Dear Colleagues,
Since I began my appointment as Dean of Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences (WCGS) in October of 2013, we have worked together to implement a number of innovations in the Graduate School that will take our already outstanding institution to the next level of eminence. This newsletter highlights some of these initiatives and describes our plans for the next academic year. It’s a very exciting time at WCGS, with changes in leadership and academic structure, ongoing efforts to strengthen the support and community of our students, and a continuation of research excellence among our student body.
OUR STUDENTS
This past academic year, a total of 587 students were enrolled in WCGS. This includes 382 PhD students from our seven biomedical science programs, 18 PhD Tri-I Chemical Biology students, 25 PhD Tri-I Computational Biology students, 36 MD-PhD students currently in their PhD phase, and 126 Master’s students. It has been a pleasure to get to know many of them through monthly “Dinners with the Dean” that were begun this year. These intimate gatherings give the students the opportunity to share their ideas and experiences with me and, importantly, with each other.
I am proud to report that we graduated 70 students with PhD and 79 students with Master’s degrees. Among our graduates were junior faculty members from Tanzania, who received Master of Science Degrees in Clinical Epidemiology and Health Services Research. We also conferred degrees on the first three graduates of the Master of Science in Health Informatics program.
ADMINISTRATION AND LEADERSHIP
I am incredibly grateful to Dr. Randi Silver for her years of service to WCGS, most importantly as the interim dean during the year prior to my arrival. Randi provided consistency during that period of transition and was invaluable to me as I “learned the ropes” as Dean. During the past year, she has taken on the crucial role of Associate Dean for Student Affairs, serving as the first line of oversight and assistance for our students, coordinating key events including admissions and graduation, and improving the data management of student records. She regularly provides wise counsel as our students navigate the complexities of graduate education.
In December of 2013, Dr. David Christini was named Associate Dean for Programmatic Development. David’s role focuses on academic and curricular strategy, working with the faculty as well as graduate student leaders. This year, he played a key role in updating our mechanism to track student progress and ensuring that there is face-to-face feedback for all students as they meet each of the key milestones towards their degrees. This summer, we are rolling out standardized forms to facilitate feedback, a process that has already received positive reviews from students and faculty alike. In the coming year, David will first be concentrating on leading the faculty and students of the Graduate School in a curriculum review and then developing a process to formally evaluate each of the PhD-granting programs. To cultivate recruitment and support the underrepresented and underserved populations of students at WCGS, Dr. Marcus Lambert was hired as the first Director of Diversity and Recruitment. Marcus is a key point of contact to ensure that prospective students from these groups are aware of opportunities at Weill Cornell and that our current students take advantage of the unique programs that exist to support their scientific development. Marcus works with the faculty leadership of graduate programs and training grant programs, and he organizes the summer research internship for undergraduates.
In addition to these leadership changes, we undertook a comprehensive process review to evaluate all of the support and administrative services that the central Graduate School provides. As a result, we are implementing a number of changes focused on providing more efficient service to our students, and our offices have been renovated to align with the new staff duty organization. Going forward, the Graduate School office will be organized to support three main areas of focus: Student Services, Admissions & Program Relations, and Grants & Finance. Marcus Lambert, in conjunction with his community-building work, will direct Student Services, with the assistance of Suzanne Baly. Denise Jenkins will play an integral role interacting with all of the Program Coordinators to organize Admissions & Program oversight. Barbara Harville will be managing the Grants & Finance arm, working with Xiaoai Chen and Felicia Pezold. Leora Yasgur will continue in her current role, helping students and faculty alike from the Graduate School office. Barbara Summers and Marin Schlossberg will continue to support the “back office” function of the Graduate School to ensure that student needs are met in a timely and efficient fashion, and our Program Coordinators, Lea Benguigui, Alessandra DeNardo, Aileen Ibagon, Rosalia Mora, Audrey Rivera, and Jeannie Smith, are meeting regularly to share best practices with each other.
I am pleased to announce that Dr. Jacob Sneva joined WCGS on August 11th as the new Director of Administration. Jake comes to us from Cornell-Ithaca, where he most recently served as the Director of the Graduate Programs at the School of Hotel Administration. He has more than 15 years experience in higher education administration, as well as a PhD in this area. He is passionate about helping our students and programs achieve their full potential. We hope that you will all meet Jake during the coming months as he takes on his new leadership role.
