are always limits to what we know. We can and should be in the business, always, of expanding these limits, but we will never reach a point when we can say we have learned it all. Humility recognizes this, allowing us to learn from what others can teach us. When we think we know it all, we are less likely to open our minds and our ears in our dealings with other people. Humility enables us to learn.”

Dr. Galea told the graduates there is a difference between empathy and compassion. “Like empathy, compassion helps us to see the world through the eyes of others…Empathy might allow us to feel what another feels. Compassion helps us go further, urging us to ask why they feel the way they do. When we do, we can see the political, social, and economic factors that underlie the health of many…Compassion calls on us to act, to make a better world. This is why it is radical.

“Reform through reason,“ he continued, “is ultimately about data and the incremental work we do every day to make the world better. Everything we do should rest on a foundation of consequential, rigorous, and inquisitive science. Guided by these principles, our science can help get us to the better, healthier future we all want. But it will not do so overnight. This is where it becomes necessary to embrace what I have called “radical incrementalism” in our work. [It] means working patiently, pragmatically toward the radical goal of a healthier world for all. And this goal is radical indeed—it means building a world that is optimized for health at every level.”

Click here to meet six graduates from Mount Sinai’s master’s programs and learn more about their experiences and passions.

Click below for a celebratory slideshow of graduates.

The Mount Sinai Hospital, East Harlem

Many might not realize that hospitals, in addition to helping care for countless patients and employing many workers, also have a big impact on the environment—from the amount of waste they generate to the greenhouse gas emissions produced by energy use, including heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and power for lighting and medical equipment. While not a main contributor to climate change, health care accounts for approximately 8.5 percent of U.S. domestic emissions.

Mount Sinai Health System is leading efforts to reduce the health care industry’s carbon footprint. The Health System recently received multiple Practice Greenhealth 2024 Environmental Excellence Awards, which recognize institutions that have demonstrated leadership in environmental sustainability in health care. The Mount Sinai Hospital, Mount Sinai West, and Mount Sinai Beth Israel received the Greenhealth Emerald Award, putting them within the top 20 percent of hospitals leading the way in environmental stewardship.

“We’re being accountable and trying to make an effort to be more sustainable in the care that we deliver,” says Muoi Trinh, MD, Medical Director, Sustainability, Mount Sinai Health System, and Associate Professor, Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine, and Cardiovascular Surgery, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “We care about our community and our carbon footprint and how we contribute to climate change affects our community in terms of air quality, pollution, and health.”

The Health System also received these awards from Practice Greenhealth, a leading sustainable health care organization:

• The Mount Sinai Hospital, Mount Sinai Morningside, Mount Sinai West, and the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai, received the Greening the OR Recognition Award, which recognizes hospitals that have made substantial progress to reducing the environmental impact from the operating room.
• Mount Sinai Queens, Mount Sinai Beth Israel, and Mount Sinai Brooklyn received the Partner for Change Award, which recognizes superior performance in environmental sustainability and health systems that have made substantive progress on eliminating mercury.

“The Practice Greenhealth awards are important because they allow us to compare Mount Sinai to others in the industry,” says Dr. Trinh, who leads sustainability initiatives at Mount Sinai Health System. “The awards give us metrics and tell us how we’re performing, so we know what areas we’re doing really well in and where we can improve.”

Slashing greenhouse gases in the operating room furthers Mount Sinai’s pledge to decarbonize health care, a commitment to pursuing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Health Sector Climate Pledge to reducing emissions by 50 percent by 2030 and achieving net zero emissions by 2050. Mount Sinai has also implemented a recycling program in operating rooms as part of a broader effort to reduce plastics across the Health System.

In cities like New York, where asthma rates are high, making hospitals more sustainable means keeping both the environment, and patients, healthy, since climate change is linked to chronic respiratory and pulmonary disease, according to Dr. Trinh.

“That’s part of the reason why it’s so important that we’ve become more responsible with how we think about how we deliver care,” she says.

Muoi Trinh, MD

A cardiac anesthesiologist for more than a decade, Dr. Trinh has seen firsthand how treating patients in the operating room can increase a hospital’s carbon footprint—from discarded plastic waste containers to anesthesia gases that pollute the air. To fix the problem, she has led efforts to reduce the most harmful anesthesia gases, which can contribute a significant amount of greenhouse gas emissions from operating rooms, from Mount Sinai.

“That’s part of the reason I got involved and became a huge advocate of trying to change things,” says Dr. Trinh, who has been Medical Director of Sustainability since April 2023.

Under Dr. Trinh’s leadership, Mount Sinai achieved this aim in two ways—both of which played a role in receiving the Practice Greenhealth 2024 Environmental Excellence Awards. First, the Health System removed desflurane, a greenhouse gas significantly more potent than carbon dioxide, from its inventory of anesthesia agents, and decreased the use of nitrous oxide, another anesthesia agent and potent greenhouse gas, by more than 75 percent. Second, the Health System investigated the piping system used to pump nitrous oxide into operating rooms, finding that most of this gas is lost from the bulk supply prior to reaching the anesthesia machine for clinical use. The Mount Sinai Hospital eliminated this problem at its campus by switching to smaller containers that attach directly to anesthesia machines.

“We’re hoping to continue this project over the course of this next coming year, to limit this loss all together, at all hospitals within the Mount Sinai Health System” says Dr. Trinh.

The next goal is to collect a full inventory of greenhouse gas emissions across the Health System. “Then we can prioritize our projects targeting the most significant ones first,” she says.

Dr. Trinh hopes that by receiving recognition, Mount Sinai can inspire other hospitals throughout the United States to become more sustainable. “Ultimately, the end goal is for hospitals to work collaboratively to reduce emissions from the health care industry as a whole, so we can all be part of the solution,” she says.