Why a Master’s Degree? New Mount Sinai Graduates Share Their Experiences and How They excelled

Jul 18, 2025 | Featured, School

Six master’s graduates from 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 in science, health care, and medicine.

After Sharpening His Engineering Skills in Industry, Karan Lingineni Gets a Master of Science in Clinical Research (MSCR), Building on a Passion for Research-Driven Approaches to Clinical Care

“As someone with a nontraditional background, I was looking for a program that would challenge me academically while embracing my interdisciplinary identity. Mount Sinai stands out not just for its leadership in AI and translational medicine, but for its breadth across health policy, entrepreneurship, and bioethics.”

Read the Q&A 

Driven by a Passion for Immunology, Gvantsa Pantsulaia Deeply Advances Her Understanding of the Field With a Master of Science in Biomedical Science (MSBS) Degree

“Mount Sinai fosters a culture of academic rigor, innovation, and mentorship. It’s a place where translational science thrives and where students are encouraged to think across disciplines.”

Read the Q&A 

Krystine Ferreira Recounts Unforgettable Experiences and Gaining a Vast New Skill Set on the Road to Earning a Master of Science in Epidemiology at Mount Sinai

 “I chose Mount Sinai because of the unique experience of being able to attend school on a medical campus where research and patient care thrive on a day-to-day basis. I knew the campus would have so much to offer and a new opportunity around every corner.”

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Unparalleled Research Opportunities, Strong Mentorship—and His Own Curiosity: Harsev Singh Reveals How He Excelled in Mount Sinai’s Master of Science in Biomedical Science Program

 “The way that Mount Sinai integrates research, academics, community, and service is, in my eyes, what makes this program exceptional.”

Read the Q&A 

Shaped by Experiences During the COVID-19 Pandemic, Ahana Chowdhury Pursues a Master of Public Health (MPH) Degree, Aiming To Improve How Health Care Is Delivered in Communities

“Mount Sinai offered me an opportunity to explore the field of public health from multiple angles. One of the greatest strengths of the program was its ability to connect me with meaningful, hands-on experiences across departments and populations.”

Read the Q&A 

What Did Alberto M. Prieto Barreiro Gain in Mount Sinai’s Master of Health Administration (MHA) Program? ‘A Broader Understanding of How Different Sectors of Health Care—Policy, Finance, Operations—Interconnect To Impact Patient Outcomes’

“The faculty’s deep industry experience, the program’s integration with a top-tier academic medical center, and the strong emphasis on analytics, leadership, and strategic planning made it the ideal environment for me to grow.”

Read the Q&A 

Read more about the Mount Sinai Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences

‘You Represent the Very Best’: Celebrating Mount Sinai’s 2025 Graduating Master’s Students

Updated on Jul 23, 2025 | Featured, School

There were many achievements to celebrate at Mount Sinai’s Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences 2025 Master’s Commencement Ceremony in Stern Auditorium, a lively event of cheers and tears, applause and hugs, that graduated a class of 178 students committed to advancing science, health care, and medicine.

“One of our graduates led groundbreaking research on anti-tumor T cell immunity and published six papers in academic journals, including two as first author,” said Marta Filizola, PhD, who leads the Graduate School as Dean and is the Sharon and Frederick Klingenstein/Nathan Kase, MD Professor of Pharmacological Sciences, and Professor of Neuroscience, and Artificial Intelligence and Human Health.

“Another graduate presented innovative research at national conferences on the role of motivation in major depressive disorder. And yet another conducted award-winning studies in skeletal muscle regeneration,” Dr. Filizola said.

“The inventive work of this year’s graduates also includes an artificial intelligence-based craving management tool for cocaine use disorder, and a technology platform for managing symptoms of polycystic ovary syndrome,” she continued, listing other achievements. “You represent the very best of what Mount Sinai aspires to cultivate in its students.”