NEW FACULTY AND STUDENTS Additional faculty have been appointed to WCGS in the last year. These include Scott Armstrong, MD, PhD (Cell and Developmental Biology), John Blenis, PhD (Pharmacology), Sarat Chandarlapaty, MD, PhD (Cell and Developmental Biology), John Chodera, PhD (Physiology, Biophysics and Systems Biology), Natalia DeMarco, PhD (Neuroscience), David Eliezer, PhD (Secondary in Neuroscience), Jan Grimm, MD, PhD (Pharmacology), Tobias Hohl, MD, PhD (Immunology and Microbial Pathogenesis), Alex Kentsis, MD, PhD (Pharmacology, secondary in Physiology, Biophysics and Systems Biology), Conor Liston, MD, PhD (Neuroscience), and Jonathan N. Tobin, PhD (Clinical Epidemiology and Health Services Research). This year’s incoming class of 51 PhD students hails from 13 different countries including Argentina, Canada, China, India, Ireland, Israel, Korea, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Taiwan, Turkey, and of course all corners of the United States. Twenty-eight students are female, and 23 are male. BCMB (Biochemistry & Structural Biology, Cell & Developmental Biology, and Molecular Biology), Immunology and Microbial Pathogenesis, Neuroscience, Pharmacology, and PBSB (Physiology, Biophysics and Systems Biology) will be welcoming 22, 5, 8, 11, and 5 students, respectively. The matriculating students are graduates of some of the top institutions in the U.S., such as Brandeis University, Cornell University, Harvard University, New York University, Princeton University, University of California, Berkeley, University of Chicago, and University of Southern California, as well as premier international universities.
COMMUNITY
There is a saying at Weill Cornell that “our students are our colleagues and collaborators.” What makes WCGS such a stellar institution is not just the 300 faculty members but the nearly 600 PhD, MD-PhD, and Master’s students who contribute to its collaborative environment.
This sense of community can often be felt on the official WCGS Facebook and Twitter pages (@WeillCornellGS), established in April of this year. On these social media platforms, we shared the excitement of the student-run Du Vigneaud Symposium with a countdown to the big day, followed by photos of the event with student presenters. We shared the collaboration between Dr. Betsy Ross of the Neuroscience Program, Dr. Chris Mason, and Ph.D. student Priyanka Vijay of PBSB in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Common Fund video competition as well as the contribution by the CTSC “Go with the CTSC and the NIH Common Fund: A Rap,” which was a winner of the NIH Common Fund 10-Year Commemoration Video Contest. And we enthusiastically promoted our celebrations at Convocation and Commencement.
In areas of diversity and outreach, WCGS helped to sponsor the launch event of the Minority Graduate Student Network (MGSN), entitled “Supporting Dynamic STEM Careers for Underrepresented Minorities,” which attracted over 150 attendees ranging from upper-level undergraduates to postdoctoral fellows. Dr. Marcus Lambert has taken charge of the ACCESS program, attracting 10 underserved college students to WCGS for summer research. He plans an ambitious recruitment schedule to ensure that our institution is a beacon for scientists from all backgrounds.
GRADUATE STUDENT EXECUTIVE COUNCIL (GSEC) GSEC has had a busy and exciting year organizing social activities, providing career development and outreach opportunities, and continuing to advocate for students with the administration. There were three key issues that the students focused on for the year. The first initiative was to expand on the career development opportunities available at the Graduate School. To this end, the careers committee organized a pilot “Career Explorations” event, showcasing a panel of PhDs working in different aspects of scientific communications. We featured networking sessions both before and after the event to allow students to ask specific questions and make professional connections. Following the success of this pilot event, these sessions will be held regularly in the coming year, focusing on a different career path each time.
GSEC also worked to expand the opportunities available for students to participate in outreach. The WCGS outreach committee established a relationship with the Science Outreach Office of The Rockefeller University, jointly hosting a tremendously popular “science day” for a local high school. This relationship will also provide opportunities for Weill Cornell students to participate in ongoing outreach activities at The Rockefeller University in the coming months. Moving forward, the outreach committee will continue to run similar science days as well as provide different types of outreach and mentorship opportunities.
The efforts of last year’s GSEC to conduct course surveys across all Graduate School classes have continued this year. Thanks to all the students who filled out these surveys, we now have valuable information to transmit back to the course directors and lecturers. Our aim as we formalize the feedback process is to hold Graduate School courses to the highest standards.
In addition to these new initiatives, GSEC has continued to organize social events for graduate students, including a Halloween party, a Thanksgiving potluck, a ski trip, a new scavenger hunt, and the End of the Year Party. It also supports student-run clubs and subcommittees to help organize orientation and recruitment activities across the Graduate School. Finally, GSEC has just completed its third annual student survey. The feedback from these surveys has helped direct our efforts to the issues most important to students.
PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS
Science & Disease: All first-year PhD students were invited to participate in a series of small group discussions about the intersection of science and medicine. During these sessions, students heard firsthand about the research in the laboratories of Drs. Lew Cantley, BJ Casey, Peggy Crow, Laurie Glimcher, Mike Glickman, Tim Hla, Samie Jaffrey, Tom Kelly, David Lyden, Joan Massague, Carl Nathan, Greg Petsko, Shahin Rafii, Betsy Ross, David Scheinberg, and Craig Thompson. The feedback from this new series was outstanding, and I am very appreciative of the time and effort the faculty put into leading each of these sessions. We look forward to expanding this series this coming year.
Student tracking and evaluation: After extensive discussions with faculty, administrators, and students, the WCGS office has developed a new set of PhD student evaluation forms. These forms include laboratory rotation agreements and evaluations, annual student evaluations, thesis committee meeting evaluations, and Individual Development Plans. The goal of these forms is to ensure that students are evaluated regularly, receive written and oral feedback, and are given the opportunity to voice their plans, opinions, and concerns. Additionally, regular tracking is an integral step in helping students progress towards completion of their PhD degree in a timely fashion. We are currently working on implementing these forms in our student information system so that they will be a part of the official student record and easily available to appropriate parties.
T32 Committee: In January, a T32 Working Group was formed. This committee, comprised of Directors of existing T32 Training Programs and faculty members developing T32 applications, was charged to develop plans to improve the ability of WCGS faculty to apply for, win, and lead training grants. The goals of the group include the formation of a network of training grant directors to share ideas, best practices, strategies, and experiences, as well as formulation of a list of relevant infrastructure and support (e.g., ITS) the institution should provide. Based on one recommendation of the committee, a T32 library/repository website is nearing completion. This internally accessible website will contain detailed listings of existing WCGS training grants, along with their application documents, and a library of boilerplate proposal documents including the Responsible Conduct for Research plan, Recruitment and Retention Plan to Enhance Diversity, and institutional environment descriptions (e.g., core facilities). Dr. Christini is currently working with ITS on the committee’s second main recommendation: development of the informational infrastructure necessary for the automatic compilation of the lengthy T32 application data tables. Easing the burden of table compilation will be an important step in helping faculty apply for training grants.
Program Review process: In March, a WCGS Program Review committee, chaired by Associate Dean Christini and comprised of a faculty member from each Program (as nominated by each Chair), met to discuss plans for the Graduate School to perform periodic reviews of each of our graduate Programs. Broadly speaking, the purpose of these reviews will be to assess how effectively a given program is training its students. The committee discussed and approved a draft WCGS Program Review Process. The review of each Program will include preparation of a Program Summary Document describing the Program and its recent performance and future plans, followed by an assessment by an intramural review committee and (when appropriate) an extramural review committee. Because many aspects of the Program Summary Document are similar to T32 training grant tables, the committee recommended that the first program reviews do not begin until 2015, when the automatic compilation of T32 data tables (see above) is expected to be completed.
New Track/Name in Master’s Program: The Master of Science in Health Informatics has submitted a formal request to the NY State Education Department to change the name of the program to Master of Science in Healthcare Policy and Research and to add a track in Health Economics. All students in this program will complete a foundation of coursework in healthcare systems and research methods (as in the current program), but with this added track, students will be able to focus on either Health Informatics or Health Economics. This program change reflects the shifting demands for expertise among leaders in our health care systems.
AWARDS AND HONORS
On April 24th, students held the 34th annual Du Vigneaud Research Symposium. This student-run research day honors Dr. Vincent Du Vigneaud, Nobel Laureate and former Chair of the Department of Biochemistry at Weill Cornell Medical College. The event featured over 90 student presentations from first-year to senior students. The following students were recognized for their excellent poster presentations:
Maria Bustillo, a first-year student in the laboratory of Dr. Jennifer A. Zallen
Charlie Ferranti, a second-year student in the laboratory of Dr. Richard Kolesnick
Bonnie Quach, a second-year student in the laboratory of Dr. Hazel Szeto
Wei Shao, a senior student in the laboratory of Dr. Songhai Shi
Christina Maksymiuk, a senior student in the laboratory of Dr. Carl Nathan, received the Du Vigneaud Award of Excellence for her oral presentation.
