Public Health Research Day 2026 Showcases Student Innovation, Collaboration, and Career Inspiration at Mount Sinai

Updated on May 28, 2026 | Featured, Research, School

A photo of winners Saarim Qureshi, MPH, Annum Jaffer, MPH, Tina Chen, MPH, and Program Director Dania Valvi, MPH, PhD, MPH

From left: Winners Saarim Qureshi, MPH, Annum Jaffer, MPH, Tina Chen, MPH, and Program Director Dania Valvi, MPH, PhD, MPH

Public Health Research Day, hosted by the Graduate Program in Public Health, recently celebrated student research from the master’s programs in the Department of Public Health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

The event, held Thursday, May 21, began with two keynote speakers who are both alumni of Mount Sinai. The first was Hannah Thompson, MD, MPH, an Assistant Professor of Environmental Medicine and Public Health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and physician at the Selikoff Centers for Occupational Health. Dr. Thompson specializes in occupational medicine and care for patients in the World Trade Center Health Program. She earned her Master of Public Health through Mount Sinai’s MD/MPH training pathway.

The second keynote speaker was Kshitij Sachdev, MS, a graduate of the Master of Science in Epidemiology program at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and is currently pursuing a PhD in Epidemiology at the University of Iowa. His academic and research interests focus on epidemiology, environmental health, and population-based public health research, with experience contributing to interdisciplinary studies on environmental exposures and disease risk.

In his address, Dr. Thompson told the students that her MPH training gave her insight into public health, policy, and environmental medicine, which are all areas not included in her medical education. She also mentioned that working in public health provides a strong sense of purpose that is inspiring.

Mr. Sachdev explained how his training in the Master of Science in Epidemiology program prepared him to advance to a PhD program. He also emphasized the importance of networking in this industry and reminded the students that Mount Sinai is a great place to make connections. Students were able to ask both speakers questions about their experiences.

An image of Tina Chen, MPH, discussing her presentation

Tina Chen, MPH, discusses her presentation

The students then moved on to their lightning round presentations. Each student had two minutes to present a high-level overview of their research to our faculty, their peers, and prospective students. Faculty members scored the students based on criteria about the presentations.

The next stage of the event featured students presenting their research on posters in the Annenberg lobby. Other students, prospective students, and members of the Mount Sinai community gathered to see what our students created. There were lively discussions as participating students proudly explained their work.

“My professor, Mayaan Yitshak-Sade, taught me how pollution negatively impacts health outcomes over time if not addressed. This encouraged me to learn more about this and to help others understand the long-term health effects of pollution,” said Bahra Aldolapour, a Master of Science in Epidemiology student.

A photo of Justice-Keith Little, MHA

Justice-Keith Little, MHA, stands beside his presentation

Trang Dao, a Master of Public Health student, recommends taking advantage of connection opportunities at Mount Sinai.

“Get out there and speak to faculty while you’re a student. Your interests matter, and you never know who you could end up working with on research,” she said. “For example, I was able to utilize data from Mount Sinai for my research about cultural barriers to cervical care screening among East and Southeast Asian women in the U.S. There are so many opportunities for cross collaboration at Mount Sinai.”

“I’m sad that the program is nearly over. Working with my cohort and the faculty at Mount Sinai has been incredible. My time here has inspired me to continue expanding access to care for ALS patients, and I look forward to staying involved in this community,” said Justice-Keith Little, a Master of Health Administration student.

The day ended with faculty giving out awards to students based on their presentation scores. The winners included:

  • Best Abstract: Tina Chen, MPH
  • Best Online Oral Presentation: Annum Jaffer, MPH
  • Best In-Person Poster Presentation: Saarim Qureshi, MPH
Learn more about the master’s programs in the Department of Public Health

Mount Sinai Nurse Scientists: At the Forefront

Updated on Apr 23, 2026 | Featured, Research

Event speakers and members of the Clinically Based Nurse Scientist Summit Planning Committee (from left to right): Reynaldo Rivera, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN, FAONL, Director, Nursing Research and Innovation, NewYork-Presbyterian; Deborah Stamps, EdD, MBA, MS, RN, GNP, NE-BC, CDE, FADLN, FAAN, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Deborah Stamps Consulting, LLC; Allison Andreno Norful, PhD, MPhil, MSN, BSN, ANP-BC, FAAN, Assistant Professor, Columbia University School of Nursing; Bernice Coleman, PhD, ACNP-BC, FAHA, FAAN, Director, Nursing Research, Cedars Sinai; Rose Sherman, EdD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN, Emeritus Professor, Florida Atlantic University College of Nursing; Esther Chipps, PhD, RN, NEA-BC, FAONL, Clinical Nurse Scientist, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center; Perry Gee, PhD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN, Director of Nursing Research and Evidence-Based Practice, Intermountain Healthcare; Kimberly Souffront, PhD, RN, FNP-BC, FAAN, Associate Director, Center for Nursing Research and Innovation; and Bevin Cohen, PhD, MPH, MS, RN, FAAN, Director, Center for Nursing Research and Innovation.