The graduates earned degrees across nine programs: Master of Science in Biomedical Science; Master of Science in Biostatistics; Master of Health Administration; Master of Science in Health Care Delivery Leadership; Master of Science in Biomedical Data Science and AI; Master of Science in Clinical Research; Master of Science in Genetic Counseling; Master of Science in Epidemiology; and Master of Public Health.

From left: Brendan G. Carr, MD, MA, MS; David Sandman, PhD; Marta Filizola, PhD; and Eric J. Nestler, MD, PhD.

Brendan G. Carr, MD, MA, MS, Chief Executive Officer and Professor and Kenneth L. Davis, MD, Distinguished Chair of the Mount Sinai Health System, greeted the students and their families, faculty, and guests.

“I want to make sure that your family, friends, and loved ones know how important you are to this wonderful ecosystem that is Mount Sinai because our relationships with each other—our connectivity—is a superpower,” he said. “The symbiotic connection between our educational portfolio, our research, and our clinical care is what allows us to transform health care delivery and save lives.”

Dr. Carr continued: “Every part of our whole learns from the others, and we will continue to iterate and to evolve over time. We are a learning health system—ever curious and always pushing the boundaries. That’s what has driven Mount Sinai for over a century: the never-ending search for a better answer, one that unlocks a previously impossible challenge. Academics and clinicians who work together to find new ways to help people live longer, fuller, healthier lives…Thank you for being a critical part of this ecosystem.”

Master’s program graduates celebrate their achievements at the 2025 Commencement Ceremony.

Eric J. Nestler, MD, PhD, Interim Dean and Nash Family Professor of Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer of the Mount Sinai Health System, applauded the graduates for their academic achievements and career ambitions. “Your work will be especially meaningful because we are living in a time of unprecedented challenges to science and medicine,” he said.

Dr. Nestler added: “The United States has long been, by far, the world’s leading funder of biomedical research. But suddenly, that research is under assault. New federal research grants this year have been only about half of what we would normally expect. This is especially disappointing because today’s research technologies are more powerful than ever and have the potential—with continued robust funding—to dramatically improve human health over the next decade.

“Biomedical research—funded by the National Institutes of Health [NIH]—has transformed health care, and led to remarkable improvements in life, and life expectancy, for tens of millions of Americans. Consider the treatment of heart disease and stroke. We witnessed a 56 percent decrease in age-adjusted deaths due to heart disease and a 70 percent reduction in deaths due to stroke over the course of my lifetime. This extraordinary improvement in health is directly related to NIH-funded research.”

“Despite these major challenges, I want you to know I am most confident this will be a momentary detour on the path to greater knowledge and better medicine. For the sake of humanity, science must prevail—and it will. Biomedical knowledge will grow. Our ability to treat and prevent disease—and care for patients—will continue to improve.”

Master’s program graduates celebrate their achievements at the 2025 Commencement Ceremony.

David Sandman, PhD, President and Chief Executive Officer of the New York Health Foundation, gave the Commencement address and received an honorary Doctor of Science degree for his lifelong visionary commitment to transforming the health and well-being of New Yorkers and marginalized people in New York and around the globe.

Dr. Sandman reflected on past health crises—including AIDS and the COVID-19 pandemic—and discussed the inequities in health care that remain entrenched in communities today.

“Right now, we are in upper Manhattan, but we can ride just a few subway stops in either direction, and it’s as if you are on different planets, with big differences in health status and life expectancy,” he said. “We have some the best academic medical centers in the world, including Mount Sinai. People come from all over the globe to get care here, but it’s also true that you can live right in the shadow of one of these miraculous places and be almost completely shut out of the health care system.”

Yet, he told the graduates, “I have faith that, together, we will keep fighting for what is right, no matter how strong the current headwinds might be.”

Then, he relayed what he called his “common-sense advice,” telling graduates: “First, dream big. Aim high, but keep your feet on the ground. Do things that are both ambitious and achievable. Second, be fearless, but not reckless—there is a big difference. Third, remember it’s all about people in the end.”

