About Me

I'm a nontraditional student pursuing a dual doctorate degree at the Weill Cornell / Rockefeller / Sloan Kettering Tri-Institutional MD-PhD Program. So far, I've completed my PhD in molecular genetics, and am presently in the third year of my medical training. My thesis research was conducted at the Smogorzewska Lab at Rockefeller University, which studies genome maintenance in the context of aging, cancer, and genetic disease. My principle research interest is biological aging. I’m fascinated by the frank audacity of challenging the fundamental principle that, with the passage of time, all things must succumb to an inexorable process of disintegration.

Pathology of aging

The process of aging plays a critical role in the first few decades of human life, during which it promotes tissue and organ development, enabling humans to achieve physical, sexual, and psychological maturity. Beyond this point, however, many of the selective pressures shaping the pathways giving rise to this developmental aging wane away, such that the process of aging eventually becomes pathological, as tissue and organ functions become increasingly degraded over time. From an etiological standpoint, chronic pathological aging is the single greatest risk factor for human disease. From an epidemiological point of view, pathological aging is the most deadly disease in the history of all life on earth. The paradoxical effect of major medical advances in the treatment of various diseases one at a time, is that human lifespan is increasing, while human healthspan is not¹. The result is an ever-widening segment of society plagued by aging related morbidity, experiencing reduced life satisfaction¹’². The overarching aim of aging research, is therefore to mitigate the effects of pathological aging (i.e., reducing susceptibility to age related disease), and so extend healthspan.

Research focus

Numerous processes giving rise to aging phenotypes are under investigation, including telomere degradation, nutrient sensing, oxidative metabolism, epigenetic regulation, cellular senescence, stem cell depletion, and genome instability. While I find all these lines of research interesting, pathways affecting genome stability exist, at least in my view, upstream of the other aging-related cellular mechanisms, and so my research are of interest is the investigation of systems by which mammalian cells maintain their genome over time. My thesis research centered on elucidating the intricate activities of a protein called FAN1, which is involved in resolving a number of different types of DNA lesions that contribute to aging, cancers, neurodegenerative desease, and organ failure. My undergraduate degree was in molecular biophysics, so I employ a combination of both wet lab and computational methods in my interrogation of this subject. I also have a deep fondness for mathematical biology, and enjoy generating mathematical models of biological phenomena.

Clinical interests

Upon learning of my interest in aging research, many people assume I must be interested in geriatric medicine. In my first couple of years of medical school I was quick to point out that this doesn’t necessarily follow—because aging is a major risk factor for so many diseases, virtually any clinical specialization pairs well with aging research (even pediatrics, were I to focus on developmental aging). That said, throughout my preclinical and clerkship experiences at Weill Cornell, many of my favorite patients to care for have been elderly; they are so fascinating to talk to and can be challenging to treat given their long, and often complicated, medical histories. During my PhD training, I volunteered regularly at the Wright Center for Aging and in the Emergency Department and Weil Cornell Medicine / New York Presbyterian, both to keep my clinical skills sharp, and because I absolutely love working with patients. I'm also passionate about delivering healthcare to underserved communities, and have been a regular member of Heart to Heart, a mobile outreach clinic providing free health screenings and consultations to people in underserved New York City communities, including those who are uninsured or undocumented. During COVID, when I was unable to see patients in person, I established, and was director of, the Geriatric Health Care Proxy Clarification Initiative, which organized volunteers to conduct telephone wellness checks of geriatric New Yorkers to screen for subjective symptoms, ensure their HCP information was understood and up to date, and provide some much needed human contact.

Surprising to me (but, it transpires, to absolutely no one who knows me) I’ve discovered that the clinical field I’m most attracted to is emergency medicine. The clinical generalist approach and urgent to emergent setting tends to maximize the number of people one can help in the shortest time, which makes emergency medicine a perfect distillation of what I’m looking for in my clinical career.

Other interests

Outside of science and medicine, my interests include creative writing, listening to music, watching movies (Tarantino, the Coen brothers, Christopher Guest, …), nerding out on YouTube (3Blue1Brown, Sabine Hossenfelder, Mathologer, Robert Miles, Up and Atom, Numberphile, Adam Neely… yeah, I spend way too much time on YouTube), playing blues on my Gibson ES-339, playing bluegrass on my Martin DRS2 no-frills Dreandnought, canoeing, hiking, and overlanding. I'm also an avid bibliophile—some of my favorite authors are Tolstoy, Zola, Bronte, Dickens, Wodehouse, Stoppard, P.D. James, Tom Robbins, Connie Willis, Neal Stephenson, David Mitchell, Nick Harkaway, Claire North, Suzanna Clarke, Antony Horowotz, Anne Cleeves, Sharon Bolton, Adrian Tchaikovsky… I can go on like this forever.

Nontraditional path

It’s daunting to finally recognize whom you’re meant to be, only after leaving your twenties (or worse, thirties) behind—especially when becoming that person necessitates a complete diversion from the path you’ve been on your entire adult life. Moreover, it’s hard to hit reset and resume the life of a novice, after having paid your dues for years or decades to establish yourself as an expert in some field. But for some people, that’s just how their life takes shape. There are, however, certain advantages to this model. For example, as you reenter novicehood, you do so with a wealth of experience to draw upon that you didn’t have in your twenties. It’s surprising how many of the skills I honed as a detective and a single parent prove invaluable in my clinical and scientific work, and from conversations I’ve had with other nontraditional students, this appears to be the rule, not the exception.

Owing to the unique flavor of my nontraditional background, my story captured the interest of some media outlets when I began my MD-PhD training in 2016. Below are links to some articles that describe challenges I faced in getting to where I am currently, and a few of the more colorful episodes from my journey. If you yourself are at a crossroads considering a major career detour, or if you’ve already taken that leap, and would like to share your story with me, I’d love to hear it! If you’re a student with challenges, and want to talk about the next step toward higher education with someone who’s had to overcome a few obstacles, reach out and let’s talk. More specifically, if you’re a nontraditional student gearing up to apply to medical schools or MD-PhD programs, and would like to talk strategy with someone who’s been there, I’d be more than happy to discuss that with you.

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2016