The landscape of research conducted by nurses is evolving, and Mount Sinai’s Center for Nursing Research and Innovation (CNRI) is leading the charge. In June 2025, the Health System hosted the nation’s first conference on the role of the clinically based nurse scientist—a growing workforce of researchers who investigate nursing practice questions with direct impact on health care systems and patient care.

Clinically based nurse scientists are nurses with PhDs and advanced research training who work inside health care delivery settings. Their roles span designing and leading large-scale clinical trials and health services research, securing funding for research and training from organizations such as the National Institutes of Health, and partnering with the clinical nursing workforce to translate research into practice and investigate timely research questions that arise from patient care.

“Schools of nursing have long been the center of robust programs of research,” says Bevin Cohen, PhD, MPH, MS, RN, FAAN, Director of the CNRI. “But today, more health systems are exploring the benefits of having nurse scientists on staff to better connect research with practice.”

There is also growing interest in clinically based roles among nurse scientists themselves, many of whom wish to remain close to patients and conduct research with immediate impact.

Mount Sinai Health System has been at the forefront of this important movement, as evidenced by the CNRI itself.

The Center is a hub at the intersection of academia and clinical practice that supports and advances nursing research throughout the Health System. Through a comprehensive offering of programs and resources, the Center serves two primary communities: nurse scientists with advanced training who lead their own panels of research, and clinical nurses who are embarking on research, quality improvement, and evidence-based practice projects.

“The clinical setting is not a space where many nurse scientists have traditionally worked,” Dr. Cohen says. “We have an unprecedented opportunity to conduct research that improves clinical nursing practice at scale, but we also need to build the infrastructure and collaborative networks to facilitate this important work.”

Across the United States, many clinically based nurse scientists have sought collaboration with colleagues in similar roles to share strategies, successes, and challenges on developing research programs within their own hospital systems.

“Until recently, we have had little opportunity to formally connect and collaborate across institutions,” says Dr. Cohen. “Over the past few years, local research interest groups have formed, along with a wonderful virtual collaborative network. Simultaneously, we began dreaming of a national summit where we could all meet in person.”

With input from fellow nurse scientists at Mount Sinai and an expert committee with representatives from across the country, Dr. Cohen wrote a grant proposal to do just that.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) awarded funding to support the three-day Clinically Based Nurse Scientist Summit hosted by Mount Sinai in June 2025, which was attended by more than 100 nurse scientists and leaders from around the country. The event brought together expert presenters and panelists, featured discussions and breakout sessions, and created opportunities for networking and collaborative forums.

“From the outset, our goal was to accelerate the scale, scope, speed, and rigor of research conducted by clinically based nurse scientists,” says Dr. Cohen. “To do this, we needed to understand both the challenges and successes of the role and focus on ways to maximize its potential.”

A major outcome of the summit will be the development of a five-year strategic framework for how the role can contribute to the AHRQ mission of enhancing the quality, safety, accessibility, affordability, and equity of health care in the United States.

Another significant outcome to emerge from the summit is an energized and engaged national community of clinically based nurse scientists who are sharing resources in partnership with similarly aligned groups.

In addition, eleven active workgroups formed by summit participants are conducting research and developing foundational manuscripts about the role of clinically based nurse scientists.

“By coming together as a nationwide community, clinically based nurse scientists are growing networks and infrastructure to support faster, larger, and more impactful research to advance nursing practice and improve patient outcomes,” says Dr. Cohen. Mount Sinai is proud to play a lead role in shaping this important work.

Learn more about the Center for Nursing Research and Innovation

Addressing the Cognition Concerns of Multiple Sclerosis Patients

Updated on Mar 27, 2026 | Featured, Research, Your Health

Sarah Levy, PhD

Multiple sclerosis (MS) patients often worry that the disease will diminish their ability to think and remember, along with their motor skills. Sarah Levy, PhD, Assistant Professor of Neurology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, is working to address these concerns, studying the impact of MS on the brain and cognition and uncovering new possibilities for early interventions.