“These are hard times for public health,” he said. “We really need you. We need your brains. We need your creativity. We need your passion, and your compassion. I wish you all great success.”

Student speaker Pamela Ming Ern Toh

Student speaker Pamela Ming Ern Toh, who earned a Master of Science in Biomedical Science, galvanized her classmates.

“You, my friends, are the ones who did the work,” she said. “You are the ones who took the steps, who overcame the challenges. You pursued, and persisted, and, my friends, you prevailed. Look at all the things you know now that you didn’t know before, all the things you can do now that you couldn’t do before.

“Let every problem you have solved be a mark of your creativity. Let every challenge overcome [be] a testament to your resilience. Let every failure [be] a mark of hope and bravery, because you wanted something and took a risk, and learned a lesson.

“Despite the forces against science at the moment, and the injustices we are witnessing every day, I hope we can continue to be moved toward action over apathy, to be guided more by inspiration than fear, to continue showing up for the communities we serve, and to stick around to lift others up, the way we have been lifted up.

“Your futures are bright because of the light inside yourselves,” she said. “Nobody gave you your work ethic; nobody gave you your tenacity. Those traits are yours and they are precious. So when uncertainty makes it hard to know what steps to take, as inventor Simone Giertz said: ‘Remember, you are good at trying hard, and you are good at trying different. And between those two things, there will always be a way forward.’”

Click below for a celebratory slideshow of graduates.

Meet six graduates from Mount Sinai’s master’s programs and learn more about their experiences

Mount Sinai Ranked a Global Leader in Health Care Research

Updated on Jul 2, 2025 | Featured, Research, School

Thomas Marron, MD, PhD, Professor of Immunology and Immunotherapy at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (left), and Miriam Merad, MD, PhD, Mount Sinai Professor in Cancer Immunology (right), at an immunology lab with researchers.

Each year, the Nature Index—a database produced by academic publisher Springer Nature that tracks research output—puts out a ranking list of leading institutions, organizations, and corporations with publications in prestigious journals.

In the Nature Index 2025 Research Leaders list released in June, the Mount Sinai Health System earned top marks: among health care institutions in the United States and North America, it was No. 5 for its research output. When compared against health care institutions around the world, Mount Sinai ranked sixth.

“These rankings are a reflection of the spectacular success that we have had in building innovative research programs at Mount Sinai,” said Eric J. Nestler, MD, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer of the Mount Sinai Health System and Interim Dean of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. In recent years, the Health System and the Icahn School have launched several new departments, institutes, centers, and programs in key areas of biomedicine and health care delivery, he noted.

The ranking is based on a score that takes into account the number of published papers in a defined list of prestigious journals, as well as contributing authors’ share of the papers. Mount Sinai was the only health care institution among the top 10 to have improved its adjusted share score in this year’s ranking from the previous year.

Who came in top? Click to see the full rankings.

Attaining that ranking is no small feat, considering Mount Sinai researchers focus only on a narrow scope of topics within health and life sciences, and do not produce research in other areas, including engineering, energy sciences, and astronomy.

As U.S. research institutions enter a period of funding uncertainty, staying a leader will take boldness and creativity, and Mount Sinai’s ability to respond with unusual nimbleness to opportunities as they arise will certainly help, said Dr. Nestler. “We have formulated a new strategic plan for research that will guide our continued growth, development, and leadership over the next 5 to 10 years,” he said.

Curious about where Mount Sinai shone in research? Take a look at the tables below, which showcase the journals Mount Sinai researchers had authored most papers in, as well as leading research topics.

Top five journals Mount Sinai published in during 2024
Leading research topics for Mount Sinai in 2024
Number Publication name Article count
1 Nature Communications 96
2 Nature 37
3 Journal of the American College of Cardiology 37
4 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 30
5 Nature Medicine 21
Number Research topic Article count
1 Clinical sciences 165
2 Oncology and carcinogenesis 120
3 Cardiovascular medicine and hematology 85
4 Neurosciences 41
5 Nutrition and dietetics 37

Stories Behind the Science: Dennis S. Charney, MD, and Psychiatry

Updated on Jun 25, 2025 | Featured, Psychiatry, Research, School

Stories Behind the Science: Dennis S. Charney, MD, and Psychiatry

Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, created a legacy by serving as Dean for 18 years—one of the longest tenures of any medical school dean in the United States. His research career has been just as illustrious over the decades.

