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

Faculty


Omar Abdul-Rahman, MD
Omar Abdul-Rahman, MD
Course Director

Dr. Rahman has practiced as an ABMGG-certified clinical geneticist for 17 years working with various genetic counselors in a pediatric, adult, prenatal, and cancer clinical 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 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. 

Jennifer Alisha Bassetti, MD
Jennifer Alisha Bassetti, MD
Course Director

Dr. Bassetti is board certified in pediatrics and medical genetics. Working closely with her Genetic Counselor colleagues, she has developed and fostered clinical programs focused on disorders that are suspected or diagnosed in the prenatal period. She is a recognized local, regional and national advocate for quality genetic education and mentorship for trainees in Pediatrics and Medical Genetics. She has developed programs and strategies for the integration of Medical Genetics into the educational curriculum for learners at all stages of medical education. Beginning her recruitment to Weill Cornell Medical College in 2014. She has served as the Division of Medical Genetics’ Director of Medical Student and Resident Education with responsibility for the establishment and maintenance of the Genetics elective. She is co- leader of the Genetics Unit, Essential Principles of Medicine. This 1st year course provides foundational knowledge for medical students at Weill Cornell Medicine. Within WCM, she has served on the CQI Curriculum Review (CCR) Committee since April 2018. Charged with developing and monitoring policies and procedures for evaluation of the curriculum and its individual courses; and for evaluation of the curriculum.

Sarah Kane, MS, CGC
Sarah Kane, MS, CGC
Course Director

Sarah currently has over eight years of experience as a clinical cancer genetic counselor. She first became involved in clinical training for genetic counseling students while working at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. She has served as a rotation supervisor and research mentor for students from various genetic counselor training programs. Sarah currently works as a licensed and board-certified Senior Genetic Counselor at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Sarah’s current clinical specialty is in hereditary gastrointestinal cancer syndromes and she is involved with Lynch syndrome research and facilitating Lynch syndrome support groups for patients. She is also involved in teaching and lecturing about gastrointestinal and pediatric cancer genetics to genetic counseling students, fellows, and colleagues. Sarah also leads several operational and educational initiatives within MSKCC, including the oversight of the IHC and MSI screening initiative for gastrointestinal cancer patients and the development of patient educational resources.

Ji-Sun Kim, MS, CGC
Ji-Sun Kim, MS, CGC
Course Director

Ji-Sun received her Bachelor's and Master's degrees at University of Toronto in Canada, then completed her Master's of Genetic Counseling degree from Sarah Lawrence College. Prior to joining Weill Cornell Neurogenetics team, she worked as a pediatric genetic counselor at Rutger's University Hospital in New Jersey.  

Shenela Lakhani, M.Sc, CGC, CGC
Shenela Lakhani, M.Sc, CGC, CGC
Course Director

Shenela is the Director for Genetic Counseling at the Center for Neurogenetics at Weill Cornell Medicine, with over 6 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 providing lectures, teaching and designing objective-specific talks. 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. 

Michelle Primiano, MS, CGC
Michelle Primiano, MS, CGC
Course Director

Michelle has over 7 years of experience as clinical genetic counselor and 3 years as a Clinical Director for the Genetic Counseling Graduate Program at LIU Post. As a clinical genetic counselor, she has cared for over 3,000 patients in pediatric, adult, prenatal, cancer and specialty clinics. She has experience in program management, and as the clinical lead genetic counselor for several cancer genetic gastroenterology specialists. She has experience in course development and teaching as an adjunct professor at Long Island University Post and guest lecturing for various local, regional and national conferences. She has mentored several genetic counseling students and undergraduate students in professional development. in professional development. 

M. Elizabeth Ross, MD, PhD
M. Elizabeth Ross, MD, PhD
Course Director

Dr. Ross 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.

Michael Walsh, MD
Michael Walsh, MD
Course Director

Dr. Walsh is a pediatric oncologist and clinical geneticist. His work focuses on identifying patients at risk for cancer and utilizing this information for screening, risk reduction and therapeutic purposes. To identify at risk individuals my research agenda entails defining and expanding our understanding of known cancer predisposition syndromes, discovering new cancer predisposition genes as well as helping define means to annotate molecular variations based on scientific rigor. He has been fortunate to train under Victor McKusick, MD, Ada Hamosh, MD, MPH (founders of MIM & OMIM), and James Downing, MD (Pediatric Cancer Genome Project). As a result, he has obtained a unique understanding and skill set related to classical Mendelian genetics and modern genomics relating to tumor- matched normal sequencing. He is now part of an expert Clinical Cancer Genetics team led by Kenneth Offit, MD, MPH and Pediatrics Department directed by Andrew Kung, MD, PhD at Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) with a track record in gene discovery, phenotypic description and translational genomic care. Given his training and practice environment, he has a unique opportunity to practice genetics and oncology and aggregate data from these purviews of care.