The Julian Rachele prize for an outstanding publication, a WCGS tradition, was awarded to two students this year. MD/PhD student Justin Mulvey was recognized for the manuscript "Self-assembly of carbon nanotubes and antibodies on tumours for targeted amplified delivery," published in Nature Nanotechnology. PBSB student Nurunisa Akyuz shared the prize for her paper "Transport dynamics in a glutamate transporter homologue," published in Nature. Justin and Nurunisa gave a brief synopsis of their award-winning work at this year’s Convocation, a practice that we intend to continue at forthcoming Convocations.
At Commencement, the Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences honored Dr. Betsy Ross with the 2014 Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences Distinguished Alumnus Award. This award, established in 1997, honors Dr. Ross’ exceptional achievements in research, education and academic medicine. The WCGS Commencement speaker this year was Victoria Schulman. Vicky completed her PhD in the laboratory of Dr. Mary Baylies. She is pursuing a postdoc in human genetics in Dr. Richard Lifton’s lab at Yale University’s School of Medicine. Her address inspired all in attendance.
GRANTS
Writing grant and fellowship applications is a crucial skill for PhD students who may be responsible for seeking external research support for themselves and perhaps their own trainees as part of their future careers. Xiaoai Chen assists students in matching their research projects and passions with fellowship opportunities. Faculty mentors help ensure that students’ research descriptions are scientifically compelling and are submitted in compliance with funding agencies’ rigorous application requirements. Three NIH fellowship training workshops were held during the 2013-2014 academic year, offering step-by-step instructions for students who were submitting applications. Our students submitted 36 fellowship applications, and so far 7 have been awarded (results from the April 2014 submissions are pending). Two PhD students also received new National Science Foundation (NSF) graduate research fellowships, competing with candidates from a much broader range of disciplines: technology, engineering, and mathematics, as well as biomedical science. We are proud of all of our students who submitted applications.
There were 25 students in WCGS who held fellowships from the NIH, NSF, other federal agencies, and private foundations in 2013-2014. Individual student research fellowships at Weill Cornell resulted in $925,000 in funding. In addition to supporting individual fellowship applications, the Graduate School also helped our faculty Program Directors in preparing institutional training grants submissions and competitive renewals. For the 2013-2014 Academic year, WCGS faculty held 8 institutional training grants (6 from NIH, 1 from New York State, and 1 from Cancer Research Institute), bringing revenue of $1.355 million to the Graduate School and supporting 33 students.
PLANS FOR THE COMING YEAR
Curriculum Review Committee: The Graduate School will launch a standing school-wide Curriculum Committee in September 2014. This committee, which will be comprised of faculty and students, will focus on a number of issues: establishment of a standardized course evaluation process; formulation of a process for development and approval of new courses; identification of synergies and redundancies in courses offered by the different Programs and, where possible, increased coordination between Programs/courses; curriculum gaps and courses or workshops to fill them; possibilities for interdigitating with the medical school curriculum; approaches that could help decrease average time-to-degree; incorporating meaningful training for non-academic science careers for interested students, including potentially working with Cornell NYC Tech; and big-picture questions such as “how do we teach our students to be leaders and do breakthrough science?"
Website: ITS is working with representatives from the Graduate School to revamp our website. With input from our current students, we aim to have the new website be a welcoming portal to interested applicants and a useful tool for current students and staff.
Alumni Tracking: One of the greatest assets of the Graduate School is the individuals we have trained. It is important that we keep track of our graduates, so that we may call upon them for service and mentorship. Accordingly, we have begun to work together with External Affairs to formalize our efforts in alumni tracking.
Additional goals: The current average time for students to complete their PhD is 6.35 years. While I recognize that each student’s experiences will vary and we will continue to support students for as long as they need to complete their research, it is my goal to decrease this average to 5.5 years. I anticipate that implementation of the new forms that track training milestones and provide greater feedback will have a significant effect.
Another goal is to assist every eligible student in applying for extramural funding. We will host more training workshops and vigorously search for more fellowship opportunities in the new academic year. Through these applications, the students will practice the skills necessary for grant writing while learning to clearly define their projects. In addition, successful applications will lessen the financial burden on principal investigators as well as strengthen students’ curriculum vitae when pursuing the next step of their research careers.
Thank you to all of our talented faculty, staff, and students who have helped make my transition to WCGS so enjoyable and who have contributed to such a productive year at the Graduate School. I am pleased with the progress that we’ve made already and am eager to see how much farther we can go in the coming academic year. With our collective efforts, I am confident that our vision to take WCGS to the next level is within sight. Together, we will continue to train investigators working at the cutting edge of biomedical research, prepare them for successful careers, and support them as they transition to becoming the scientific leaders of the future.
Sincerely yours,