Rooted in psychiatry, pharmacology, and neurobiology, Dr. Charney’s research has resulted in treatment breakthroughs for depression, enhanced medical and scientific understanding, and led to two U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved therapies. He has published more than 800 articles, which have been cited more than 198,000 times, according to Google Scholar, and was elected to the prestigious National Academy of Medicine in 2000.

To read more about Dr. Charney’s career timeline, click here

One of his biggest research milestones was discovering that ketamine can be used as a fast-acting antidepressant, offering a useful alternative for patients who do not respond well to conventional therapies. However, pursuing that discovery was not easy amid societal stigma at the time.

“We were looked at like we were pursuing a PCP study or something,” said Dr. Charney, referring to the recreational street drug. “But we knew we had something big on our hands. We were on the verge of discovering something that could change the lives of patients, and we were very motivated. We weren’t scared, and we went about doing it the right way.”

In addition to discovering the antidepressive effects of ketamine, Dr. Charney is known for his work on the science of resilience, and for his role in the first FDA-approved digital therapeutic for depression.

Read more below about the decades of Dr. Charney’s research efforts, and what it was like being at the frontier.

The Beginnings:
A Focus on Bringing
Bench to Bedside

A young Dr. Charney (right) with mentor and collaborator George Heninger, MD (left), photo taken in 1996.

In the early 1980s, working at the Yale School of Medicine in conjunction with the Connecticut Mental Health Center, Dr. Charney was focused on understanding the pathophysiology of serious forms of depression, along with panic and anxiety disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

“We wanted to develop better treatments for these conditions,” said Dr. Charney.

At the time, the neurotransmitters serotonin and norepinephrine were known to be involved in some psychiatric conditions, and Dr. Charney and his team members were developing methods of examining those relationships closely.

“It’s fair to say we developed, at that time, more sophisticated ways of studying those neurotransmitters,” he said, adding, “although they’re probably not considered sophisticated today.”

Those efforts led to the study of yohimbine, an alkaloid of the bark of the yohimbe tree, which revealed that excessive norepinephrine function was involved in panic disorder and PTSD (Arch Gen Psychiatry, 1984, now JAMA Psychiatry).

“That study was a great example of a combination of going from the lab to studying patients,” he said.

While a number of serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors were emerging at the time, Dr. Charney’s findings were showing that targeting these neurotransmitters alone were insufficient to move the needle on treating depression.

“However, I felt that just looking at serotonin and norepinephrine couldn’t tell us the whole story about depression,” said Dr. Charney.

Finding Alternatives: Ketamine and the Glutamate System

Starting in the late 1980s, the treatment of major depression moved toward using selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs). However, there was still a notable proportion of patients for whom these drugs were not effective enough.

“In patients who were not doing better, we tried to augment the serotonin system,” said Dr. Charney. “It didn’t work.”

“With all the studies we’ve been doing in depression, we thought monoamines told only part of the story in depression,” he noted, referring to the class of neurotransmitters that includes dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine. “So we thought maybe there is another system that was, in part, regulated by the monoamines, but would be more fundamentally involved in depression.”

In the early 1990s, Dr. Charney and his collaborator at Yale, John H. Krystal, MD, began looking for a pathway affected by monoamine neurotransmitters, and through a logical progression of studies, focused on the glutamate system and, soon, on ketamine—an anesthetic with known effects on the glutamate system. This work yielded some of Dr. Charney’s top-cited papers (Arch Gen Psych, 1994).

