Beyond the Scalpel, Learning About Humanities in Medicine

Updated on Oct 9, 2025 | Featured, School

From left to right: Alexis Hatch, MD student and organizer of the Two-Minute Talks in the Medical Humanities; Suzanne Garfinkle, MD, Director, Academy for Medicine and the Humanities; and Jacob Appel, MD, JD, MPH, Assistant Director, Academy for Medicine and the Humanities.

Training to be a researcher or physician at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai isn’t just about excellence at the bench and bedside but also understanding the humanity that underpins these callings.

Thus exists the field of “medical humanities,” an area of study that draws upon the arts, the humanities, and the social sciences to enhance medical practice. On Thursday, September 18, members from the Mount Sinai Health System were invited to share and learn about topics where humanities and medicine intersect at the inaugural Two-Minute Talks in Medical Humanities.

With just 120 seconds each, 18 presenters—spanning faculty members, medical students, master’s students, and PhD students—covered topics they were passionate about: Where did Leonardo da Vinci think the soul was located in the body? How has the medical stretcher evolved through time? Can listening to Indian classical music have therapeutic effects?

“As a student admitted through Flex Med, a program designed to bring students in the humanities into medicine, I know firsthand how valuable a humanities background is when learning how to be a compassionate physician,” said Alexis Hatch, a second-year MD student, who came up with the idea for the event.

The inspiration for Two-Minute Talks came from Ms. Hatch’s time as an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, where she participated in a similar event. “When I started as a student ambassador for the Academy for Medicine and the Humanities at the Icahn School of Medicine, I immediately thought a similar event would draw students and faculty to share their interests outside of clinical medicine or research,” she said. “I knew the interest was there—every time I shadowed a physician, they seemed much more interested in discussing my history degree than any scientific research I did!”

“We loved the idea because you can teach an audience a great deal in two minutes, and the time limit made each talk extra dynamic,” said Suzanne Garfinkle, MD, Founding Director of the Academy, and Assistant Clinical Professor of Medical Education. “The event offered a very special window into participants’ creative and scholarly passions. I could see these two-minute lectures developing into a real Mount Sinai tradition.”

Take a look at what some of the presenters talked about during the event in the slideshow below.

Alexis Hatch, medical student and organizer of the Two-Minute Talks in Medical Humanities, gave a presentation on things that exist today thanks to the existence of tuberculosis.
In addition to tuberculosis camp towns—the roots of places like Colorado Springs, Colorado, and Pasadena, California—Stetson hats and the fictional character Sherlock Holmes had origins relating to the disease. For the latter, author and physician Arthur Conan Doyle based Sherlock Holmes’ deductive reasoning traits on the methods he used to debunk a failed tuberculosis remedy at the time.
Jeffrey Laitman, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Medical Education, talked about Leonardo da Vinci’s search for where the soul is located in the body anatomically.
Leonardo da Vinci, said Dr. Laitman, was obsessed with the human skull, and searched for the “senso commune,” which he thought was where the soul was located. The polymath thought he had found its location: at the floor of the third ventricle, just superior to the pituitary fossa.
Vasundhara Singh, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine (Hospital Medicine), and Medical Education, elaborated on the history of the medical stretcher. “Why do I care about stretchers? Because I spend half my time bent over them,” she said.
The earliest stretchers date back more than 150 years, and were also called “ambulances.” Over the decades, stretcher designs were informed by wartime constraints for space, and eventually paid more attention to comfort and materials, said Dr. Singh.
Some spiritual healing retreats in “hot igloos” in Mexico promoted on social media are simply co-opted traditional birthing huts, said Jaime Gonzalez, medical student, who talked about indigenous Mexican birthing practices.
Giving birth in hot houses is still practiced in parts of Mexico. Culture and tourism might have been intertwined, but it important for tourists to be mindful of the origins of some of these practices, said Mr. Gonzalez.
Enna Selmanovic, PhD candidate, spoke about brain donation law and representation in the United States.
Brain donation has the potential to greatly advance understanding of human disease but is complicated by law, culture, family dynamics, and ethics. “These choices shape the stories that medicine tells us about disease, and whose medical history is left out,” said Ms. Selmanovic.