Dr. Levy arrived at Mount Sinai’s Corinne Goldsmith Dickinson Center for Multiple Sclerosis in 2020 with a PhD in clinical psychology and a passion for neuropsychology and neuroscience. She didn’t have extensive experience working with MS patients. But she knew that at the MS Center, she would be able to delve into an area that can be extremely concerning for patients when they receive an MS diagnosis: The potential effects of the condition on thinking and memory.

She was drawn to do a post-doctorate fellowship at Mount Sinai with James Sumowski, PhD, who researches modifiable risk and protective factors linked to cognitive decline.

“My prior research experience largely involved neuroimaging, which plays a central role in MS diagnosis and care,” says Dr. Levy, who is also Associate Director of the MS Cognitive Clinic. “Coming here allowed me to connect that work more directly to questions about cognition and brain–behavior relationships.”

As a result, Dr. Levy stayed on as faculty after her postdoc ended in 2022. Her current research focuses on several crucial areas, including how MS affects cognition; the possible impact of subtle neuroanatomical changes in the brain caused by the disease; and how MS affects cognition as patients age.

MS may affect patients’ thinking, but not in the ways researchers once thought

Besides affecting sensorimotor skills such as balance and coordination, clinicians and researchers have long known that MS can also affect a patient’s thinking and memory. But just as the latest disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) have helped keep severe motor symptoms at bay, these medications may also be changing the outlook for patients when it comes to their cognitive abilities.

Statistics show up to 70 percent of people with MS experience cognitive changes, particularly memory problems and slower information processing. But that outlook has changed with medications that work to quiet the disease’s signature lesions that can appear in the brain’s white matter, according to Dr. Levy.

“These lesions have been associated with cognitive dysfunction, but with our current DMTs, we can stop the formation of new lesions much better than in the past,” Dr. Levy says. “As a result, some cognitive issues, particularly processing speed, are less pronounced than before.”

For example, in a study recently published in the journal Brain, Dr. Sumowski, Dr. Levy and others at the MS Center found that patients with relapsing-remitting MS had normal processing speed, and slowed processing speed is now less of an issue for patients with progressive MS than previously.

That doesn’t mean MS has no effect on cognition. “Since our DMTs help reduce inflammation and protect against cognitive changes, cognition in MS patients now looks different and better,” says Dr. Levy.

She describes the cognitive issues as more subtle, and sometimes easier for patients to work around, but still frustrating. “We’re talking about things like word-finding difficulties, which are the number one cognitive complaint from our patients.”

The other concerns she hears from her MS patients: Losing one’s train of thought in a conversation; forgetting why they came into a room; and the dreaded “brain fog.”

“Many people with MS figure out how to navigate these challenges on their own. But we are working on how we can help with therapies such as cognitive remediation, which addresses these challenges by teaching practical strategies that patients can use every day,” she says.

MS, dementia and aging

Having trouble finding words is also something that happens with normal aging, which can make it difficult to determine whether a patient’s cognitive changes are due to MS or simply getting older. “It can be hard to tell the difference,” says Dr. Levy, who is studying what cognitive aging looks like in MS.

To better understand these distinctions, her current research is expanding to examine how age-related changes in MS compare with changes seen in other conditions, such as Alzheimer’s disease. She is recruiting participants for a study that uses PET scans and blood biomarkers to help make this distinction.

“Those with Alzheimer’s disease have what’s known as a buildup of beta-amyloid proteins in the brain. “In this study, we’ll look for these proteins in patients and combine that with comprehensive neuropsychological testing to see how patients with MS who don’t have these proteins differ from older adults without MS who do.” Early research suggests that people with MS may have lower rates of beta-amyloid in the brain.

“Anecdotally, we don’t often see people with MS with the kind of dense forgetting that occurs with Alzheimer’s disease,” she says. “I have patients with MS in their 70s and 80s who are fully oriented to things like date, time, and where they are—that’s very different from what we see in Alzheimer’s. And while it’s too early to know for sure, it’s an interesting question whether people with MS might have some protection from the disease.”

White matter vs. gray matter in the brain

Another way thinking about MS is changing: For decades, MS was thought of as an inflammatory condition that primarily affected the white matter in the brain. Now, researchers are learning that the gray matter may also be affected.

“In my research, I’m interested in the subtle neuroanatomical changes that may occur in the brain’s gray matter early on in MS, as well as the subtle cognitive changes that might bring,” says Dr. Levy.

Using neuroimaging in collaboration with Erin Beck, MD, PhD, Dr. Levy has found that early on, in some patients, there may be a very subtle loss in the thickness of the gray matter in the brain, known as cortical thickness.

These findings, she stresses, shouldn’t be cause for alarm. “I don’t want to worry patients,” Dr. Levy says. “We are talking about very subtle findings, micro changes, so small they are typically not even mentioned in a radiological report.”