In the mid-1990s, Drs. Charney and Krystal did a series of studies on ketamine, first on healthy volunteers and then a small trial on seven patients with major depressive disorder (MDD). The results were shocking.

“The patients got better in a few hours,” recalled Dr. Charney. “I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ As an investigator watching it, it was like a miracle.”

Dennis S. Charney, MD (right) with John H. Krystal, MD (left), being awarded the Colvin Prize at the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation Gala, November 2019.

Drs. Charney and Krystal published their findings (Biological Psychiatry, 2000), but faced skepticism from both the scientific and general communities. The study was dismissed as not being replicable, and additionally for the fact that the researchers were working with a compound that was stigmatized for its recreational use.

When Dr. Charney went to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in 2000, he sought to repeat history. “Nobody believed it, nobody was trying to replicate it, so we’re going to have to do it ourselves at NIMH,” he said. “In the second study, we replicated it dead on.”

At the end of his stint at NIMH in 2004, Dr. Charney brought his findings with him to the Mount Sinai School of Medicine (now the Icahn School of Medicine), where he began his career as Dean of Research.

Dr. Charney is a named co-inventor on patents filed by Mount Sinai relating to the use of ketamine for the treatment of treatment-resistant depression and suicidal ideation. Mount Sinai licensed those patents to Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc. for the development of SPRAVATO (esketamine) by Janssen, which received FDA approval in 2019. Its approval makes it the first antidepressant of its kind to target N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors—introducing the first new class of antidepressant drugs since the 1950s.

A Prescription for Resilience

In the 1990s, Dr. Charney turned his focus to studying trauma and PTSD, in collaboration with Steven M. Southwick, MD. That journey led to some of Dr. Charney’s most impactful work on understanding resilience.

“My buddy, Steve Southwick, was really involved in that work,” said Dr. Charney of his colleague, who passed away in 2022. “He’s on a lot of my papers, and he became my closest friend.” The ties between the two researchers dated back to before the 1980s.

Drs. Charney and Southwick tackled understanding PTSD from all angles—psychological, biological, social, pharmacological. Then, they had an idea to take their findings a step further to help patients.

“Back then, we thought, ‘If we studied people who were resilient—people who had been traumatized but didn’t develop PTSD—perhaps we could learn something from it, and apply those lessons to help patients with PTSD,” said Dr. Charney. “That’s how I ended up studying resilience for over 30 years.”

Dr. Charney’s paper on resilience (Am. J. Psychiatry, 2004) became one of his most cited works after his publications on ketamine in depression. He and Dr. Southwick then published a book called “Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life’s Greatest Challenges” (Cambridge University Press, 2012).

The book, now in its third edition, is rooted in the hundreds of interviews Drs. Charney and Southwick did with people who faced challenges in their lives—including prisoners of war and survivors of sexual and physical abuse. It includes a “prescription” for being resilient—10 steps that people can take to overcome life challenges.

From left to right, Dennis S. Charney, MD; Steven M. Southwick, MD; and John H. Krystal, MD.

“Not just for others—our research on resilience was also a personal journey,” said Dr. Charney. In 2016, Dr. Charney survived being shot, and he credits the lessons on resilience for overcoming that ordeal.

Those resilient factors also helped Dr. Charney navigate the stresses of the COVID-19 pandemic, and he established the Center for Stress, Resilience and Personal Growth in 2020 to extend that support to Mount Sinai staff.

Through Boldness,
a New Therapy Emerges

 

In 2024, the FDA approved a new class of treatments: digital therapeutics. In that class was REJOYN, a prescription smartphone app by Click Therapeutics and Otsuka Precision Health for major depressive disorder. That novel treatment had its beginnings through Dr. Charney’s research.

“This goes back to when we were interviewing prisoners of war who were subject to solitary confinement in Vietnam,” said Dr. Charney. “Some of them said that when they were in solitary, all they could do was think.”

A Life Magazine cover from 1967, featuring a prisoner of war from the Vietnam War, whom Drs. Charney and Southwick had interviewed as part of their research on resilience. That body of work eventually led to the development of Rejoyn, a digital app for treating depression.

