How Mount Sinai’s MHA Program Transformed This New Yorker’s Approach to Health Care

Oct 14, 2026 | Featured, School

A photo of Toure Jacobs, MHA

Toure Jacobs, MHA

Toure Jacobs, a native of the Bronx, New York, completed his Master of Health Administration (MHA) program at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in June 2026. That training would ultimately enhance his role as a Unit Secretary at Mount Sinai Morningside, where he manages daily administrative operations, ensuring seamless communication between departments.

Mr. Jacobs started his undergraduate education studying computer science at the University of Buffalo. He soon found that he wasn’t passionate about this subject; he didn’t see his existing skills translating into the work he wanted to do. He had worked in education and child development and enjoyed working with people. So he switched his major to business and completed his Bachelor of Business Administration at Baruch College in New York City.

Mr. Jacobs’ father worked at Mount Sinai Morningside and encouraged him to apply for jobs there. He received an offer from the Medical-Surgical Unit as a Unit Secretary. He worked in that department for two years before participating in an internship on the Strategic Planning team at Mount Sinai. The objective was to improve Operating Room operations, seeking to cut down on operating times. Mr. Jacobs enjoyed seeing the process behind the scenes and understanding how operations concepts turned into action that helped patients. His experience in this role and his internship preceptor inspired him to apply to the MHA program at the Icahn School of Medicine.

Several courses made a significant impact on Mr. Jacobs during his time as a graduate student. His favorite course was Strategic Planning, taught by Sofia Pendley, PhD, Professor of Environmental Medicine, and Graduate Education, where he learned how each team contributes to health care operations. He also learned about how all the planning pieces come together to improve systems in both complex health environments and smaller organizations, such as startup companies. While in this course, he created a marketing campaign for PrEP (pre‑exposure prophylaxis), which is a medication taken before exposure to HIV to prevent infection. Mr. Jacobs felt that he was able to make a real impact through this campaign. Dr. Pendley played a major role in shaping his thinking around health care strategy.

Professionalism and Ethics, taught by Matt Baney, Senior Director, Institute for Advanced Medicine, is another course that he found very useful. This course taught him about different leadership styles and how to handle decision making in a leadership role. It also inspired him to reflect on his own professional conduct in his job before joining the MHA program.

“I want to help build health care systems that people can trust, access, and believe are working for them. In communities like mine, changes in policy and regulation can deepen fear, uncertainty, and barriers that already exist.” — Toure Jacobs, MHA.

Mr. Jacobs credits mentors like Victoria Ellsworth, MHA, Vice President, Hospital Operations, The Mount Sinai Hospital, for his success in the MHA program. Ms. Ellsworth encouraged him to consider several career placement options and to develop long-term goals. He also mentioned Brian Nickerson, PhD, a former senior associate dean, who came to know Mr. Jacobs on a personal level and provided helpful career guidance.

The welcoming environment at Mount Sinai has proven beneficial for Mr. Jacobs. Throughout the program, he became an active part of the MHA community while continuing his work at Mount Sinai Morningside. He built close relationships with classmates, mentors, and colleagues, and his experience brought a frontline perspective to a cohort preparing for leadership across health care.

The lessons from the MHA program manifested in several ways for Mr. Jacobs in his role as a Unit Secretary. He initially worked evenings, but with the MHA program classes taking place at night, he moved from the Medical-Surgery Unit to the Geriatric Psychiatry Unit. Mr. Jacobs discovered a big difference between serving a psychiatric unit as opposed to his previous role in a clinical unit. He found that a behavioral unit had unique challenges and barriers that he didn’t experience in his previous role.

For example, if a clinical patient had specific dietary needs, he could simply communicate this to nursing staff and make the appropriate changes to the food they received. In a psychiatric unit, Mr. Jacobs had to learn new rules and adjust how he accommodated patients accordingly.

Challenges would arise when the unit received admissions that fell outside of their typical patient demographic, such as younger adult patients. He worked with the team to identify activities and accommodations that better reflected the needs and interests of those patients, such as incorporating music through the overhead speaker system and providing personal handheld radios for patients who preferred their own listening space.

“I want to help build health care systems that people can trust, access, and believe are working for them. In communities like mine, changes in policy and regulation can deepen fear, uncertainty, and barriers that already exist,” he says.

Mr. Jacobs values the perspective his front-line experience at Mount Sinai Morningside has given him and has increasingly looked for opportunities to apply his MHA training to operational challenges. He helped create a staffing matrix that alternates responsibilities efficiently between the team members. This gives team members opportunities to rotate through different responsibilities and develop a broader understanding of how the unit operates.

Mr. Jacobs would like to continue leading and implementing organizational projects such as this. His long-term goal is to grow into a health care leadership role where he can combine operations, strategic planning, and community engagement to improve how health systems serve their patients.

“The next generation of health care leaders has to do more than respond to those challenges after the fact,” he says. “We have to understand the communities being affected, earn their trust, and build systems that do not leave them behind. That is the kind of leader I am working to become: someone who can help turn uncertainty into trust, barriers into access, and change into progress.”

