2026 Master's Convocation Ceremony Program Booklet

Program Class picture on steps of Gordon Hall Welcome George Q. Daley, MD, PhD Dean of the Faculty of Medicine Opening Remarks Rosalind A. Segal, MD, PhD Dean for Graduate Education Keynote Speaker Eric Rubin, MD, PhD Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School Adjunct Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Editor-in-Chief of the New England Journal of Medicine Introduction of the Student Speaker Johanna L. Gutlerner, PhD Senior Associate Dean for Graduate Education Remarks from Student Speaker Ruisi Chen

Master’s Degree Programs (in order of procession) Master of Medical Sciences in Medical Education Krisztina Fischer, MD, PhD, Director Ayres Heller, EdM, Associate Director Narjis Corbett, Program Coordinator Master of Science in Media, Medicine, and Health Neal Baer, EdM, AM, MD, Co-Director Jason Silverstein, PhD, Co-Director Christina Thompson Lively, MEd, Associate Director of Education Programs Allison Lewis, Program Coordinator Master of Medical Sciences in Immunology Shiv Pillai, MD, PhD, Director Michael Carroll, PhD, Co-Director Gavin Porter, PhD, Associate Director Naima Abdullahi, EdM, Senior Program Manager Master of Science in Healthcare Quality and Safety Anjala Tess, MD, Director Brittany Esty, MD, MPH, Associate Director Katherine Santos, MBA, Associate Director Jennifer Coulombe, PhD, Program Manager Master of Medical Sciences in Global Health Delivery Joia Mukherjee, MD, MPH, Director Christina Thompson Lively, MEd, Associate Director of Education Programs Katie Player, MA, Program Coordinator Master of Science in Clinical Service Operations J. Kevin Tucker, MD, Director Rachel Wasserstrom, MBA, Co-Director Ann Prestipino, MPH, Pathway Leader Harry W. Orf, PhD, Pathway Leader Preeti Sharma, MBA, Program Manager Teresa Gorman, Interim Program Manager

Master of Science in Clinical Research Lourdes Pérez-Chada, MD, Co-Director Sagar Nigwekar, MD, Co-Director Katherine King, Ed.D., Assistant Director Master of Medical Sciences in Clinical Investigation Ajay K. Singh, MBBS, FRCP, MBA, Director Emeritus Finnian R. Mc Causland, MBBCh, MMSc, FRCPI, PG CertMedEd, Director Martina M. McGrath, MB, BCh, FASN, FRCPI, Co-Director Rosalyn Adam, PhD, Associate Director Kerri LaRovere, MD, MMSc, Assistant Director Suman Srinivasa, MD, MS, Assistant Director Molly Gallagher, Program Manager Master of Sciences in Biomedical Informatics Nils Gehlenborg, PhD, Director Aparna Nathan, PhD, Associate Director Lilen Uchima, PhD, Director of Educational Programs Rebecca Fitzhugh, ALM, Senior Program Manager Jesse Ellis, Education Program Coordinator Master of Science in Bioethics Rebecca Weintraub Brendel, MD, JD, Director Joni R. Beshansky, RN, MPH, LPD, Associate Director Crystal Chang, MPH, Associate Director of Education Samantha Pitkin, MEd, Education Program Administrator Jesse Tucker, Admissions and Recruitment Administrator Sadé Chisolm, Program Engagement and Alumni Development Coordinator Closing Remarks Johanna L. Gutlerner, PhD Senior Associate Dean for Graduate Education

2026 HMS Master’s Programs Graduates

Master of Medical Sciences in Medical Education Distinguished Deans, Faculty, and Guests, Above all, Dear Graduates of the MMSc in Medical Education Program, Congratulations! Take a moment to reflect on all you have accomplished. You have worked incredibly hard to earn this degree, and along the way, you have gained a rich and nuanced understanding of medical education, including cognitive science, adult learning theory, curriculum development, educational technology, assessment principles, simulation, leadership, and teamwork. You have also developed a robust set of research skills that equip you to investigate and address meaningful questions in our field.

Through your scholarship, you have taken on ambitious and consequential topics in medical education and, in doing so, have advanced the field in meaningful ways. Whether using qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods, your research has addressed a wide range of questions with insight and rigor.

Your thesis projects examined how educators, learners, and health care systems can continue to grow in an increasingly complex educational landscape. You explored how residency program directors navigate the paradoxes of accountability, how learning skills instruction can strengthen study habits and academic performance in a traditional preclinical curriculum, and how physician-scientists understand the distinctive components and values of their professional identity. You also investigated how AI-driven virtual patient modules may enhance clinical communication skills, how generative AI can support evidence-based learning strategies among medical students, and how primary care physicians perceive the role of artificial intelligence in geriatrics and palliative care education and clinical practice.