Over time, some of those individuals reported developing cognitive capacities they never had before, such as being able to do complex multiplication with just their mind. “To me, that suggested evidence of neuroplasticity, where you can change the chemistry and circuits in your brain through repeated tasks,” said Dr. Charney.

With that inspiration, Dr. Charney pondered whether neuroplasticity could be tapped to “correct” the brain circuitry of patients with depression and improve their symptoms.

“We knew something about the circuits of depression that involved the prefrontal cortex and subcortical regions, like the amygdala. What if we developed a task that involved both of those regions?” he said.

Brian Iacoviello, PhD, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine, and Dr. Charney developed the Emotional Faces Memory Task and ran two randomized controlled studies. The findings (npj Digital Medicine, 2018) showed that patients who did the task repeatedly had improvements in their depression symptoms.

Drs. Charney and Iacoviello are co-inventors of patents filed by Mount Sinai for the Emotional Faces Memory Task intervention for the treatment of depression and related psychiatric disorders. Mount Sinai licensed the patents to Click Therapeutics, Inc. and Otsuka Precision Health for the development of REJOYN, a digital treatment for depression. REJOYN received FDA clearance in 2024, as the first prescription adjunctive treatment for adults with MDD.

“Like with ketamine for depression, I see going for a digital approach for depression as a story about being bold,” said Dr. Charney. “Each time, it was a realization that our current understanding isn’t enough, and it’s worth it to take a different approach.”

With more than 50 patents, and a slew of scientific achievements, what’s next for Dr. Charney? “Resilience will continue to inspire me after I step down as Dean,” he said.

Dr. Charney steps down as Dean from the Icahn School of Medicine on Monday, June 30, and Eric J. Nestler, MD, PhD, has been appointed Interim Dean.

“I’m going to need to figure out how to be inspired next. I’m going to continue my research in depression and resilience,” said Dr. Charney. One option that’s underway is working on the fourth edition of his book on resilience. But there might be other bold options out there too.

“I have two therapies on the market,” said Dr. Charney. “My goal is to discover a third. I’m not sure if anyone in psychiatry has ever done that.”

Dennis S. Charney, MD, at Commencement: A Final Address, a Career to Remember

Updated on Jun 25, 2025 | Featured, School

Dennis S. Charney, MD, at Commencement: A Final Address, a Career to Remember

Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, giving the Commencement address

In the 18 years that Dennis S. Charney, MD, has served as the Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, he has often applauded the achievements of graduating students during Commencement while calling upon them to be resilient during difficult times.

On Thursday, May 8, at the School’s 56th Commencement, the message of resilience resounded, but this time more aptly so—this was Dr. Charney’s last Commencement speech, and he reflected upon how staying the course in the face of challenges rang true throughout his life and career.

“Our school has faced hurdles along the way,” Dr. Charney told the crowd at David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center. He described the institution having to overcome its financial difficulties in 2003, navigating the Great Recession in 2008, Hurricane Sandy in 2012, and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

“Yes, these are challenges, but we have prevailed in the past. And we shall prevail again,” he said.

In his final address as Dean, Dr. Charney imparted some wisdom to the Class of 2025. Here’s a look at the themes he brought up.

“Success is not final. Failure is not fatal.”

Even as students, the Class of 2025 has made an impact. They have made important scientific discoveries about human disease, been passionate advocates for human rights, and shown potential to be exceptional physicians and scientists, said Dr. Charney.

However, the challenges do not stop once they leave the Icahn School. “You will face situations when you cannot heal a patient, or worse, where you cannot save a patient,” he said. “You will experience disappointment along the way as you try to make scientific breakthroughs. You may even experience skepticism and ridicule.”

Staying resilient in the face of challenges will be key. “What matters is how you meet disappointment and failure—which is far more important than how you embrace success,” said Dr. Charney. “Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts,” he said, quoting Winston Churchill.

