Graduate School of Medical Sciences
A partnership with the Sloan Kettering Institute

Leadership


M. Elizabeth Ross, MD, PhD, FANA
M. Elizabeth Ross, MD, PhD, FANA
Program Chair

Dr. Ross is the Nathan Cummings Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience and Director of the Center for Neurognetics in the Brain and Mind Research Institute at Weill Cornell Medicine. She received her MD and PhD from Cornell University Medical College her Neurology residency at Massachusetts General Hospital and molecular genetic fellowships at MGH and Rockefeller University. She built her laboratory at University of Minnesota before returning to Weill Cornell Medicine as a tenured Professor.  She is a physician scientist who leads the Laboratory of Neurogenetics and Development. Common threads in her work have been discovery of gene mutations causing neurological disorders as a window on the drivers of brain development and function.  The Center for Neurogenetics at WCM that she directs has both basic science and clinical arms, and operates a patient DNA and cell biobank. Dr. Ross has devoted much of her career to medical and neuroscience education. While at the University of Minnesota, she directed the NIH funded MD-PhD training program. At Weill Cornell Medicine she is Chair of the Neuroscience Graduate Program and is the founding Chair of the Master of Science in Genetic Counseling program.

Shenela Lakhani, M.Sc., CGC, CCGC
Shenela Lakhani, M.Sc., CGC, CCGC
Program Director

Shenela is an Assistant Professor and the Director for Genetic Counseling at the Center for Neurogenetics at Weill Cornell Medicine, with over 8 years of experience in providing both clinical and academic support for the Center for Neurogenetics. Her experience as an educator both nationally and internationally has provided her with extensive experience in mentorship, education, and design of objective-specific course content. She has been an invited speaker for genetic counseling students, residents and medical students. As part of different accredited programs, she has been asked to design USMLE board type multiple choice exam questions, reflective of the learning objectives of her talks.

Omar Abdul-Rahman, MD
Omar Abdul-Rahman, MD
Co-Medical Director

Dr. Rahman is Division Chief of Genetics in the Department of Pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine. He has practiced as an ABMGG-certified clinical geneticist for 17 years working with various genetic counselors in  pediatric, adult, prenatal, and cancer settings. He has served in various education roles including lecturer and facilitator for genetics to first-year medical students, nursing students, pharmacy students, pediatric residents, and fellows. He has taught genetic counseling students in a clinical setting for several years and in a classroom setting from 2019 to the present. He has previously served as the associate program director for pediatrics, as vice-chair of faculty development, and as division chief and department director for medical genetics in two institutions. He is also a faculty member of the ACGME-accredited medical genetics residency at UNMC. 

Alicia Latham, MD, MS
Alicia Latham, MD, MS
Co-Medical Director

Dr. Latham is an academic clinical and translational investigator, board certified in both Family Medicine and Medical Genetics, currently managing patients at hereditary risk for cancer, including coordination of the surveillance of both cancer and cancer-unaffected patients. Dr. Latham’s clinical duties at MSK directly correlate with her research endeavors, and she currently serve as Medical Director of the MSK-CATCH program, a multi-site clinical and translational patient-centered cancer surveillance program for hereditary cancer syndromes, including Lynch syndrome. Dr. Latham is the Associate Program Director for the MSK-Cornell Medical Genetics Residency Program and has years of mentoring and supervising medical students, residents and genetic counselors.

Maullika Dua, MPH
Maullika Dua, MPH
Program Administrator

Maullika is the Program Administrator for the MSGC program. She received her Bachelor's degree from University at Buffalo and her Master's in Public Health degree from Mount Sinai.