While researchers are still learning about what these changes might mean, and how they might be related to possible cognitive and motor function, the research nevertheless holds promise for improving patients’ quality of life.

“These changes tend to occur very early on in the disease, which means we could have an opportunity to try immediate interventions, such as teaching patients strategies to compensate for possible cognitive changes, or even dietary changes, to help protect the brain,” she says.

Promise in protecting and helping the brain in people with MS

With advances in neuroimaging, clinicians are now able to detect MS at earlier, milder stages, and better understand what the disease looks like early on. That means that, with earlier intervention using DMTs alongside lifestyle modifications in diet, exercise, and sleep, clinicians can better protect patients’ cognitive health.

For MS patients experiencing cognitive symptoms—and even those who are not—Mount Sinai offers a comprehensive neuropsychological assessment clinic to help patients and their doctors get a sense of where they are.

“For every patient who comes through the MS Center, we can provide a baseline neuropsychological exam that looks at memory, attention, language, sensorimotor skills, and executive functioning,” says Dr. Levy. Then we can use this information for comparison over the years, if patients continue with regular testing.

“Just like we use MRIs to track lesions, we can track a patient’s cognitive function over time,” says Dr. Levy.

Mount Sinai neuropsychologists can also look for changes in mood, depression, anxiety, and sleep. “We can relay this information to our neurologists and point patients to interventions that might be helpful,” says Dr. Levy.

Mount Sinai also offers MS patients access to The C. Olsten Wellness Program, directed by Ilana Katz Sand, MD, and staffed with a nurse practitioner, physical therapist, a dietician, and social workers.

But patients are the true experts in what they are experiencing, whether changes in word-finding or walking.

“By listening carefully, we can keep adapting our clinical evaluations to be more sensitive to the issues patients are reporting,” says Dr. Levy. “It’s truly our patients who have allowed us to learn and understand what is happening in the brain, helping us advance the field in a meaningful way—and also shaping the way we care for them.”

If you are interested in participating in Dr. Levy’s forthcoming PET imaging study on cognitive aging and Alzheimer’s disease in MS, you can reach out to her directly at 347-503-5471 or email her at sarah.levy@mssm.edu.

By Paula Derrow

Getting a Head Start With AI at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Mar 2, 2026 | Artificial Intelligence, Featured, Research, School

Alvira Tyagi is a first-year medical student at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She was part of a research team examining the limitations of ChatGPT Health in a study, which had findings published in Nature Medicine.

Most first-year medical students spend their time mastering anatomy, memorizing biochemical pathways, and adjusting to the pace of clinical training. For Alvira Tyagi, that first year coincided with an opportunity to understand the rapid transformation in how patients seek health information with AI tools.

“In January, OpenAI launched ChatGPT Health, and I was immediately curious as to how people were using it,” she says. ChatGPT Health is a service dedicated to answering health and wellness questions, with options to connect to medical records and wellness apps.

Within weeks of launch, OpenAI reported that more than 40 million people were using ChatGPT Health daily. “In a single day, this tool was engaging far more people than many major hospital systems see annually,” Ms. Tyagi notes. And barely into her first full year of medical training, Ms. Tyagi became involved in a study to examine the reliability of such AI tools for health recommendations, under the mentorship of Ashwin Ramaswamy, MD, an instructor in the Department of Urology.

“We set out to test how well ChatGPT Health handles clinical urgency—specifically, whether it steers users with serious symptoms toward emergency care,” she says. The research team, comprising several physicians and members from Mount Sinai’s Windreich Department of AI and Human Health (AIHH), conducted a study in which they posed clinical scenarios to ChatGPT Health and gauged how it triaged them, compared to gold-standard decisions from physicians following medical society recommendations.

ChatGPT Health, launched in January 2026, is a service on ChatGPT that lets users ask questions about health and wellness. In addition to asking the chatbot questions, users can also sync wearables to it or even upload lab results and ask it to explain the results.

The team found that textbook emergencies were correctly triaged. However, more than half of true emergencies were under-triaged, and the service’s suicide crisis safety alerts were inconsistent and lacking. The full findings, in an article with Ms. Tyagi as the second author, were published as “ChatGPT Health performance in a structured test of triage recommendations” in Nature Medicine in February.

“I did not expect to be involved in AI-driven health care research so early as a student,” says Ms. Tyagi. “Being part of work that could directly impact patient outcomes has been incredibly meaningful.” Read on to learn how she began working at the intersection of AI and health care, and the importance for students to be familiar with this rapidly evolving field.

How did this research project get started?