Keeping the cup full

Core to being resilient is to be kind, and care for oneself, said Dr. Charney.

“You cannot pour from an empty cup,” he noted. “So, I want to remind you to constantly build your resilience skills to keep your cup full.”

Tapping insights from his own research, he shared the following tips: maintain a positive attitude; allow yourself to reappraise highly stressful, even traumatic, events, and put them in proper perspective; nurture your supportive social network; seek role models; take care of your physical well-being; and embrace your personal moral compass.

These mantras have helped him navigate not just professional challenges, but personal ones, said Dr. Charney. These include having lost a grandchild to a rare genetic disorder, surviving an attempted murder, and overcoming cancer.

“Like all of us, life will throw you curveballs,” he said, paraphrasing a quote from Ernest Hemingway. “But I know you will be strong in the broken places.”

Dr. Charney steps down as Dean on Monday, June 30, and was honored for his legacy of leadership at Mount Sinai’s 40th annual Crystal Party, held Tuesday, May 20, at Pier Sixty, Chelsea Piers. To learn more about the event, click here. Also, in recognition of his contributions, he received an honorary Doctor of Science from the Icahn School of Medicine during Commencement.

Here’s a look at Dr. Charney’s career and highlights, from early medical training to leading the Icahn School to where it is today.

Dennis S. Charney, MD (right), received a Doctor of Science from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He was hooded by Alexander Charney, MD, PhD (second from right), and the honorary degree citation was given by Kenneth L. Davis, MD (second from left). Eric J. Nestler, MD, PhD (left), gave the introductions.

Dr. Charney is also well-known for his scientific research. Did you know that he discovered ketamine could be used as a fast-acting antidepressant?

To read more about Dr. Charney’s research highlights, click here

1977

Received MD degree from Penn State College of Medicine

1978-1981

Psychiatry residency at Yale School of Medicine

1981-2000

Rose from Assistant Professor of Psychiatry to tenured Professor of Psychiatry at Yale

2000

Elected as member of the National Academy of Medicine

2000-2004

Chief of the Mood and Anxiety Disorder Research Program and Experimental Therapeutics and Pathophysiology Program at the National Institute of Mental Health

2004-2005

Dean of Research at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine (now Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai)

2006-2007

Dean for Academic and Scientific Affairs at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine

2007-present

Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs of The Mount Sinai Medical Center (later the Mount Sinai Health System)

2013-present

President for Academic Affairs of the Mount Sinai Health System

Empowering Education At the Icahn School of Medicine With AI

Updated on Jun 10, 2025 | Featured, School

Active medical and graduate students at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, along with some teaching and research faculty, now have comprehensive access to ChatGPT through the School. Compared to free users, they’ll be able to make more complex queries with fewer limits, especially regarding science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, and benefit from enhanced privacy protections.

The Icahn School announced, in May, that it has inked an agreement with OpenAI for an educational license—dubbed ChatGPT Edu—of OpenAI’s products. While a number of universities are using ChatGPT Edu, this agreement makes the Icahn School the first medical school partner in the nation, according to OpenAI.

“At Mount Sinai, we believe it’s our responsibility not just to adopt emerging technologies, but to do so with care, purpose, and a strong commitment to equity and academic integrity,” said David C. Thomas, MD, MHPE, Dean for Medical Education at the Icahn School of Medicine.

“This initiative is the result of a close collaboration between the Scholarly and Research Technologies team, the Department of Medical Education, Graduate School leadership, and OpenAI,” says Marta Filizola, PhD, Dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. She added that the Levy Library team has developed educational content and workshops to support students, faculty, and staff in effectively using ChatGPT Edu and integrating AI into academic learning, research, and scholarly activities.

What’s contained in this license, and what do those features spell for our users? Read on to learn more.

Access to advanced models

OpenAI offers a range of models to handle different types of tasks. Through the educational license, users can access them via ChatGPT.com. The following bullets describe the models available to Icahn School of Medicine users, and the table below summarizes specifications at a glance. The following information is current as of June 2025, but may change in the future as OpenAI models can change rapidly.