Learn more about the Master of Health Administration (MHA) program at Mount Sinai

Training the Next Generation of Psychiatric Physician-Scientists at Mount Sinai

Updated on Sep 30, 2026 | Featured, Psychiatry, School

A photo of Deepak Kaji, MD, PhD

Deepak Kaji, MD, PhD

Each year, medical schools confer MD-PhD degrees to those willing to devote years to doctoral research alongside their clinical training. However, the residencies that follow are typically structured so that many aspiring physician-scientists end up becoming one rather than both.

“Residencies rarely make sufficient room for physicians to also train as scientists, and we’re losing a lot of physician-scientists because of it,” says Deepak Kaji, MD, PhD, an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Because the PhD is sandwiched between years of medical school, MD-PhDs arrive at their residency program after two years away from the bench. Afterward, physicians must either look for postdoctoral positions to reorient themselves to a lab or bid farewell to that part of their training.

Dr. Kaji found a rare opportunity in the National Institutes of Health-funded R25 Physician-Scientist Training Program within the Psychiatry Residency at The Mount Sinai Hospital.

“Choosing Mount Sinai allowed me to begin building my research career on day one instead of starting a decade later,” he says.

Recruiting the Right People

As an undergraduate, Dr. Kaji studied how to direct pluripotent stem cells toward becoming heart tissue, an entry point into what he describes as the field’s central marvel.

“Every human being begins as a ball of cells with essentially infinite potential,” he explains. “Somehow, nature guides those cells toward becoming hair, teeth, pancreas, liver, or the heart.”

His affinity for stem cell research arrived as scientists were learning to reproduce that process in a dish. Gordon Keller, PhD, then at Mount Sinai, was coaxing stem cells into heart tissue, while others were making pancreas and brain tissue. For Dr. Kaji, watching those lineages being built for the first time was both exciting and an invitation.

“The idea of making something new felt like a crowning achievement,” he says.

When Dr. Kaji first showed interest in the MD-PhD program at Mount Sinai, program leadership emphasized the physician-scientist track residencies as a selling point. “They told me that being a scientist and a physician would dovetail, that each would make me better at the other,” he says.

It was encouraging that they were describing their residency program to someone who had not yet started medical school. This approach suggested they were thinking about the entire arc of a career, not just the next four years.

Applying Stem Cell Biology to Psychiatry Research

In the MD-PhD program, Dr. Kaji applied his stem cell biology background to musculoskeletal biology. His doctoral work focused on generating a protocol to create tendons and fibrocartilage from stem cells.

Returning to the clinical portion of medical school, he found himself drawn to psychiatry and investigating the mysteries of the brain and behavior. The question was then how to deploy his scientific training.

“Once I knew what I wanted to do, I started thinking about ways to apply my techniques to generate organoids as models of specific brain regions,” says Dr. Kaji. An organoid is a cluster of cells grown in a lab to mimic some of the structure and functions of a real organ.

“Choosing Mount Sinai allowed me to begin building my research career on day one instead of starting a decade later.” — Deepak Kaji, MD, PhD

Dr. Kaji began investigating schizophrenia based on his conviction that the disease starts far earlier than its diagnosis suggests.

“In twin studies, the twin who eventually develops the disorder is typically late to walk, speak, and potty train,” explains Dr. Kaji. “That gradual developmental divergence signals a slow degradation of the cognitive repertoire that happens for decades before the disease outwardly manifests.”

This is precisely the developmental window an organoid occupies by recapitulating the earliest phases of brain development. His proposal to use organoids as a model system to study schizophrenia earned him the 2024–2025 Lipschultz Research Scholar Award from the Friedman Brain Institute.

Neuropsychiatric disease is difficult to study—it is hard to explain why something in the brain breaks when no one fully understands how the brain works. Although an organoid does not answer every question, it offers insights that other models cannot.

“If you want to know how the disease disrupts high-order circuitry, this isn’t your system,” Dr. Kaji says. “If you want to know what happens as those circuits are being assembled, as cells differentiate and the brain organizes in the first trimester, it’s a great one.”

Creating New Tools for Hard Questions

One revelation from his work is the role of cell-autonomous effects, meaning that a cell’s identity may drive its vulnerability to disease. Dr. Kaji explains that radial glial cells, an early brain progenitor, appear heavily disrupted in organoids generated using stem cells from patients with schizophrenia.

“We’re seeing powerful disruptions in this one cell type at a developmental stage before any type of circuitry has formed,” he says. This suggests that vulnerability is a consequence of the molecular programming responsible for a cell’s final identity.

“Organoids allow me to build the cells, watch them come into existence, and ask how those programs confer vulnerability or resilience,” explains Dr. Kaji.

But that question can only be asked about cell types that science knows how to build. Protocols do not yet exist for every lineage, the developmental route a stem cell takes to become one specific cell type. Because building a brain region means learning how to make the cell types that define it, that gap leaves some regions off-limits to organoid research.