Of Integrity, Persistence, Leadership, and Responsibility: Mount Sinai Graduate Students Start Their Science Training

Updated on Sep 19, 2025 | Featured, School

Alec C. Kimmelman, MD, PhD, keynote speaker at Mount Sinai’s Lab Coat ceremony

Alec C. Kimmelman, MD, PhD, stepped to the podium as the keynote speaker at Mount Sinai’s Lab Coat Ceremony, the celebratory start of academic research and training for the newest PhD and MD-PhD students. He recalled how he had felt a few decades earlier when he was a Mount Sinai student. “I remember sitting in the same place,” he said, “and I was wondering what the future would hold.”

For Dr. Kimmelman, who received both his MD and PhD degrees at Mount Sinai in 2003, it would be a future of extraordinary successes—starting with his own research thesis, which set the theme for his career investigating RAS-gene-driven cancers. As a student, he would also identify and characterize a novel member of the RAS family of oncogenes, and publish three first-author papers on this topic. Today, Dr Kimmelman, one of the world’s foremost authorities on the biology of pancreatic cancers, is the newly named Dean of the NYU Grossman School of Medicine and Chief Executive Officer of NYU Langone Health.

“New tools like artificial intelligence may change the scale of discovery but they don’t change its heart,” Dr. Kimmelman told the students. “At its core, science is built on people, and the way we choose to lead each other. When I was a trainee, I didn’t think of myself as a leader in any formal sense. Leadership seems like something reserved for deans or department chairs, but I soon learned that leadership often begins in the lab.” It is where building trust and “other small acts—mentoring, collaborating, encouraging—taught me that leadership is less about hierarchy and more about responsibility,” he said.

Celebrating PhD and MD-PhD students after getting their lab coats.

“Years later, when I was asked to lead a lab, and then a cancer center and, now, a health system, the principles were the same: create an environment where curiosity can thrive, where people support one another, and where integrity is never compromised. The qualities you demonstrate every day at the bench—generosity, persistence, intellectual courage—may one day prepare you for opportunities you cannot yet imagine. Leadership is not something that you wait for a title to give you. It’s something you practice, here and now, in how you approach your science and your colleagues.”

Marta Filizola, PhD, Dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, presided over the ceremony, which was held Thursday, September 4, at Goldwurm Auditorium.

“At Mount Sinai, we continue to advance into frontiers of research that integrate cutting-edge approaches across disciplines, from artificial intelligence and data science, to stem cell biology and regenerative medicine, all aimed at improving human health and quality of life,” she said. “Our students are at the heart of this work, bringing diverse perspectives, creativity, and a relentless drive to push the boundaries of both basic and translational research.” Dr. Filizola is also the Sharon & Frederick A. Klingenstein/Nathan G. Kase, MD Professor of Pharmacological Sciences, Professor of Neuroscience, and Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Human Health.

From left: Sarah E. Millar, PhD, Dean for Academic and Scientific Affairs, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai; Eric J. Nestler, MD, PhD; Alec C. Kimmelman, MD, PhD; and Marta Filizola, PhD, lead the students in reciting the Oath for Doctoral Students.

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, welcomed the students and guests and spoke about the vast advances in health care made possible by science, today’s challenges to scientific inquiry, and, significantly, the need for optimism and new discoveries.

“Advances now occurring in the laboratory and clinic, driven in part by the power of computational and molecular biology and artificial intelligence, and informed by unprecedented volumes of biomedical data,” Dr. Nestler said, “will fundamentally transform the way we understand, diagnose, treat, and prevent disease. We must shout this from the mountaintops.”

However, “We live in a time when some people do question the value of scientific inquiry,” he added. “Efforts to politicize science are most unfortunate. Today, we are seeing an unprecedented assault on the nation’s scientific enterprise.”

