Jul 12, 2024 | School
Kate Jankowski, MSBS
Kate Jankowski, who received her Master of Science in Biomedical Science (MSBS) degree in 2024 from Mount Sinai’s Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, says Mount Sinai offered a vast number of labs, varying types of experiences, a great emphasis on science, and the ability to share ideas with others.
In the following Q&A, Ms. Jankowski discusses her many achievements and the strengths of the program as she pursues a career in science and medicine.
What is your academic background?
I majored in Biochemistry at Hamilton College in Upstate New York and graduated in 2022. After a spring semester of remote classes during sophomore year and a hybrid junior year during the COVID-19 pandemic, I worked in a lab my senior year to complete my thesis. I grew to love research and knew that I wanted to remain in school because I love the academic atmosphere and being able to learn.
I also knew I wanted to attend medical school, but I wanted to get some research and clinical experience before applying. That’s when I began to look for master’s programs that had a research focus. I became incredibly interested in the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai where I could get the best of both worlds: conducting research of my own while also taking classes and learning about science in a clinical capacity.
What first attracted you to this area of study?
My first real exposure to research occurred during a summer fellowship after my junior year at a medical institute in Utica, New York, where I worked in a chemistry lab. I learned so much about myself and how I wanted to approach science and medicine. However, after my senior year thesis research, which involved working in a biology/biochemistry lab, I really wanted to shift my focus to biomedical science research. I like being able to apply clinical knowledge to my work in the lab and being able to simultaneously take classes on topics that aided my research and provided a greater holistic understanding.
Who were your mentors, what research did you contribute to, and did you publish any work?
I started working in the lab of Lahouaria Hadri, PhD, Associate Professor of Pharmacological Sciences, and Medicine (Cardiology). My current research project is focused on analyzing specific proteins’ roles in cardiopulmonary diseases and using drug-targeted and gene therapies to help design innovative therapeutic strategies.
In 2023, I authored and published a review regarding a key cancer epigenetic regulator that has implications for pulmonary arterial hypertension. We are also in the process of submitting a new manuscript for publication, and I’m very excited to continue that work.
Additionally, when I started working in the Hadri Lab, I trained with a collaborator, Irene Turnbull, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine (Cardiology) at the Cardiovascular Research Institute at Icahn Mount Sinai. The Turnbull Lab focuses on refining human models of the myocardium and applying tissue-engineering technologies. With this training and frequent assistance in the lab, I was able to co-author a paper on single-cell analysis of contractile forces in iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes. I have also been lucky enough to present our work at multiple conferences, including Mount Sinai’s Annual https://icahn.mssm.edu/research/bmeii Symposium, and the Pulmonary Vascular Research Institute Annual Congress in London.
Why Mount Sinai—and what, specifically, are the strong points of the MSBS program?
When I first visited Mount Sinai, I was struck by the beautiful sense of community and the amazing people I got to interact with. Since then, that sense of community has only grown stronger, because every day I meet people who love the work they do and who want others around them to succeed.
The support I’ve felt as a student here is unparalleled, and I really do come to Mount Sinai each day with a smile on my face. I’m also part of a few campus groups, giving me opportunities to interact with students, faculty, patients, and others on a regular basis, which amplifies that sense of community. But fundamentally, I can’t forget the incredible research exposure this program provides, which is the reason I came here. The vast number of labs, the varying types of experiences, the great emphasis on science, and the ability to share ideas with others is paramount here.
What’s next?
I’ll be continuing my work in the Hadri Lab this upcoming year as an associate researcher because there are just a few more questions that I want to answer before I leave. In the meantime, I am also applying to medical school—I want to help people and take what I learned from the bench and bring it to the bedside. I’m excited about seeing where I end up.
Jul 12, 2024 | School
Allenie Andrea Arnedo, MPH
As an international student, Allenie Andrea Arnedo had become familiar with many health systems around the world, including those in Thailand, the Philippines, and the United States. This led to an interest in pharmaceutical manufacturing, and she decided to get an undergraduate degree in Biochemistry and Data Analytics. Several years later, she would enroll in the Master of Public Health (MPH) program at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where, for her applied practicum experience, she had the opportunity to become a Global Health Fellow.
In June 2024, Ms. Arnedo received an MPH degree in Global Health. In the following Q&A, she reveals how her experience at Mount Sinai is helping to shape her career.
Why an MPH?
When the COVID-19 pandemic occurred, it shed light on systemic barriers for equitable vaccine access. As I saw family and friends had difficulty obtaining vaccines across Asia, I felt a strong desire to understand and uncover the underlying reasons why. My interests in universal health coverage and access to medicines drew me to the field of public health.