The hippocampus region of the brain is Dr. Kaji’s current focus. “I can’t think of a single neuropsychiatric or neurodegenerative disease without hippocampal involvement,” he says. “I’m working on creating hippocampal organoids because a better tool improves every disease model that follows.”

The benefit would also extend beyond individual diseases. Dr. Kaji notes that in Alzheimer’s disease, some regions are affected early, some late, and some almost never.

“This suggests that cells in each region show an intrinsic vulnerability or resistance to the disease,” he explains. “If we could identify what makes cells resilient, the next question is whether that resilience could be extended to vulnerable cells.”

A Long-Term Investment in Physician-Scientists

After entering the MD-PhD program, Dr. Kaji watched those ahead of him in the physician-scientist track and saw a pattern. They found mentors suited to their interests, began building research programs during residency, and left with faculty positions and career development awards that help confer scientific independence.

“It’s not uncommon for people to receive a K Award in their 40s,” he says, describing the National Institutes of Health Career Development Award grants designed to help early-career researchers become independent scientists. “I was watching people here get them in their mid-30s because the residency program followed through on its promise to make time for research.”

That track record has produced a faculty population that is substantially homegrown. Approximately 50 percent of those who complete the Psychiatry Physician-Scientist Residency Program stay at Mount Sinai, which Dr. Kaji sees as a sign of mutual respect.

His own transition from resident to faculty member was smoother than most, the product of a decade of relationships built as a student and resident. He just received his K08 career development award and now runs a lab two floors above where he completed his doctoral work, in a building where his former instructors are now his colleagues.

“They never stop investing in us,” he says. “For those who stay, there is a real commitment to helping us finish what we set out to build.”

Learn more about Mount Sinai's Office for Physician-Scientist Research Training

25 Years After 9/11, Mount Sinai Continues Its Commitment to Caring for First Responders and Safeguarding Public Health

Updated on Sep 16, 2026 | Community, Featured, School

A photo showing the September 11th "Tribute in Light" beacons shine up from lower Manhattan. New York City, NY/USA. September, 2015.

Like countless New Yorkers, Michael Crane, MD, MPH, has his own personal story about the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001.

A doctor and public health expert then working for Con Edison, he made his way to Ground Zero on that day. Over the next several weeks, he helped ensure that the company’s workers took proper precautions during the recovery operations. Like thousands of other responders, they were exposed to hazardous conditions, toxic agents, and extreme psychological stress.

As it turns out, safeguarding the health of workers who were at Ground Zero would continue to be a focus of his life and career 25 years later. Mount Sinai had been caring for 9/11 responders since 2001, and he went on to serve as Medical Director for the World Trade Center (WTC) Health Program Clinical Center of Excellence (CCE) at Mount Sinai after the federal WTC Health Program was formally established in 2011.

These days, Dr. Crane’s primary responsibility is overseeing Mount Sinai’s program, which monitors and cares for more than 27,000 first responders in the New York City area. Mount Sinai is the largest of eight Clinical Centers of Excellence that care for about 95,000 responders—firefighters, police, recovery, and cleanup workers and many others who participated in rescue and recovery efforts.

The other New York metropolitan area Centers of Excellence that serve responders are run by the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Rutgers University, Northwell Health, and the New York University Grossman School of Medicine, along with a Fire Department of New York center exclusively for New York City firefighters. These Centers were established to monitor, treat, and support rescue and recovery workers who responded on September 11 and in the following weeks and months.

A photo of Michael Crane, MD, MPH, Medical Director for the World Trade Center (WTC) Health Program Clinical Center of Excellence (CCE) at Mount Sinai.

“Unless we get as many responders as possible, we won’t know the full impact of what happened to these folks,” says Michael Crane, MD, MPH, Medical Director for the World Trade Center (WTC) Health Program Clinical Center of Excellence (CCE) at Mount Sinai. “We need all the data we can get. That’s the real goal when you have an exposure that is unknown.”

These Centers are part of the national WTC Health Program overseen by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The WTC Health Program is authorized and funded through 2090 under the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, signed into law in January 2011, and reauthorized by Congress in 2015. Mount Sinai’s World Trade Center Clinical Center of Excellence is located within the Mount Sinai Selikoff Centers for Occupational Health.

The WTC Health Program also oversees programs for survivors—those who lived, worked, or went to school in downtown Manhattan. There are now more than 145,000 people enrolled in the WTC Health Program, including about 57,000 survivors and 95,000 responders. The program also funds medical research into the physical and mental health conditions related to 9/11 exposures.

As the New York region marks another significant anniversary of the attacks, Dr. Crane says Mount Sinai’s Clinical Center of Excellence continues to see new members and encourages other responders who may not yet have sought care to enroll in the program. Staff at Mount Sinai’s Center  are available to assist with enrollment in the WTC Health Program.