It started with me shadowing Dr. Ramaswamy in the Urology Department. In-between surgeries, we talked about our interests in AI in health care, and I learned we had a robust department at Mount Sinai that focused on AI and research. We continued having conversations about AI in health care, and when OpenAI released ChatGPT Health, the discussions intensified. Immediately, we were texting about the implications of this tool, which coalesced into the idea of a study to examine it. The project started out with the two of us, but with the help of leadership from AIHH, and other physicians, we managed to find collaborators and were able to begin the study quickly.

What was it like being on the research project as a student?

At first, I was intimidated. I was a first-year student working alongside physicians with far more experience in AI and clinical medicine than I had. It took some time to realize that I didn’t need to match their background to contribute meaningfully. I brought a different perspective. I could think through how someone my age would realistically use a tool like ChatGPT Health—how we’d phrase questions, what we might take at face value, and where misunderstandings could happen.

That lens helped us step outside a purely clinical viewpoint. We knew we needed to move quickly. From its release, ChatGPT Health was already being widely used, and we felt a responsibility to evaluate it while people were actively using it. We completed the data collection within two weeks because we wanted to better understand its safety profile and identify any potential limitations as early as possible. Our goal was not to diminish the value of AI in health care, but to approach it thoughtfully by examining where it performs well and where caution may be warranted.

I have always enjoyed writing, whether for leisure or through my work with my undergraduate newspapers—so it naturally became a larger part of my role in the project. In addition to contributing to data collection, I took on significant responsibility for drafting and editing the manuscript. This involved many late nights and multiple rounds of revisions, but I valued that process. Given that the tool was already being widely used, it was essential that we communicate our findings clearly, accurately, and with appropriate nuance.

I was genuinely excited to be part of the project, especially as a student stepping into the world of AI research for the first time. At the same time, I felt a deep sense of responsibility. I wanted to contribute meaningfully alongside experienced researchers, and I was acutely aware that our findings could influence how people understand and use this technology. That awareness pushed us to be especially rigorous. We carefully crafted our prompts and clinical scenarios to be as comprehensive and realistic as possible.

Was it hard balancing school work and being on this project?

My school work always came first, and I was careful to keep that as my priority. Because of that, much of the research work happened in the evenings. It could be demanding at times, but I truly enjoyed it. Being part of a project that was unfolding in real time, and working alongside people who made the process engaging and collaborative, felt energizing rather than exhausting.

What also made this project so meaningful was that it never felt disconnected from my education. It was a different kind of learning: hands-on, fast-paced, and collaborative. There was constant progress and discussion, and that experience offered something you simply cannot replicate in a classroom. The structure of the medical education program at the Icahn School of Medicine also helped tremendously. The flexibility and autonomy built into our curriculum made it possible to take on a project like this while staying on track academically. In the end, it was demanding, but it resulted in work I am genuinely proud of.

Should students be thinking about AI more?

As medical students, we’re trained to understand clinical systems and patient care. It can be easy to view AI as something reserved for computer science experts and engineers, and that it’s separate from us and the work we do as clinicians. But that is becoming less and less true by the day. Patients now have direct access to AI technology, and many will go to doctor appointments having already used them to research symptoms or interpret medical information. At the same time, in our current health care system, patients may wait months to see a physician. In that gap, AI tools can function as a kind of interim resource—offering information, reassurance, or sometimes misinformation—before a patient ever steps into a clinic.

Because of this, it falls on us as future doctors to understand these AI health care technologies before patients come to see us. Understanding and discussing the AI-generated information a patient has already seen may soon become a routine part of taking a patient history. We cannot effectively counsel patients about tools they are using if we do not understand how those tools work, what their limitations are, and where they may fall short. As part of a generation of physicians training alongside these technologies, we have a responsibility not only to react to AI’s presence in medicine, but to engage with it thoughtfully and proactively.

What advice do you have for students who are interested in AI research?

For students who are not sure whether they can even get started, you absolutely can. You don’t need to be an engineer or have years of technical experience to contribute meaningfully. AI research, especially in health care, needs people who can think critically, ask good questions, and communicate clearly. Then, for those who aren’t sure how to get started, start having conversations—with classmates, professors, and doctors. A simple conversation in between patient cases is what transformed my shadowing experience at the Urology Department into this research project. There are so many talented scientists and faculty at Mount Sinai, and simply engaging with them by asking questions, sharing your interests, and expressing curiosity, can open doors.