Being named a Global Health Fellow sounds exciting. What did that involve?
This was an opportunity provided to us through the Global Health Summer program at Icahn Mount Sinai. For my placement, I assisted with a grant proposal at NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst, which is part of the nation’s largest municipal health care delivery system. With my mentor, Carlos Salama, MD, Professor of Medicine, and the Immigrant Health Working Group, the grant was successfully awarded. This experience exposed me to stakeholder engagement with community-based organizations and advocacy groups.
What were some of your other accomplishments?
I had the honor of being inducted into the Delta Omega Honorary Society in Public Health and receiving a commencement award for Excellence in Public Health Leadership and Service. I am so grateful to Public Health leadership, and look forward to growing more as a global health professional.
Why Mount Sinai?
When I was initially searching for public health programs, I felt drawn to the Mount Sinai’s world-class researchers, personalized mentorship, and welcoming students. The variety of tracks offered for my program was valuable for me because I was just embarking on my career path in public health.
The diversity of the student body is also one of the greatest assets of Icahn Mount Sinai as they represent a variety of interests, cultures, issues, and more. During my time at Mount Sinai, I was able to serve as a member of an E-board for the New York State Science Technology and Policy group and shadow the Mount Sinai Human Rights Program.
What’s next?
I am looking for roles in community capacity building, community health research, health policy, and health care financing. My next steps are to embrace the realm of possibilities that a public health degree has to offer across interdisciplinary sectors and fields.
I am grateful to have had my perspective on the role of policy in health systems, barriers to care, and equitable health access broadened by so many amazing faculty and mentors. They include: Dr Salama, who is also Director of Global Health at NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst; Elizabeth K. Singer, MD, MPH, Director of the Mount Sinai Human Rights Program; Arthur A. Gianelli, FACHE, Chief Transformation Officer for the Mount Sinai Health System; Alexander Preker, MD, PhD, Executive Scholar at Icahn Mount Sinai; and Nils Hennig, MD, PhD, MPH, Director of the MPH program.
What are your career goals?
I want to contribute to inclusive and accessible research and facilitate community partnerships by working as a researcher or program assistant at a think tank, research institute, or human rights organization. As I progress in my career, I hope to continue to be guided by the values I hold closely to help with the expansion of health care access.
Jul 12, 2024 | School
Kelsey Chandran, MPH
Kelsey Chandran helped mitigate lead exposure in vulnerable populations and identify barriers to breast cancer screening as she worked toward her Master of Public Health (MPH) degree in Epidemiology from Mount Sinai’s Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.
Ms. Chandran discusses the highlights of the program and the many insights she gained in the following Q&A.
Why this area of study?
I have always had this passion for helping people and I wanted to pursue medicine for the longest time. In college, when I switched my major from Chemistry to Global Studies with a double minor in Asian Studies and Public Health, I found a field where I could integrate my need for helping people within a medical context.
I also learned more about diversity, equity, and inclusion through various extracurricular programs or in the classroom. These experiences really attracted me toward learning more about public health, and I knew it could connect me further to underserved communities that would truly feel the impact that I am trying to make.
How did you excel at Mount Sinai?
I believe the primary way I excelled was making friends with my peers in the classroom. Graduate school brings in a diverse group of people from all over the world and all walks of life—from recent graduates to work professionals to parents returning to higher education. Being able to interact with these people multiple times a week in classes or just chatting in the library or working on projects and assignments allows you to learn from their perspectives and expands your relationship with them in and out of the classroom.
I think if it weren’t for some of the people I met at Mount Sinai, I would not have learned and grown so much in my own thinking and ways to pursue passions, interests, and future professional goals.
I was one of the students seeking Council on Education for Public Health accreditation and a teaching assistant for the Introduction to Socio-behavioral Health course with Maya Rom Korin, PhD, MS, Assistant Professor of Environmental Medicine and Climate Science at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
I was also a graduate researcher in two projects.
My first role was to create informational materials for families based on an analysis on their child’s teeth to see how much lead they were exposed to before and after birth. Working with my preceptor Sarah F. Evans, PhD, MPH, Assistant Professor of Environmental Medicine and Climate Science at Icahn Mount Sinai, these materials are teaching these families about lead exposure, providing them with ways and resources to mitigate further exposure.