In this way, Mount Sinai and the other Centers are building on the lessons of public health, which is to follow the lead of those on the ground in identifying possible concerns, gather data, provide care, and use research to understand the results, all while demonstrating a commitment to safeguarding the public  and building trust and confidence in the communities affected.

Still, Dr. Crane says he hopes more responders will decide to participate in the program.

“Unless we get as many responders as possible, we won’t know the full impact of what happened to these folks,” says Dr. Crane, who is also a Professor in the Department of Environmental Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “We need all the data we can get. That’s the real goal when you have an exposure that is unknown.”

From the beginning, Dr. Crane and other health care experts knew there would likely be long-term respiratory troubles for first responders. A compounding factor would be the heroic efforts of first responders, many of whom would not stop working at the site even when they worried about possible medical issues.

One of the most striking initial symptoms among these responders was “a thunderous cough that would not stop,” which came to be known as the WTC cough.

“I had never heard anything like it,” he says. “It was a sign of healthy people having trouble clearing out their airways, and some of them getting quite distressed.”

In their monitoring of both first responders and survivors, public health officials continue to see respiratory conditions, specifically chronic rhinosinusitis (an inflammation of the sinuses), and asthma, among the top five conditions. Other leading conditions include gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), cancer, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). To address these and other mental health concerns, the WTC Health Program provides mental health services to eligible members.

Of note, cancer has become an increasingly important part of the program’s work, with more than 25,000 responders and 27,000 survivors nationwide being diagnosed with cancer, according to the program. Some of the most frequently covered cancer conditions treated by the program include non-melanoma skin cancer, prostate cancer, breast cancer, melanoma, and lymphoma.

The WTC Health Program covers yearly monitoring for those enrolled and treatment. Regular monitoring is important because many of these conditions may develop years after exposure, experts say. It’s also important to build relationships with clinicians who can track these patients over time and to ensure there are no obstacles to care that might discourage regular monitoring.

Another critical element of the WTC Health Program is that it generates data that has been the basis of publications by researchers. Recent findings by the Mount Sinai team indicates PTSD may accelerate brain aging in 9/11 responders, and that harmful substances, contaminated environments, and hazardous materials may contribute to conditions such as PTSD, GERD, respiratory disorders, diabetes, and chronic headaches.

For those who seek out monitoring and care, the prognosis can be promising, even for those facing more complex conditions and cancers. This care has included lung transplants, according to Dr. Crane.

“If you come to the program, I am optimistic that you will find the best care available anywhere. We will strive to optimize your lifespan and optimize the joy that you have in that life while you’re living it,” he says. He hopes doctors will continue to refer patients to the WTC Health Program.

In fact, multiple studies show the value of this ongoing treatment. For example, a study of more than 28,000 responders found that those enrolled in the WTC Health Program had a 13 percent lower risk of death. The study was published in the Annals of Epidemiology in March 2026.

Dr. Crane also expresses concern for the group of survivors who lived in downtown Manhattan and returned to live there in the weeks and months after the attacks. Health authorities believe this group of people may be as large as 400,000, and the effects of longer-term exposure to lower levels of environmental hazards that come from living many years downtown with the residual environmental effects are not known, according to Dr. Crane.

The World Trade Center Environmental Health Center at NYC Health + Hospitals and the William Street Clinic assess and treat these survivors, which includes residents, students, workers, or passersby who may be sick from  9/11-exposures.

Dr. Crane says those who lived in lower Manhattan during this period should consider applying to the WTC Health Program and get their 9/11-related symptoms monitored. He hopes increased participation in the program will help public health authorities expand the data they are now collecting on possible longer term health effects, especially for young children who were exposed for longer periods while they were growing up and their bodies were developing.

“The pollution from the collapse of the buildings was significant,” Dr. Crane says. “It’s an ongoing concern for all of us in the program given what we are seeing with the responders. These folks who lived in the community may have had somewhat lower-level but longer-duration exposure. We’re especially concerned about those young people whose bodies were changing in the presence of toxins.”

During the early years, survivor enrollment in the program had lagged significantly behind the responder enrollment, but this has been changing over the last decade. Survivors now represent more than 39 percent of the total number of program participants. Experts believe this is probably the result of greater awareness of the program, and the delayed onset of some medical conditions. About 59,000 participants are survivors, compared with about 95,000 responders.

“We hope that people will join and participate because we think there may be problems there,” Dr. Crane says. “Quite frankly, we don’t even know what they are.”

About the World Trade Center Health Program

The WTC Health Program is a limited federal health care program that provides health care for certified WTC-related health conditions at no out-of-pocket cost to those directly affected by the September 11 attacks in New York, at the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The program was established by the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010. It is administered by the National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety (NIOSH) part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. To learn more about the WTC Health Program, click here.

Learn more about the World Trade Center Health Program

This Master of Public Health Student Is on a Mission to Prevent Diabetes and Obesity Through Nutrition Education

Sep 2, 2026 | Featured, School

“Mount Sinai has given me opportunities to grow professionally, serve people throughout New York City, and develop the skills I need to continue working toward my long-term goal of preventing diabetes, obesity, and other chronic diseases,” says Ayannah Riley, MPH.