Sometimes all it takes is one thoughtful conversation to set something much larger in motion. Being open to opportunities and willing to learn really makes a difference. I had never done AI research before this project, so stepping into it required me to get comfortable with not knowing everything. But I came to understand that AI is developing so quickly that no one has it completely figured out. Even people with years of experience are still asking questions and adjusting as the field evolves. That realization made it feel less about being an expert and more about being engaged. You don’t have to start with deep technical knowledge; you just have to be willing to listen, learn, and contribute where you can. In a space that’s changing this fast, humility and curiosity go a long way.

How An Interest in Cardiothoracic Surgery Is Shaping Caroline Tavolacci’s Path as a Surgeon-Scientist at Mount Sinai

Updated on Feb 17, 2026 | Featured, Research, School

Sooyun Caroline Tavolacci, MD, MSCR, with her mentor, Anelechi Anyanwu, MD

Sooyun Caroline Tavolacci, MD, MSCR, is a third-year PhD student in the Clinical Research Program at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and a surgeon-scientist in training. Her dissertation research focuses on heart transplantation outcomes, specifically evaluating beating heart transplantation using ex-vivo heart perfusion and its impact on donor pool expansion, under the mentorship of Anelechi Anyanwu, MD, Professor and Vice Chair, Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, and Natalia Egorova, PhD, Professor, Department of Population Health and Science.

In parallel with her doctoral training, Dr. Tavolacci works as a clinical research coordinator in the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery at The Mount Sinai Hospital, Clinical Research Office, which is led by Julie Swain, MD, Professor and Vice Chair of the Department.

Having progressed from an international master’s student to a PhD candidate and hospital employee, she reflects on five years of training marked by perseverance, balance, and growth across research, work, and life.

Her interest in medicine began early, sparked by seeing the Jarvik-7 artificial heart in a school textbook. She was fascinated by the idea of replacing a vital organ, the multidisciplinary care behind it, and the trust required between patients and surgeons.

“What I liked most during my two years of research training at the Icahn School of Medicine was that I could apply what I learned in the classroom right away in real-world settings.” -Sooyun Caroline Tavolacci, MD, MSCR

 

Cardiothoracic surgery has since become her lifelong passion. She completed six years of medical school in South Korea, followed by a cardiovascular surgery sub-internship in Brescia, Italy. After graduating from medical school, and realizing that she lacked experience in clinical research, she sought a program that bridged scientific research and clinical practice, leading her to Mount Sinai’s Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.

“The Icahn School of Medicine is unique as a pioneering model for a medical school grown directly from a hospital, not a university” she says. “The rich clinical environment, combined with strong multidisciplinary faculty, makes it ideal for studying clinical research.”

In 2021, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, she entered the Master of Science in Clinical Research (MSCR) program at the Icahn School of Medicine while working on an NIH-funded study examining the serological response to the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine in lung cancer patients led by Fred Hirsch, MD, PhD, Professor and Director, Center of Excellence for Thoracic Oncology, The Tisch Cancer Institute. She described this experience as firsthand exposure to bench-to-bedside translational research. Her days began in the lung cancer clinic at the Institute and ended in the Biorepository and Pathology CoRE laboratories.

“Weekly meetings involved thoracic oncologists, thoracic surgeons, pathologists, virologists, immunologists, biostatisticians, and radiologists. This multidisciplinary collaboration and exposure to different perspectives taught me how to approach team science in research,” she says.

Dr. Tavolacci completed her master’s thesis, in which she investigated the mechanisms underlying sex-based differences in immunotherapy response in lung cancer, with Dr. Hirsch and co-mentor Rajwanth Veluswamy, MD, MSCR, a former faculty member of the Icahn School of Medicine and a graduate of the MSCR program. She presented her work at national and international meetings and published her several peer-reviewed articles during her master’s program.

“What I liked most during my two years of research training at the Icahn School of Medicine was that I could apply what I learned in the classroom right away in real-world settings,” she says. “I was extremely satisfied with the coursework and the quality of education I received.”

After completing her MSCR in June 2023, she decided to continue her research education and was accepted into the PhD in Clinical Research program.

“I developed a strong interest in biostatistics during my master’s program,” she says. “My experience was primarily in thoracic oncology, with a focus on lung cancer; however, I wanted dedicated time to learn outcomes research in cardiovascular surgery.”

After her acceptance into the PhD program, she faced significant financial hardship due to a loss in her family and visa restrictions that limited her ability to secure a job at The Mount Sinai Hospital at that time.

She considered returning to South Korea or continuing her academic journey in the United States, but instead reached out for help. In recognition of her academic excellence, she received Emergency Fund support from the Office of Postdoctoral and Student Affairs at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and continued her work-study program through Westchester Medical Center in New York State. During this time, she completed her PhD coursework and conducted heart failure and transplant outcomes research under the mentorship of Suguru Ohira, MD, PhD, Cardiac Surgeon at Hartford HealthCare. This included large database analyses using the United Network for Organ Sharing registry.