Still, “We must remain optimistic,” he urged. “The importance of biomedical research is too strong and too widely held for us to back away, and the biomedical research enterprise is more exciting and promising today than ever before in world history.”

 

Click on the arrows below for a slideshow of faculty and students.

How a Passion for Pharmacology and Addressing Substance Use Disorders Brought an Aspiring Researcher to Mount Sinai

Sep 9, 2025 | Featured, School

Ally Parpounas, MS

Ally Parpounas, MS, is a second-year student in the MD program at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She previously completed the Master of Science in Biomedical Science (MSBS) at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.

It was her decision to attend the MSBS program at Mount Sinai, along with her eventual participation in a number of different programs sparked by her desire to help people in need, that would lead to medical school, which in turn has opened a number of different career pathways.

Ms. Parpounas studied neuroscience at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. and studied abroad at the Danish Institute of Study in Copenhagen, Denmark. While at the Institute, she took a psychopharmacology course that sparked her interest in research. The course taught students how neural circuitry is implicated in various psychiatric conditions. She learned how to redirect it by developing a “pharmacological cocktail” that would minimize both side effects and symptoms.

“This experience unlocked my curiosity about the physiologic mechanisms that underlie disease, and so I  began to consider a career in medicine,” she says. She soon changed her major from psychology to neuroscience.

After completing her undergraduate program in 2020, she took a gap year working at an in-patient acute care psychiatric hospital in Washington D.C. She worked there for a year before deciding that she needed more basic research experience before medical school. A Master of Science in Biomedical Science seemed like a natural next step.

While looking at master’s programs, she noticed Mount Sinai’s MSBS program. She began looking into a few labs to determine what she wanted to study and focus on. She was drawn to the pharmacology research of the Daniel Wacker, PhD lab, where she would eventually be placed. She applied to a few other programs, but the MSBS program at Mount Sinai stood out because of the strong research component. She was also interested in living in New York City because it was close to where she grew up in Peekskill, New York, about an hour north of the city. She started the MSBS program in August 2021.

During her time in the program, she worked in a number of different areas that would eventually help shape her interest in a future career in medicine.

She volunteered and conducted clinical shadowing with the Mount Sinai Human Rights Program, which provides medical and psychological evaluations for people seeking asylum in the United States. The program helps people who are typically victims of human trafficking, political violence, and other difficult circumstances. They use these evaluations and affidavits to assist with asylum cases. She worked as one of the lead clinic managers.

“The program has shown me how we can leverage our roles as clinicians to protect the health and human rights of individuals, in addition to the traditional role providing direct medical care,” she says. “It’s incredible to see the impact you make on someone life beyond just their medical care.”

She also led the graduate school’s mentorship program. Mentors help first year students navigate decisions, such as determining what they want in a lab placement. Her positive experience doing this in her first year inspired her to act as a mentor for other students during her second year.

She was also a clinic manager at the East Harlem Outreach Partnership (EHHOP), the Icahn School of Medicine’s student-run, physician-supervised, free clinic. She has continued this work while in medical school as a part of the Access to Care Team, which helps patients gain access to medicines, healthy food, and legal assistance. She  is now on ACT team leadership as the ACT Resources Chair.

She believes that the opportunities she had to get clinical experience helped shape her drive towards medical school.

“My previous experiences helped inform my direction for medical school and the type of work I want to do when I become a physician,” she says. “My training in the MSBS program helped make me a more thoughtful and intentional applicant to medical school.”

“The program has shown me how we can leverage our roles as clinicians to protect the health and human rights of individuals, in addition to the traditional role providing direct medical care. It’s incredible to see the impact you make on someone life beyond just their medical care.”

The Graduate School provides support to help master’s students seeking to continue their education through PhD or MD programs. Ms. Parpounas  worked with a student advisor in the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) that helped with her medical school application process. The student advisors provide services such as creating an MCAT study schedule and essay review and revision help. This support was available as needed, but it was up to Ally to schedule meetings and manage the process.