Ayannah Riley, MPH, earned her Master of Public Health degree from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in 2026, with a concentration in Health Promotion and Disease Prevention. With a background in nutrition, exercise science, fitness, and community health, Ms. Riley is passionate about using public health education and research to prevent chronic diseases and improve health outcomes in underserved communities.

Ms. Riley was inspired to study public health because she has lost family members to chronic diseases and related health complications, including diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and conditions related to obesity.

These experiences showed her how chronic diseases can lead to life-changing and sometimes life-ending outcomes for individuals and their families. She wants to make meaningful contributions to the lives of those in her family and in underserved communities. Ms. Riley believes that nutrition, physical activity, wellness education, and access to preventive resources can play an important role in reducing the risk of chronic disease. Her vision is to see people live healthy, fulfilling lives without disruptions caused by preventable chronic diseases and their related complications.

“Being in the Department of Public Health has taught me so much about research, community health, and disease prevention,” she says. “I have learned how to use data to understand health challenges and how to translate research into practical programs and resources that can support communities. Mount Sinai has given me opportunities to grow professionally, serve people throughout New York City, and develop the skills I need to continue working toward my long-term goal of preventing diabetes, obesity, and other chronic diseases.”

Ms. Riley first became familiar with the Icahn School of Medicine while working as a nutrition and physical education instructor with FAN4Kids in Upper Manhattan. At the time, she was creating a morning wellness curriculum that taught children how to promote health among their peers and within their communities through projects such as exploring school lunch choices and developing a wellness newspaper.

One evening after leaving work, she needed a quiet place that stayed open late to continue developing her lesson plans and came across the Levy Library. Curious about how she could gain access, Ms. Riley began researching the Icahn School of Medicine and discovered its Master of Public Health program.

As she learned more about the Master of Public Health program, Ms. Riley became interested in how the program combined research, disease prevention, health education, and community health. She recognized that earning an MPH could help her build upon her background in nutrition and exercise science while developing the skills needed to address chronic disease at the community and population levels. Inspired by the program’s potential, she applied and began the next stage of her public health journey at Mount Sinai.

During her time in the program, Ms. Riley found several of her courses to be useful in preparing her for a career in public health. Classes such as Epidemiology, Biostatistics, Research Methods, and Global Health contributed to her academic and professional growth. Epidemiology introduced Ms. Riley to a new area of study and quickly became a strong interest. Learning how to examine patterns of disease and identify factors that influence health reinforced that she had made the right choice to study public health.

Her interest led her to take additional courses, including Nutritional Epidemiology, which allowed her to connect her background in nutrition with population health research. Ms. Riley also enjoyed Research Methods because it strengthened her ability to ask meaningful research questions, analyze data, interpret findings, and develop new insights. She later applied these concepts, along with her data-analysis skills, across several research and independent study projects.

Mentorship also played an important role during Ms. Riley’s time as a student. Geoffrey “Cappy” Collins, MD, Assistant Professor, Population Health Science and Policy, and Graduate Education, served as her capstone project advisor and helped her strengthen her research, develop her capstone, and prepare her poster for Public Health Research Day in May 2026. His guidance and support contributed greatly to her growth as a public health professional.

Ms. Riley also received support and encouragement from Maya Korin, PhD, Assistant Professor of Environmental Medicine, and Public Health. Dr. Korin provided helpful feedback on her poster and later supported her independent study focused on caregiver nutrition education and childhood undernutrition in Uganda.

All MPH students at the Icahn School of Medicine engage in practical skill-building opportunities throughout their coursework. They further develop these skills through an Applied Practice Experience and a Culminating Experience, which may be a master’s thesis, manuscript, or capstone project.

Ms. Riley completed her Applied Practice Experience with the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s Healthy Eating Unit. During this experience, she supported community-based nutrition and health-promotion initiatives and saw how nutrition education could help individuals and families feel more confident in making healthy choices. Her experience also helped shape her interest in developing resources that community organizations can use when formal nutrition education programs and funding are limited.

Ms. Riley’s capstone project was titled “Development of a Culturally Tailored Nutrition Education Manual to Support Community-Based Organizations Following SNAP-Ed Elimination in New York City.”

For the project, she developed a practical manual with nutrition education lessons, culturally responsive resources, facilitator guidance, and tools that community-based organizations can use to assess and address the needs of the communities they serve. The manual covers topics such as food-label literacy, balanced meals, food safety, and navigating supermarkets and community food resources.

Ms. Riley hopes to further develop and pilot the manual with community organizations, schools, churches, and other programs serving families with limited access to nutrition education. She hopes to use the resource to help organizations continue providing practical and accessible nutrition education, even when funding and formal programs are limited.

Ms. Riley plans to measure the success of the pilot through pre- and post-program surveys that assess changes in participants’ nutrition knowledge, confidence in making healthy choices, and awareness of available community food resources. She also hopes to collect feedback from participants and facilitators to determine which parts of the manual are most useful and what should be improved before expanding the program to additional communities.