My second role was to identify barriers for breast cancer screening in African American/Black women in New York City through a culturally tailored health navigation program created by my advisor, Lina Jandorf, MA, Director of Cancer Community Outreach in the Department of Oncological Sciences at The Tisch Cancer Institute. This research has really been an eye-opening experience in understanding health disparities among this group and being able to intimately interact and empower these women to take autonomy of their own health in reducing their risk of breast cancer.
These hands-on experiences have taught me more about New York City and its diverse populations than I would gained had I not been in the MPH program at Mount Sinai. Because of these projects, I have deepened my love and passion for patient education and community engagement and hope to continue similar work as a physician in the future.
Why Mount Sinai—and what, specifically, are the strong points of the program?
My first introduction to Mount Sinai was from my cousin, Sangeetha Chandramohan, who graduated from Icahn Mount Sinai’s MPH program in 2016. She became so successful after graduating and inspired me to pursue my MPH here as well. After doing my own research on Mount Sinai’s program and attending the institution, I think Mount Sinai does a great job on cultivating community. The diverse group of students within a class, combined with the emphasized focus on collaboration, allows for a range of thoughts, perspectives, and vulnerable discussions that really touch on the main pillars of public health to enact change.
What’s next?
I will be returning to my home state of Florida and be attending Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine in Melbourne. I could not have achieved this lifelong goal without the professors, mentors, or friends I met at Mount Sinai who have championed me along the way from day one.
Jul 12, 2024 | School
Angie V Ramirez Jimenez, MSBDS
When Angie V Ramirez Jimenez entered the Master of Science in Biomedical Data Science (MSBDS) program at Mount Sinai’s Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, she had a long-time fascination with the potential of data science to unlock insights into complex biological systems. Now, as a new graduate, she discusses how working with top neurologists and data scientists has inspired her to further her career.
How did you become interested in biomedical data science?
The intersection of biology and technology—and its potential to revolutionize scientific research—always fascinated me, and this sparked my interest in this field. Fundamentally, I was inspired by the ability of data science to unlock insights from various biological datasets, leading to a deeper understanding of complex biological systems. The prospect of using data to drive advances in precision medicine to ultimately improve patient outcomes motivated me to pursue a career in Biomedical Data Science.
Why Mount Sinai?
After completing my undergraduate degree, I came here to work as a research associate in the lab of two outstanding neurologists, Michelle E. Ehrlich, MD, and Samuel E. Gandy, MD, PhD. There, I had the opportunity to work on various projects that investigate the mechanisms of neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease, dystonia, and Huntington’s disease, and learn about all of the research opportunities that were available at Mount Sinai.
The chance to learn from professors at the forefront of biomedical research made it the ideal place for me to expand my knowledge and skills. Through our collaboration with the Shen lab, I met Li Shen, PhD, the co-director of the Master of Science in Biomedical Data Science program at the time. My contributions to projects during my time in the lab led to co-authorship on several publications (PMID(s): 38459557, 37424750, 36448627).
What were some of your achievements as a master’s student?
I trained and worked in the Bioinformatics for Next Generation Sequencing (BiNGS) core at The Tisch Cancer Institute at Mount Sinai, where I was able to contribute to various projects, which included assessing the effectiveness of a novel keratinocyte differentiation protocol on induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and embryonic stem cells (ESCs), as well as investigating the impact of different extracellular matrix (ECM) environments on cancer cell dormancy. For my capstone project, I analyzed RNA-seq, ATAC-seq, and CUT&RUN data to dissect the epigenetic and transcriptional landscapes of hepatocellular carcinoma models—it’s novel work that will be part of a future paper.
What other activities contributed to your success?
My involvement in research projects outside the classroom have been pivotal to my success. As an undergrad, I went on a research trip to Costa Rica to investigate the resilience of microbial communities in Costa Rica’s rainforests post-hurricane. This was the first time I was part of real-world scientific research, and I was immersed in a side of research that I had not seen in the classroom—large-scale data analysis and how powerful it can be in understanding complex biological interactions.
That experience helped me realize this was what I wanted to pursue. Once I started working in the Ehrlich/Gandy lab, I was able to further explore my interest in bioinformatics and learn alongside great postdocs who mentored me on how to do various types of analysis. I’ve also worked at Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, NJ, where I taught children how to do different lab experiences. I think working with these young students really taught me how to not make assumptions about how much people may know about a topic, which really helps me when trying to teach others.
I also learned that everyone has the power to make an impact on others, even when we may not realize it. I think that just being open minded and not closing yourself off to opportunities, even when they seem very daunting or even insignificant, is really what helps you learn and grow. Sometimes opportunities arise from the most unexpected places, but you will never find them if you don’t put yourself out there.