“When I was studying for the MCAT exam, my friends in the medical school and the MSAP advisors (the MSTP student advisors) recommended study plans and resources, like Anki flashcards, that were more similar to what people use in medical school vs undergrad. I think studying in this way helped me get an MCAT score that I was proud of and made me feel more ready for the academic rigor of medical school,” she says.

She completed the MSBS program in June 2023 and received the Award for Excellence in Biomedical Science Leadership and Service Award for her volunteering and mentorship. She then applied to a few MD programs and was accepted to the program at the Icahn School of Medicine. Ally appreciates being in the first class to experience the new ASCEND curriculum, which was introduced in the fall of 2024. The objective of this curriculum revamp is to provide a personalized and active-learning approach aimed at transforming the way knowledge and clinical experiences are acquired.

Upon completing her MD, Ally is interested in a few different paths in medicine. She is currently working with Leah Habersham, MD, Director of the Bridge Program at Mount Sinai. The Bridge Program is an integrated clinic providing women’s health care, including obstetrics and gynecology, along with care for substance use disorder.

These experiences at Mount Sinai have sparked an interest in a wide variety of areas, including specialties such as obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, and internal medicine. But she believes it’s important to keep an open mind and will explore more once she begins her clinical clerkships in February 2026.

Learn more about the MSBS Program
Learn more about the MD program

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

Jul 18, 2025 | School

After earning dual degrees in Computer Science and Neurobiology from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2022, Karan Lingineni  moved to Seattle and worked at Amazon’s Alexa AI division, then later at Kyndryl (formerly IBM Cloud Consulting), where he served as a Cloud Architect while completing his graduate studies at Mount Sinai.

In the following Q&A, Mr. Lingineni reveals how he merged his interests in technology, computer science, and precision medicine to launch a most unique academic and career path.

What is your background?

My career has centered on the intersection of Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) and cloud infrastructure with medical research, spanning domains such as oncology, cardiology, and behavioral neuroscience. I’ve previously held positions at NVIDIA and Roche Pharmaceuticals, where I contributed to non-small cell lung cancer tumor classification pipelines and time-series anomaly detection for medical IoT (Internet of Things) devices.

What first attracted you to this field?

In high school, I discovered a deep passion for technology and computer science, but I often encountered advice to “pick one.” Even then, I believed computer science could become a powerful tool to transform patient care.

It wasn’t until  internships at NVIDIA, Roche, and Dell Technologies that I saw how fields such as bioinformatics, predictive analytics, and precision medicine were already reshaping health care. These experiences helped me visualize a career where I could integrate both disciplines meaningfully. After spending time in industry sharpening my engineering skills, I sought a program that could help me develop research fluency while staying true to my interdisciplinary background—and Mount Sinai was the perfect fit.

Who were your mentors and what are some of your research highlights?

I started two research collaborations: with Michelle Mendiolaza, a student who received her PhD in May and was in the Laurie Keefer, PhD, lab, focusing on inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and resilience, and Muhammad Parvaz, PhD, at the Motivational and Affective Psychopathology (MAP) Lab, which investigates cognitive-affective processes in substance use disorders.With Dr. Mendiolaza’s mentorship, I assisted in the development and validation of a disease-specific resilience measure for IBD patients—RISE-IBD—which we recently published in BMC Gastroenterology. At the MAP Lab, under the guidance of Dr. Parvaz and Riaz Shaik, MBBS, PhD, I was able to merge my technical background with research in addiction neuroscience. My thesis project explored the development of a generative AI-powered companion platform designed to support craving regulation in patients with cocaine-use disorder—a novel approach integrating cognitive-behavioral therapy with real-time ecological momentary assessment (ProQuest).

Why Mount Sinai—what, specifically, are the strong points of the program?

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.