Ms. Riley’s Global Health independent study was a separate project. She was originally scheduled to travel to Uganda through the Global Health Summer Program, but the in-person experience was canceled because of an Ebola outbreak. She completed the work remotely by using data bases to analyze three years of malnutrition data from the Soft Power Health Community Clinic in Jinja, Uganda. She examined the data across years and quarters to better understand trends, patient characteristics, treatment patterns, and other factors related to malnutrition.

Her vision for the future is for people to be able to avoid preventable chronic diseases while having greater food security, confidence in making informed food choices, and continued access to reliable nutrition and wellness information.

In recognition of her commitment to serving communities and advancing public health, she received the 2026 Master’s Commencement Award for Community Service and Engagement in Public Health.

Ms. Riley plans to continue building a career in chronic-disease prevention, research, nutrition education, and community health. Ultimately, she hopes to develop and lead programs that help underserved communities reduce their risk of diabetes, obesity, and related chronic diseases while gaining the knowledge and resources needed to live healthier lives.

 

Learn more about the Master of Public Health program at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Starting a Big Change With the White Coat Ceremony

Updated on Aug 17, 2026 | Featured, School

The White Coat Ceremony formally marks the start of students on their medical career path. On Friday, July 31, the class of 2030 of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai gathered at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in Manhattan to receive their trainee coats.

The incoming class is joining a field that is undergoing transformation, Eric J. Nestler, MD, PhD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, told the students.

“Preparing for that responsibility is the reason why you’re undertaking this great intellectual journey into biomedicine—a journey at a moment of extraordinary change,” said Dr. Nestler. “We are at an inflection point for both medicine and medical education.”

Artificial intelligence (AI) is not only redefining the limits of what physicians and researchers can understand about the human body but also changing how students learn and retrieve information.

“Mastering medicine today is substantially different from what was required for my generation, but an extensive, deep understanding of biology in health and disease will always be essential,” noted Dr. Nestler.

Another thing that stays consistent is the human element, said David C. Thomas, MD, MS, MHPE, Dean for Medical Education, Icahn School of Medicine, in an interview after the ceremony.

“There’s a lot of change now in medicine. The technology is changing. We have AI coming in and changing” the field, Dr. Thomas said. “However, the stable part of that is going to be the person, and so that’s the human side of the medical student’s professional identity as they participate in the changes that are going on in the technology, in the way we practice medicine.”

Class of 2030 By the Numbers

130

Class size

7,687

Number of traditional entry applications

10

Students with a master’s

16

First-generation college students

519

Median MCAT score of class

3.95

Median GPA of class

For many students, donning the white coat is a continuation of their undergraduate studies. But for some who decided to switch fields to medicine, that garment represents a big shift in their professional identities.

“As I settled into my job as an engineer, I looked back at my most meaningful memories during college and noticed they often involved patient interactions,” said Mihir Dixit, class of 2030, who had experience as an EMT in his undergraduate days and worked at an AI health care startup before entering the Icahn School of Medicine.

Lily Steckel, class of 2030, said, “While I started my professional career in management consulting, medicine has long been ingrained in my life—I grew up with doctors in my family. However, it wasn’t until the end of college when I began to see how my own path would lead me” toward medicine.

Click on each student’s name to read more about their career shifts to medicine, and what becoming a doctor means to them.

Mihir Dixit

Lily Steckel

Mihir Dixit (left), volunteered as an EMT during his time as an undergraduate student. He became an engineer at an AI startup before switching to medicine.

What led you to decide to switch to medicine?

I started my undergrad considering medicine, actually, and entered the University of California, San Diego as a biology major and became an EMT to determine whether I would enjoy working in a medical environment. While I loved being an EMT, I experienced my first loss of a patient and spent some time thinking about how I could prevent that outcome in the future.

I eventually switched my major to bioengineering in hopes of making medical devices that could assist health care providers as they treat patients. Engineering became one of my primary interests throughout college, and the prospect of a career where I could impact patient populations with the technology I would create was incredibly enticing.

I then pursued a Master in Personalized Medicine and Applied Engineering at Yale University, during which I helped develop an AI model that predicted patients’ response to lung cancer treatments based on their PET scans. After graduating, I worked as an engineer at an AI health care startup for one year, collaborating with physicians to make large language models safer in patient-facing and clinical environments.

There were a few moments that led me on the path to medicine, but I only realized they were definitive long after they had passed. As I settled into my job as an engineer, I looked back at my most meaningful memories during college and noticed they often involved patient interactions—seeing a cardiologist review every patient chart the night before seeing the patient the next day; watching an Emergency Department physician calmly resolve a quarrel between a patient and their family members.

I realized that while innovation was important as an engineer, physicians have a unique impact on a patient’s life beyond medical treatment. I wanted to combine my engineering knowledge with the reach of a physician and decided to switch to medicine.

What was it like for you to treat patients as an EMT?