What’s next?
I plan to continue in the field of Biomedical Data Science. I would like to help make a positive impact in the biomedical field, and to be a part of the discoveries that will have the potential to prevent the loss of our loved ones to diseases such as cancer. That is my ultimate goal.
Updated on Jul 12, 2024 | Featured, School
Six recent master’s graduates at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai’s Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences discuss what they accomplished and how they are using their degrees to explore new paths and careers.
How ‘Incredible’ Research Opportunities in the Master of Science in Biomedical Science Program Helped Student Kate Jankowski Excel
“Fundamentally, I can’t forget the incredible research exposure this program provides, which is the reason I came here. The vast number of labs, the varying types of experiences, the great emphasis on science, and the ability to share ideas with others is paramount here.”
Read the Q&A
Hands-On Research in New York City’s Most Diverse Communities Deepens Kelsey Chandran’s Passion for Patient Education and Engagement as She Earns a Master of Public Health Degree
“I think Mount Sinai does a great job of cultivating community. The diverse group of students within a class, combined with the emphasized focus on collaboration, allows for a range of thoughts, perspectives, and vulnerable discussions that really touch on the main pillars of public health to enact change.”
Read the Q&A
How One Student Vastly Expanded Her Knowledge and Skills in Biology and Technology While Studying Biomedical Data Science at Mount Sinai
“The chance to learn from professors at the forefront of biomedical research made [Mount Sinai] the ideal place for me to expand my knowledge and skills,” says Angie V. Ramirez Jimenez.
Read the Q&A
Barriers to Equitable Access to Vaccines During the COVID-19 Epidemic Motivated Allenie Andrea Arnedo to Enroll in the Master of Public Health Program at Mount Sinai
“When I was initially searching for public health programs, I felt drawn to the world-class researchers, personalized mentorship, and welcoming students. The variety of tracks offered for my program was valuable for me because I was just embarking on my career path in public health.”
Read the Q&A
Kiran Nagdeo, BDS, Highlights How a Master of Public Health Degree Put Her on a Career Path to Improve Maternal and Child Oral Health on a Global Scale
“I had many milestones [at Mount Sinai], which include authoring two full-text publications. I also attended six conferences, where I gave more than a dozen presentations, and participated in a global health summer research program offered by Mount Sinai, which involved shadowing both dental and medical complex care services teams at Rikers Island.”
Read the Q&A
How a Master of Health Administration (MHA) Degree and Mentorship From Top Mount Sinai Scientists Are Helping Daniel Caughey Advance His Career
“I was looking for a program that would offer the skills needed to succeed as a leader in the health care field, and that is exactly what I found in this program. The MHA offers a diverse curriculum with courses such as Strategic Planning, Finance, Marketing, and Population Health, to name a few.”
Read the Q&A
Updated on Jul 12, 2024 | Featured, School
Rosalind J. Wright, MD, MPH
Building on its long history of groundbreaking science and advocacy in public health, and its research strengths in exposomics, genomic sciences, genetics, and big data analysis, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has established a Department of Public Health to address the urgent and mounting medical and environmental challenges of the 21st century.
Renowned physician and researcher Rosalind J. Wright, MD, MPH, was named Chair of the department and inaugural Dean for Public Health. Dr. Wright is Horace W. Goldsmith Professor and, most recently, the former Dean of Translational Biomedical Sciences at Icahn Mount Sinai. She is a founding Co-Director of the Institute for Climate Change, Environmental Health, and Exposomics, the nucleus of Icahn Mount Sinai’s work on studying environmental exposures and their effects on development, health, and disease across the life course.
Dr. Wright, who has authored or coauthored more than 350 peer-reviewed journal articles and delivered more than 150 regional, national, and international presentations, has long been committed to mentoring the next generation of public health scientists, having trained nearly 100 predoctoral and doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows over her career.
Bolstering these efforts is Icahn Mount Sinai’s extraordinary research capabilities, which include being ranked No. 4 among U.S. medical schools in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding for Public Health, and No. 2 for Genetics (Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research 2023 fiscal year), and No. 1 nationally in National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences funding.
In the following Q&A, Dr. Wright discusses the transformative steps that will further strengthen Icahn Mount Sinai’s leadership in public health education, research, and practice.
Mount Sinai has been on the front lines of public health for decades. Why a Department of Public Health now?