The curriculum is incredibly well-rounded. Dr. Ostertag’s [Gary Ostertag, PhD] bioethics seminar is essential for understanding the evolving societal responsibilities of modern medicine. Dr. Sacks [Henry Sacks, MD, PhD] and Dr. Gabrilove’s [Janice L. Gabrilove, MD] clinical research methods course offers an excellent foundation for designing impactful studies. Dr. Doucette’s [John Doucette, PhD] biostatistics lectures are rigorous yet approachable, and Dr. Swan’s [Judith Swan, PhD] workshops in scientific writing and grant strategy helped elevate the quality and clarity of my own proposals. I also appreciated how accessible opportunities were—from joining labs to getting involved in new initiatives—and  I always felt supported in exploring ideas and connecting with mentors.

Also, how did you excel at Mount Sinai?

I pursued my passion for innovation and entrepreneurship through the THRIVE Fellowship, (Mount Sinai’s Targeted Healthcare Innovation Fellowship). This program provided a unique platform to collaborate with interdisciplinary teams, combining clinical insights with technological solutions to address pressing health care challenges. During the fellowship, I co-founded EveHealth.AI with MD student Ryan Afreen and PhD student Nancy Zhang, an initiative aimed at enhancing the diagnosis of Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) using AI-driven digital biomarkers. Our team developed a prototype that leverages patient health data to improve early detection and diagnosis of PCOS. Our efforts were recognized when EveHealth.AI was selected as a winner at the Mount Sinai Innovation Awards, highlighting the potential impact of our solution in women’s health.

These opportunities allowed me to apply my interdisciplinary background in computer science and medicine to real-world problems, fostering a deeper understanding of the innovation process from concept to potential commercialization. This experience honed my skills in health care technology development and reinforced my commitment to leveraging technology for improved patient outcomes.

What’s Next?

This fall, I’ll be attending UT Southwestern in Dallas as a medical student. I plan to continue collaborating with Dr. Parvaz and the MAP Lab remotely while I explore career paths in either cardiology or psychiatry. No matter the specialty, I’m committed to bringing an engineering mindset and research-driven approach to clinical care.

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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

Jul 18, 2025 | School

Nothing fascinates Gvantsa Pantsulaia, MSBS, more than learning how immune cells  communicate, recognize threats, and coordinate responses, which she describes as “watching a movie unfold.” In the following Q&A, she discusses the experiences that shaped her and how she excelled in Mount Sinai’s program.

What is your academic and career background?

I attended CUNY Hunter College in the heart of New York City. After college, I found myself in an unusual but incredibly formative combination: teaching science by day and working as a research associate in the lab of Joshua Brody, MD, Director of the Lymphoma Immunotherapy Program at The Tisch Cancer Institute at Mount Sinai. I got swept up in the world of immunotherapy: CAR-T cells, in situ vaccines, virotherapy, and bispecific antibodies. I loved every second of it and knew I wanted to deepen my understanding of the field and make impactful contributions at the intersection of science and medicine.

What first attracted you to this field?

 Science captivated me before medicine. In my biology courses at Hunter, I was completely taken by immunology. It was like watching a movie unfold, the way immune cells communicate, recognize threats, and coordinate responses fascinated me. In an immunotherapy course, I realized that this was where I wanted to focus. To build on this foundation, I then took graduate-level lab-intensive courses at Hunter, including microscopy, which gave me practical skills I carried into research.

My time in the Brody Lab, first as a research associate and then as a student, allowed me to apply what I had learned and deepen it. Working alongside experts in the field, I was inspired by their relentless energy and desire to understand why things work and their drive to turn those insights into therapies. That mindset continues to motivate me.

Who were your mentors and what are some of your research highlights?

Under Dr. Brody’s guidance, I contributed to projects aimed at optimizing T-cell priming for anti-tumor responses, including the development of bispecific antibody platforms and exploration of BTK inhibitors to enhance immunotherapy. My mentors in the Brody Lab, and across Mount Sinai, have championed me and helped me grow not only as a scientist but also as a leader and collaborator. Some highlights include:

  • Co-authoring multiple publications, including first-author work in Methods in Cell Biology and Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer.
  • Presenting at leading conferences, such as the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer and the Cancer for Immunotherapy Conference (CICON) with recognition as a Top 100 Abstract, and receiving a Top Presentation award at Mount Sinai’s annual MSBS Research Symposium.
  • Receiving the 2025 Award for Scientific Excellence in Biomedical Science at Commencement.