Being in the back of an ambulance with a patient—often in a one-on-one setting—means you bear the responsibility of their care for the duration of that ride. It lends to conversations where patients confide in you about their fears, concerns, and sometimes just whatever’s on their mind.

I felt honored to be there for my patients in some of the worst times of their lives, and for me, that privilege was the most memorable aspect of being an EMT.

Was it difficult making the switch to apply to medical schools?

My biggest concern was learning how to memorize so many seemingly random facts. But I quickly realized through talking to professors that it’s actually a lot of systems-based thinking, which I had already been used to as an engineer!

And because I had a biology-adjacent major in undergrad, the MCAT exam and prerequisite courses for matriculation had a slight overlap, so many of the requirements were thankfully already met. While I didn’t have any physician mentors in my immediate family, I’m thankful to have had research supervisors who were physicians who served as mentors for me during the application process.

What made you decide to apply to the Icahn School of Medicine?

It’s hard to beat getting your medical education in New York City. I was excited by the notion of training in one of the most diverse cities in the world and wanted to learn how to interact with and understand the needs of a wide variety of patient populations.

Mount Sinai also has one of the strongest computational research departments in the country, and after reading some of the research they had been publishing in the digital health field, it became one of my top choices when applying.

What are you looking forward to as you begin your medical career?

I’m looking forward to learning medical concepts in depth. I find it satisfying when I finally gain an extensive understanding of an entire system or pathway and everything “clicks,” and it seems like my journey through medicine will have a lot of those moments.

I’m also excited to be able to do more for patients—the biggest issue I had with being an EMT was that I didn’t have the knowledge or skills to do more for them. As for a particular direction, I’m considering cardiology or emergency medicine as potential specialties, but that’s not set in stone.

Lily Steckel (third from right, back row), with her starting cohort of peers during her time as a consultant. Her experience volunteering at a mother/baby postpartum floor helped cement her decision to switch fields to medicine.

What led you to decide to switch to medicine?

After graduating from Dartmouth College, I moved to San Francisco to work at Oliver Wyman, a management consulting firm that specializes in the financial services sector, and I worked as a consultant for two years.

During my time at Oliver Wyman, I started volunteering at the California Pacific Medical Center, a regional hospital in San Francisco. I worked on the mother/baby postpartum floor and was in charge of patient discharges and setting up rooms. That experience confirmed my decision to apply to postbaccalaureate programs to fulfill my dream of becoming a doctor.

While I started my professional career in management consulting, medicine has long been ingrained in my life—I grew up with doctors in my family. However, it wasn’t until the end of college when I began to see how my own path would lead me there.

My major in college was quantitative social science, which emphasized the use of quantitative data to explain real-world social issues. I had an interest in health-related topics and studied the pandemic’s effect on alcohol use among college students for my thesis. My research found that the pandemic’s isolation affected students’ drinking habits once they returned to campus, and through open conversations with my peers, I realized my sense of purpose hinges on helping in tangible, personal ways.

As I learned about the social dimensions of health, I was also drawn to understanding the biological underpinnings of disease, curious to learn not just how people are affected by it, but also why. This amalgamation of scientific curiosity and dedication to service led me to apply to medical schools.

How did having doctors in your family help with your decision to switch fields?

My dad and uncle are doctors, as was my grandfather. I was able to seek advice from all three during my pivot to medicine. Once I decided to pursue medical school, I immediately knew I had made the right decision.

When I would think about my future career as a doctor, I felt a sense of security because I knew I had landed on the right path.

Was it difficult making the switch to apply to medical schools?

I started the Postbaccalaureate Premedical Program at Bryn Mawr College, where I completed all of the scientific requirements for medical school in one year.

And to further prepare for my time in medicine, this past year I worked as a research assistant for the International Center for the Study of Breast Cancer Subtypes at Weill Cornell Medicine.

What made you decide to apply to the Icahn School of Medicine?

The Icahn School of Medicine stood out to me for its tight-knit community and happy demeanor among the students. I was also drawn to the school being born out of a hospital instead of an academic institution because it meant I would walk the same halls as patients and physicians every day.

Now that I’m here, it’s clear to me that Mount Sinai is a unique place to pursue my medical degree. The access to research and clinical opportunities is unmatched, and the student body is collaborative and supportive, which is exactly what I wanted in a medical school.

What are you looking forward to as you begin your medical career?

I’m most interested in pursuing a surgical oncology specialty. My research experience this past year at the International Center for the Study of Breast Cancer Subtypes involved investigating racial and ethnic disparities in breast cancer, focusing on why women of western sub-Saharan African descent are more likely to develop aggressive tumors than white women.

I would love to pursue a career in surgical oncology, where I can combine research on breast cancer disparities with the opportunity to care for women throughout their treatment.

From the Classroom to the Real World: Mount Sinai Welcomes New Residents

Updated on Jul 24, 2026 | Featured, School

As part of their onboarding experience, Mount Sinai residents review, via simulation training, how to call a code, how to respond, different roles on the code team, how to manage the hospital patient during a code, and how to communicate efficiently during emergencies.