Your work also advanced faculty development, assessment, simulation, and clinical learning. You designed and studied an asynchronous, gamified faculty development program to enhance teaching engagement and competency; developed an observational checklist to measure facilitation skills and behaviors in case-based collaborative learning; and examined the implementation and impact of a graduate medical education-wide optout mental health appointment program. You assessed neuraxial procedures in obstetric anesthesiology through a Delphi study, created simulation-based training for needle handling and tracking in ultrasound-guided regional anesthesia, explored how sonographers approach high-uncertainty cases, designed and validated a proficiency index for crisis management assessment in anesthesiology, assessed deep suturing using AI analysis, and developed an evidence-based observational tool to explore trace-based communication in surgical settings.

Your findings have the potential to influence medical school curricula, hospital policies, residency programs, and health systems today. Just as important, however, is how well you have prepared yourselves to carry forward these rigorous approaches and apply them to any educational project you choose to pursue in the future.

As we celebrate your academic accomplishments, we also want to honor who you are and how you have contributed to this educational community. You brought perspectives from multiple continents, health professions, and clinical domains, enriching our conversations and deepening our collective learning. Throughout the program, your partnership, creativity, and thoughtful feedback helped shape a vibrant and supportive virtual learning environment. We also recognize the invaluable support many of you received from your families, colleagues, and communities along the way.

Your mentors, thesis committee members, and program faculty have been honored to accompany you throughout this period of professional growth. We know that you will continue to make meaningful contributions to medical education, and we look forward to seeing the many ways you will help shape the future of health professions education.

Congratulations to the Class of 2026; we are so proud of you!

Krisztina, Ayres & Narjis

Jennifer A. Best "I'm In It For The Long Game": A Constructivist Grounded Theory Study of Residency Program Directors as Stewards of Accountability Paradox Gergely József Csaba Make Them Stick: Effects of a Learning Skills Course on Study Habits and Academic Performance in a Traditional Preclinical Medical Curriculum Alexander Gural An Assessment of Consensus Opinion Regarding the Unique Components and Values of Physician-Scientists' Professional Identity Ami Kobayashi Evaluating the Effectiveness of Different AI-Driven Virtual Patient Modules in Enhancing Student Clinical Communication Skills András Komócsi TEACH-UP: Enhancing Teaching Engagement and Competency Through Asynchronous, Gamified Faculty Development

Rachel Elizabeth Korus Default Enrollment, Improved Access: The Implementation and Impact of a GME-Wide Opt-Out Mental Health Appointment Program Hange Li Exploring the Potential for Generative AI to Facilitate Medical Students’ Use of EvidenceBased Learning Strategies Gimena Marzán The Facilitator Toolbox: A Checklist to Measure Facilitation Skills and Behaviors in the Context of Case-Based Collaborative Learning PJ McGuire Assessment of Neuraxial Procedures in Obstetric Anesthesiology: A Delphi Study Federico Puerta-Martinez Mixed-Reality Simulation for Needle Tracking Skills in Ultrasound-Guided Regional Anesthesia: An Evaluator-Blinded, Randomized Controlled Trial Jaspreet Randhawa Identifying the Unspoken: Development of an Evidence-Based Observational Tool to Explore Trace-Based Communication in Surgical Settings He Sun Needs Assessment in Primary Care Physicians on the Use of Artificial Intelligence in Geriatrics and Palliative Care Education and Clinical Practice Sandra Taves Bhutto Exploring How Sonographers Approach High Uncertainty Cases: A Mixed Methods Study Sue Wang "Slow is Smooth, Smooth is Fast”: AI Analysis of Suturing at Depth Utilizing a Novel Simulator Dario Winterton A Multidimensional Proficiency Index for Assessing Crisis Management in Anesthesiology: Development and Validation

Master of Science in Media, Medicine, and Health Dear graduates of the Media, Medicine, and Health program, This year you learned to use the arts to move us closer to a world where health is a human right. A world where the sick are given the highest quality care not because of where they live or what they have, but because they are human, and their lives are singular and sacred.

You sought out ways to be close to suffering, when turning away would have been easier.