Now Dr. Tavolacci balances her dissertation research with her role as a research coordinator in the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery at Mount Sinai. She credits the Icahn School of Medicine’s hospital-based model for naturally generating research questions through close interaction with surgeons, fellows, and residents.

“The clinical exposure I gain every day as a research coordinator helps me understand why these variables scientifically matter in clinical trials and studies, and it directly shapes my academic research,” she says. “With my master’s and PhD training in clinical research, I have a strong understanding of research methodology, such as study design, logistics, objectives and hypotheses, and analysis planning. This foundation is incredibly helpful in performing my role. It is a humbling experience to care for patients and to advocate for advancements in clinical research.”

Dr. Tavolacci frequently mentors prospective international applicants, particularly those navigating funding challenges in the PhD in Clinical Research program. She receives emails and LinkedIn messages from many people interested in clinical research asking how to find a mentor, identify research topics, and secure funding.

“It is challenging, and sometimes being equivalent as an international student is not enough—you have to be better to get noticed. However, people who have been through similar processes recognize your strengths.” She strives to do the same for prospective applicants by sharing her honest journey as an international student.

Dr. Tavolacci recalls what her PhD mentor, Dr. Anyanwu, said during their first meeting: “See how far you have come.” She carries this message with her whenever she faces difficulties or setbacks, using it as a reminder to keep moving forward.

In 2026, Dr. Tavolacci will present her doctoral research at various national meetings within the cardiothoracic surgery community. Throughout her academic journey, she has learned that research comes with many practical challenges. What has been most helpful to her is maintaining concentration and focus to push projects forward and see them through to completion. What she learned the hard way is that everything takes time and effort, and that there are many failures behind every achievement in academia.

Dr. Tavolacci will complete her PhD in two years and plans to enter cardiothoracic surgery residency. Her training will allow her to practice surgery while designing and conducting clinical studies and trials. Her ultimate goal is to become a surgeon-scientist.

Learn more about the Clinical Research Education Program at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Mount Sinai AIHH Grand Rounds: A Thoughtful Way to Adopt AI in Health Care

Feb 10, 2026 | Artificial Intelligence, Featured, Research, School

Isaac Kohane, MD, PhD, Chair of the Department of Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School, was keynote speaker of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai’s Windreich Department of AI and Human Health (AIHH) December 2025 session of AIHH Grand Rounds.

Health care systems across the country have been increasingly using artificial intelligence (AI) systems to assist and augment what clinicians and researchers can achieve. As adoption of machine learning accelerates, thought leaders have been scrutinizing how AI is being embraced.

“Many doctors are already using these tools, such as OpenEvidence, but without visibility or oversight by health care systems,” says Isaac Kohane, MD, PhD, Chair of the Department of Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School. OpenEvidence is an AI-powered clinical decision support and medical search engine.

Dr. Kohane is a prominent researcher in biomedical informatics and AI whose nearly 400 papers have been cited more than 95,000 times, according to Google Scholar. He was the keynote speaker of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai’s Windreich Department of AI and Human Health (AIHH) December 2025 session of AIHH Grand Rounds. Dr. Kohane wants to see not just more use of AI, but more responsible use—a theme of his lecture, which was titled “A Tipping Point for Clinicians’ Influence Upon AI-Driven Clinical Decisions.”

Dr. Kohane gave a lecture, titled “A Tipping Point for Clinicians’ Influence Upon AI-Driven Clinical Decisions,” which focused on where the opportunities lie for the health care industry to use AI more, but in a thoughtful way that accounted for human values and ethics.
The AIHH Grand Rounds is a monthly seminar series hosted by Mount Sinai’s Windreich Department of AI and Human Health (AIHH). Clinicians and researchers who work extensively with AI, including Girish N. Nadkarni, MD, MPH, CPH, Chair of AIHH (left) and David L. Reich, MD, President of The Mount Sinai Hospital (right), attend to learn and discuss the latest developments in the field.
AI is transforming the health care and scientific publishing industries, with its potential to save time and effort for individuals and institutions. However, as long as there are incentives for perverse behaviors regarding AI, there will be bad actors abusing the technology, says Dr. Kohane. These fields need to collectively reset such cultures and behaviors.
A theme Dr. Kohane discussed in his lecture is the need to build in human values within AI models. There will be occasions when a broad, normative model will fail to account for the needs of an individual patient. He proposes that the responsibility for building human values in AI lies with the clinicians and researchers who use it.
A highlight of the AIHH Grand Rounds is not merely the lectures presented, but the discussions that occur after. These discussions help foster collaboration between researchers as they share ideas.