At 14 sites across the five boroughs of New York City, the Mount Sinai Health System welcomed 950 new residents in late June to its hospital campuses, in addition to Valley Hospital, Elmhurst Hospital, Queens Hospital Center, and the Bronx VA.

“Our incoming class of residents is an extraordinary and talented group of young doctors,” says Michael Leitman, MD, Dean for Graduate Medical Education (GME) at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and a practicing surgeon.

“We make a big deal out of welcoming them because it is one of the toughest transitions for a medical doctor in training, moving out of the classroom and into the real world. I remember it well because there are so many firsts, including the moment your first patient calls you ‘doctor.’ You realize how much responsibility is on your shoulders,” says Dr. Leitman.  First year residents, previously called “interns,” will practice medicine under the guidance of an attending physician for three to seven years, depending on their chosen specialty.

“We make a big deal out of welcoming them because it is one of the toughest transitions for a medical doctor in training, moving out of the classroom and into the real world.” — Michael Leitman, MD, Dean for Graduate Medical Education

The class of 2026 residents are a highly qualified cohort who became residents at Mount Sinai after one of the most competitive years for residency matches, according to Dr. Leitman. The National Resident Matching Program, which oversees the matching of young doctors into residency posts, reported that 53,373 applicants registered for the match this year—competing for 41,126 positions and reflecting a trend of strong growth.

Mount Sinai’s GME program is the largest in the United States, according to Dr. Leitman. Each year, thousands of residents and fellows rotate through its programs, many considered among the best in the country. With more than 250 programs, Mount Sinai provides top-tier educational opportunities in almost every specialty—yet that’s just one of many aspects that makes the Icahn School of Medicine exceptional.

Residents are drawn to Mount Sinai for the wide spectrum of accredited, high-profile GME programs, the opportunity to study in one of more than 350 labs, and to do research in an institution ranked No. 11 for National Institutes of Health funding. The 2026 Doximity Residency Navigator, considered the definitive reference for top residency programs, based on peer nominations, ranks Mount Sinai’s many residency programs at the top.

“I think we’ve created an atmosphere of growth and trust. The residents have each other’s backs, and their faculty mentors really encourage an atmosphere of teamwork, where we all work for each other,” says Michael Leitman, MD.

For Dr. Leitman, much has changed since he began his journey as a medical doctor, including the specialties that future doctors choose.

“When I chose surgery, it was considered an outlier. My colleagues asked, ‘Why surgery, you won’t have enough patients to operate on; medical discoveries are eliminating the need for surgery.’ That couldn’t be farther from the truth,” says Dr. Leitman, who has held several leadership roles in Mount Sinai’s Department of Surgery.

“Radiology was not a draw back then. We all thought of radiology as being isolating, sitting in a dark room and writing reports. It’s now very popular, in large part due to advances in technology, including the introduction of AI,” says Dr. Leitman.

In fact, in addition to Dermatology and Plastic Surgery, Radiology has become one of the most competitive specialties. Mount Sinai offers several top-ranked Radiology specialties, including Interventional Radiology–Integrated, Radiology Nuclear Medicine, and Radiology Diagnostic, all of them top ranked programs.

The culture at Mount Sinai has also changed, and there is now more of an emphasis on physician well-being.

“Since I was a young resident in the 1980s, the opportunities have grown in leaps and bounds. And at Mount Sinai, where we have a robust residency program, the sheer volume of talented residents and fellows means we don’t need to force them to do grueling 24-hour shifts. That was something I grew up with, and I’m glad we were able to move away from that model,” says Dr. Leitman.

“I think we’ve created an atmosphere of growth and trust. The residents have each other’s backs, and their faculty mentors really encourage an atmosphere of teamwork, where we all work for each other,” says Dr. Leitman.

Residents are drawn to Mount Sinai for the wide spectrum of accredited, high-profile GME programs, the opportunity to study in one of more than 350 labs, and to do research in an institution ranked No. 11 for National Institutes of Health funding.

The institution keeps a watchful eye on its residents and faculty and monitors physician wellness through regular surveys, taking corrective steps when the surveys suggest problems, says Dr. Leitman. In fact, Mount Sinai was among the first in the county to publish on post-traumatic stress disorder among graduate medical education trainees. As a result, the program has earned a national reputation for its innovative resources geared toward well-being.

“Physician burnout is a real thing, and we are laser focused on knowing how everyone is doing—from our newest residents to our senior faculty—so we can make changes that will optimize their work life,” says Dr. Leitman. He has found a critical partner in the institution’s Well-Being and Work Experience Core, which runs a robust program geared toward enhancing workplace culture through leadership trainings, coaching efforts, communications tools, and role modeling.

“We will never eliminate all of the challenges of health care, but we can take steps to minimize daily stressors and enhance the lives of our residents so they can focus on their true calling of doctoring,” said Dr. Leitman.

Learn more about Residencies and Fellowships at Mount Sinai