Why Mount Sinai—what are the strong points of the program?

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. I had the chance to meet one-on-one with faculty from areas such as drug discovery, genomics, global mental health, and immunology—experiences that shaped how I think about medicine holistically.

Experts in the field have opened up their labs and their time to me and invested in my growth as a scientist and student. In addition, Mount Sinai is not just a research powerhouse, it is also a deeply community-driven place. As a student, I’ve had the chance to be a leader in outreach programs such as the student-run, physician-supervised East Harlem Health Outreach Partnership, Chemo Companions, Story Time/Teen Talk, and MedDOCs, which allowed me to give back to the community, something I deeply value and want to carry over into every aspect of my career.

Any other highlights?

I’ve built a strong research foundation, published multiple papers, and received recognition at national and institutional levels. But more than that, I found a sense of belonging. I’ve made lasting friendships, mentored other students, led projects, and been a part of a collaborative community that has shaped who I am and who I want to be.

What’s Next?

I’m planning to attend a research-focused medical school where I can keep building on the immunotherapy work I’ve been a part of and help develop therapies that move from bench to beside. My goal is to carve out a niche where my curiosity and commitment to community can co-exist. Mount Sinai showed me that this kind of integration is not only possible, but it is where I do my best work.

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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

Jul 18, 2025 | School

Krystine Ferreira, who earned a Master of Science in Epidemiology in 2025 from Mount Sinai’s Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, wanted to further explore the intersectionality of sociology and biomolecular science. In the following Q&A, she discusses how she excelled in the program.

What is your academic / career background?

I received my Bachelor of Science in Biomolecular Science from the New York University Tandon School of Engineering with a minor in Sociology in 2024. At Tandon, I delved into the molecular field and spent many hours in the lab, learning and refining meticulous techniques such as polymerase chain reaction and cell culturing.

What first attracted you to this field?

It was truly my immersion in sociology courses as I completed my minor that attracted me to public health. First, I began thinking about social roles and social groups and the impact these intangible yet persistent features in society have on how we interact and how we have developed. I took a course my senior year, “Sociology of Medicine,” in which we viewed medicine through a lens that I had never focused on before. We discussed cultural health capital, social determinants, as well as the readings of Helena Hansen, MD, PhD; Gil Eyal, PhD; and Paul Starr, PhD, among others. It was through these discussions and lectures that I developed an interest in the intersectionality of sociology and biomolecular science, which to me manifests as epidemiology.

Who were your mentors and what are some of your research highlights?

While at Mount Sinai, I began working with Homero Harari, ScD, Angeline Denouel, PhD, and outreach program coordinator Ana Gonzalez on a project to investigate the health outcomes and experiences of Latina housecleaners in New York City. This experience was unforgettable. I had the opportunity to welcome participants to Mount Sinai and later interview them in Spanish using REDCap. To be able to highlight a community that is often overlooked was a special experience every day I got to work with the team.

As I worked on this project, Dr. Harari was my mentor for my culminating experience— evaluating and describing occupational exposure to chemical biomarkers associated with cleaning and disinfectant products using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 1999 – 2014. This has been extremely rewarding as I get to use the skills I learn in class to develop my own project of interest.

Why Mount Sinai—what, specifically, are the strong points of the program?

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.

The one-year Master of Science in Epidemiology program offers you the chance to dive into public health and, while the timeline may seem daunting, it is a comprehensive experience that allows you to make the most of your time at Mount Sinai.

Also, how did you excel at Mount Sinai?

 At Mount Sinai, I excelled in communicating, not just in the give-and-take within the classroom, questions in class, but to participants in a study, and for communicating learned skills to work outside of the classroom. I am a firm believer in the power of communication, and it has been very satisfying to be able to speak to people from all walks of life, to be not just the one speaking, but the one listening, and to apply my knowledge in ways that can make an impact on the future of public health.

What’s Next?

I will continue to work on projects at Mount Sinai and with communities that face great health disparities.

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