We’re already widely recognized for our strengths in exposomics, genomic sciences, genetics, and big data analysis. And our public health research and advocacy work has frequently raised our national profile through studies, symposia, and testimony we’ve given before congressional committees looking into public health reform. By carefully assessing that repertoire of strengths—which often is the envy of others in the field—and bridging them, we can create a public health ecosystem that would allow our teams to cohesively share new knowledge, skills, and technology.
How, specifically, do you envision this?
Imagine if we could seamlessly marry the work of our environmental scientists in exposomics and genomics with the work of our computational and computer scientists. We could bring those data streams together even more than we are already doing and factor in our artificial intelligence and machine learning expertise to make sense of data patterns and profiles involving thousands of variables. The result would be revelations and gains in the field of public health not possible in the past.
How do you get there?
One of the ways we plan to set the stage for those breakthroughs is cross-training our students and workforce. Our goal is a transdisciplinary trained workforce so that MDs, PhDs, and other clinicians have the skills to understand climate science, for example, and to use data science methods, such as machine learning, to more precisely identify health-relevant environmental and genetic factors impacting all of our patients. Likewise, we want our data scientists to acquire the same basic skills in epidemiology and environmental health sciences to enable team science. Those ambitious goals will clearly require innovation and change around public health education at Mount Sinai.
We’ll be establishing doctoral programs in public health areas where our research and practice can lead the field, such as climate science and exposomics. But first, our plans are to expand our Master of Public Health programs to synergistically feed into planned doctoral programs. The public health programs were created in 2001 and are the oldest and largest graduate studies at Mount Sinai. We want our new department to be not just an academic home for investigators and public health practitioners, but an incubator for real curricula innovation.
We have what I see as a key advantage over other institutions in the field that will fortify our work: Mount Sinai Health System and Icahn Mount Sinai serve the greater New York City region, which includes East Harlem, an area of Manhattan that has one of the most diverse patient populations in the United States. It amounts to a laboratory rich in socioeconomic strata perfectly suited for research and clinical and public health practice. Just as importantly, we’ve advanced our science through programs like the BioMe®️ BioBank Program, with its tens of thousands of DNA samples driving genetic, genomic, and epidemiologic investigations, and through the Mount Sinai Million Health Discoveries Program, where we’ve woven genetics into real-world clinical care and have a goal to sequence 1 million Mount Sinai patients.
All of these approaches are essential if we are going to reinvent our response to the kinds of public health challenges we are seeing today—which are the same challenges we urgently need to address as a health system, too—climate change and environmental exposures of children within their communities, which we know can lead to asthma, obesity, learning disabilities, and much more. These will disproportionately impact communities that are already more burdened by these disorders. Nothing will focus us more as a department than gaining a more-informed understanding of the nature and impact of health-relevant environmental hazards that may contribute to health disparities in our communities.
You are building on a formidable legacy. What are the most impactful discoveries Mount Sinai researchers have made over the decades?
Uncovering the impact of asbestos on human health has been among the most consequential. Our work can be traced to Dr. Irving Selikoff, a pioneering researcher, who created in the 1960s the nation’s first hospital division of occupational medicine at Mount Sinai. His research on asbestos-related disease shaped public policy for working men and women around the world. It was also responsible for the landmark 1970 Occupational Safety and Health Act.
More recently, we’ve actively studied per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), the class of synthetic chemicals ubiquitous in the environment and our bodies. Our investigators have developed novel metrics to gauge our cumulative exposure to PFAS and have shown how that exposure is linked to significant reductions in female fertility, as well as child health outcomes, such as asthma. We’re proud that our science is now informing regulatory change around PFAS, undertaken by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2023.
My own lab has done considerable work with air pollution exposure. We were among the first to link that exposure to asthma onset, as well as to cognitive dysfunction in children in early life, and to show that this starts in utero and weighs disproportionately on low income and ethnic minority populations. We were also among the first with research to show that psychological stress in pregnant women puts their babies at higher risk of developing conditions like asthma, given the impact of stress on the immune system.
What excites you most about your new role?
My passion throughout my career has been public health—from the time I started my fellowship in pulmonary medicine and felt the sudden need to get a Master in Public Health degree. I realized that this knowledge would help me to better understand the disparities I was seeing in my asthma patients—disparities I knew couldn’t be explained by heritability or genetics alone, which led me to studying broad environmental influences as well. In the same way, I feel I’m now in a position to do something really unique as the new Dean for Public Health—to translate the scientific capabilities that we can collectively bring together to improve the health of our communities. And there’s no better place to accomplish that than at Mount Sinai.
Watch a video to learn more about the vision for Public Health at Icahn Mount Sinai.