“I chose these topics for Grand Rounds because I view the Icahn School of Medicine and its leadership as among the most forward-looking in the country,” says Dr. Kohane, “and therefore they should be truly focused on setting an example in terms of accelerating adoption options that are both safe, and also enabling patients and clinicians to benefit from the complementarity of AI to human expertise, as well as changing the promotion process to reflect greater engagement with reproducibility and robust research.”

The AIHH Grand Rounds is a monthly seminar series that showcases developments in how AI, science, and medicine intersect, and features an open discussion to foster collaboration. The inaugural session launched in September 2025.

How should health systems think about engaging with AI as it pertains to patients, clinicians, and researchers in a way that is beneficial to all parties? Dr. Kohane discussed the following themes during the seminar.

Transforming the institution with AI

By their nature, large health care systems in the United States are high-revenue, low-margin businesses, and because of that, they face challenges in moving rapidly with change to avoid disruptions.

Institutionally, AI adoption has found more comfort and scalability on the administrative side of operations, including reimbursement and corporate functions. AI is a critical lever, but not a priority for health care system spending presently, according to Dr. Kohane.

However, the application of AI on the clinical side, including continuity of care, clinical operations, and quality and safety, remains nascent or in pilot stages.

“It’s actually the doctors who are leading [with AI adoption], even when their own institutions are not supporting them directly,” says Dr. Kohane.

That landscape is slowly changing as health care leaders begin to engage their clinicians with AI support where it is needed now, but it should not be at the cost of extended, effortful multi-year governance conversations, Dr. Kohane pointed out. The incentives for using AI in the practice of medicine must be focused on improving care rather than maximizing revenue.

“And so, I anticipate that the future first adoptions will happen in specialized high-end services like concierge services, primary care, or cancer care,” he says. “But eventually, it would become a requisite for the safe practice of medicine, and for meeting the expectation of our patients, that ultimately our health care systems will be propelled into more significant engagement [with AI].”

Transforming publishing and literature review with AI

“Every part of the scientific publication process—that is, the generation of manuscripts and review of manuscripts—is going to be augmented by AI,” says Dr. Kohane. “That is going to present, or is already presenting, challenges that the whole peer-review publishing industry is not well equipped to handle.”

Dr. Kohane discussed a case study in which he created a hypothesis that was incorrect, and with AI tools was ultimately able to generate data that were not only fictional, but designed by AI to avoid detection by the majority of fake-data-generation detectors.

“We’re going to really have to address, first and foremost, the incentives that drive perverse behaviors,” he says. An industry that prizes publication volume, or publishing in high-profile publications over producing work with actual scientific impact—such as important but unglamorous replication studies—is only going to drive bad actors.

In the right hands, AI will increase the efficiency and quality of scholarly scientific review. AI can serve as a prism that allows clinical and laboratory experience to be distilled into new knowledge, forming a substrate for truly lifelong medical education. “However, we have to reset the culture and incentives,” Dr. Kohane says.

Transforming AI with human values

In an industry where urgency and time matters, AI presents a strong value proposition with its capability to process large datasets and execute large volumes of actions in a blink of an eye. Time-consuming tasks can be automated by AI, but when decisions that pertain to the care of individuals with unique needs are left to a normative model that adheres to overarching policies, the individual’s needs might not be met.

The solution is not to turn away from AI, but to develop personal models that account for the needs of not just the patient at hand, but also their caretakers, doctors, or any other relevant stakeholders, says Dr. Kohane. It is about building human values within an AI model, which can flag when an individual case does not align with the normative model.

That work to develop such projects falls on the health care system, says Dr. Kohane. He introduced the Human Values Project, an international initiative led by Harvard Medical School’s Department of Biomedical Informatics, which aims to characterize how AI models respond to ethical dilemmas in medicine, measuring both their default behaviors and their capacity for alignment. And he proposed that researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine have that potential to develop their own human values-based AI models.

“My takeaway from presenting and participating in the AIHH Grand Rounds really stemmed not from the presentation itself, but from discussions I had afterwards with various leaders of the AI efforts,” says Dr. Kohane. “My sense was that more than most institutions, [Mount Sinai’s] leadership was willing to invest and take a chance on pilots of deployments of these technologies to learn fast and adapt fast. And at the same time, everybody recognized that this is very challenging, given our current regulatory environments and incentives.”

Dr. Kohane ended his presentation with a line of wisdom for participants to consider: “There is no one to lead this in the direction we want, other than us.”

Learn more about the Windreich Department of Artificial Intelligence and Human Health and AIHH Grand Rounds