  • GPT-4o: This is OpenAI’s flagship model, the one most consumers are familiar with, and starts up by default on the ChatGPT Edu license. This model of reasoning is grounded in unsupervised learning, and is capable of processing text, images, file uploads, and voice for input and output. Tasks this model is good at include summarizing meetings into actionable notes, drafting copy, proofreading, and coming up with new angles and ideas.
  • GPT-4.1, GPT-4.1-mini: A specialized model for coding and tasks that need precise, step-by-step instructions. This model is helpful for front-end coding, such as developing web applications, debugging, explaining, and improving code, or comparing long reports while focusing on specific factors. The mini version trades off processing capability for speed, and is ideal for people who need quicker answers for simpler problems about coding.
  • The o-series: These are advanced models of reasoning, designed to deliberate and produce a “chain of thought” before generating answers. Its deliberation process is supposed to provide better-quality output, with lower levels of hallucinations. It is described as being “ideal for complex queries requiring multifaceted analysis and whose answers may not be immediately obvious.”
    • o3: With a knowledge base specialization in STEM, this model is suited for advanced math, science, and coding tasks, detailed analysis, devising strategy, and visual reasoning.
    • o4-mini, o4-mini-high: The model to use if one needs the STEM expertise and deliberative reasoning, but quicker answers. The o4-mini model can provide quick summaries of scientific articles or extract key points from an Excel spreadsheet, and the o4-mini-high model is capable of more complex tasks, albeit more narrowly than the o3 model in terms of subject expertise.
  • GPT-4.5: Intended to serve as a bridge between GPT-4o and its eventual successor, GPT-5, this model draws from both unsupervised learning and the “chain of thought” reasoning that the o-series models use. It was touted as being fine-tuned to understand human needs and intents better, and for better collaboration with the user. This model will be phased out later this year, in favor of GPT-4.1, as announced by OpenAI.
Model name GPT-4o GPT-4.1, GPT-4.1-mini o3 o4-mini, o4-mini-high GPT-4.5
Initial launch May 2024 April 2025 January 2025 April 2025 February 2025
Ideal for Everyday tasks, brainstorming, summarizing, search, and creative content Precise coding, close instruction following Complex, multistep tasks, has a specialization in STEM topics Quick queries relating to STEM, programming, or visual data extraction Creative tasks, clear communication, brainstorming
Recency of information (as of March 2025) October 2023 June 2024 December 2024 May 2024 January 2025
Request limits for ChatGPT Edu users Unlimited GPT-4.1: 500/3 hours; GPT-4.1-mini: unlimited 100/week o4-mini: 300/day; o4-mini-high: 100/day 20/week

Privacy, data safety, and ethics guardrails

Personal health information, sensitive information, and student data are safeguarded via a data privacy and business associate agreement between the Icahn School and OpenAI.

This means that no data, prompts, or responses will be used to train OpenAI’s models when using a ChatGPT Edu account through the Icahn School. The guardrails implementation was guided by Research and Education leadership, Cybersecurity, Compliance, and Legal teams, alongside the AI Steering Committee on Teaching, Learning, and Discoveries.

Community sharing of custom-build applications

Users can create customized resources for specific tasks—such as a flash card study guide for biochemistry—known as GPTs. Icahn School of Medicine ChatGPT Edu users can share the GPTs they’ve built on the Explore GPTs community page with other users, as well as access OpenAI’s official GPTs. However, they can’t access GPTs built by public users. This ensures a safe and secure space that supports collaboration while following Mount Sinai’s security standards.

“ChatGPT is just a great way to establish the baseline for what I want to say how I want to approach the patient,” said Joy Jiang, MD/PhD student, about how she used the AI tool during a mock patient simulation exam, in an interview segment on CBS Saturday Morning.

Watch how various students from the Icahn School of Medicine are using ChatGPT to bring their education to the next level in the segment below.

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