You built on years of relationships with people who are homeless in Boston to understand why so many face a greater risk of overdose in a city so rich in medicine. You fought to speak with women held in Iranian prisons, facing execution at any moment, because they dared dissent. You followed their suffering to its source — in power, in law — and you are bringing it into view, because what is done in the dark depends on not being seen.

Fighting suffering is not the work of one person, and not the work of one form. You worked on many kinds of health problems and made of them work that might change the fortunes of those too often pushed aside. You studied serious infections and how doctors work together, traced what families face before cancer surgery in China, and showed how social media reshapes how people see their bodies. You wrote about losing family and showed how patients, especially women, are not taken seriously by the very people who are supposed to help. You found ways to read trauma in the body and examined what football does to children. You made a game to help people with Long Covid, improvised a device for diabetes care, invented stories to steady children under the shadow of ICE, filmed how fathers help mothers survive pregnancy, and developed an app to reveal how clothing affects people and the environment. Across this work and more, you stayed with people in suffering long enough to learn from them and to show what it feels like and what produces it.

In doing this work, you learned that showing suffering is bound up with power — who speaks, and who is heard. In Reimagining Global Health, you learned how money, rules, and history shape who gets sick and who is helped, who lives and who dies, from Boston to Malawi to Russia. In Marty Zeve’s class, you saw how knowledge and power shape disease, and define what counts as care and for whom. You argued over what empathy owes to those who suffer in your classes on storytelling and design thinking. You talked with Amber Husain and Jill Damatac about who gets to tell their stories. You listened to Maggie Smith, Saeed Jones, Tiana Clark, and Korintha Mitchell speak of how such stories

can stand against despair.

But it is not enough to attend only to the suffering before you. The harder work is to name what produces it, in distant and powerful places. Your work begins by meeting the world’s suffering and making it visible, refusing to accept it as “just the way things are,” and knowing that to confront it is to move us, however slowly, toward a more humane world.

You may fear, in taking this on, how much is asked of you. You will do it anyway. There is a passage attributed to the Talmud that reads, “Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”

Those considered the last and the least — denied their rights, unseen in their suffering, silenced by the violent and powerful — are in need of your talent and your courage.

Class of 2026, do not be daunted, Allison, Christina, Jason, and Neal Denise Ellen Brodey Long Covid Patient Advocacy Intervention: Spike! A Card Game for Health & Wellbeing Angelica Faith Carrillo El Cucuy and the Shadows of Worry: A Culturally Grounded Bibliotherapy Model for Mexican Childhood Mental Health Ruisi Chen Double Erasure: Platform Governance and Biomedical Neglect in Sexual Health Information Access among Lesbian and Bisexual Women in China Imani Esosa Fonfield “Breathing for Three:” A Novel Literary Intervention to Address the Respiratory Violence of Asthma Disparities in Boston, Massachusetts Alyssa Greene The Sick Show: Impression Management and Embodied Negotiations of Legitimacy in Chronic Illness Sabrina Melody Kianni NARM: A Digital Platform for Fabric Education to Reduce Synthetic Fiber Exposure and Promote Environmental and Human Health

Anna Jeanine Kim Temporary Address: Understanding Mental Health, Displacement, and Housing Insecurity Saloni Kothari Visualizing Data on the Effectiveness and Accuracy of WHO Treatment Decision Algorithms to Support Policy Adoption for Pediatric Tuberculosis Diagnosis Zhexu Li Shaping Beauty: Women, Social Pressure, and the Medical Aesthetics Boom in China Christy Marie Lucas Ever After: A Narrative Approach to Early Parental Bereavement Meghna Mallapan Cartographies of Care: Participatory Mapping as an Advocacy Tool for Harm Reduction Equity in New York City Ana Patricia Marenco Flores Liver Guide: A Bilingual Narrative Medicine Platform for Patient Education in Autoimmune Liver Disease Ayden Massey THE PELVIC ARCHIVE: A Biosocial Perspective on Medical Hyperobjects, Embodiment, and the Making of Trauma-Literate Urogynecologic Epistemologies Elizabeth Meyer Human Centered Design and Technology: Applying Play and Patient-First AnthroEngineering Principles to the Insulin Pump Interface Benjamin David Myers No Place for Sunshine: A Documentary Intervention on Punitive Homelessness Policy, Displacement, and Overdose Risk in Boston, Massachusetts Avnit Natt Turner Syndrome Representation: Opportunities in Media Fredderick Nettles Youth Concussions in Tackle Football: Concussion Risk, Brain Development, and Rethinking Early Contact Through Safer Alternatives for Athletes Under 14

Irene Newman Jimenez Nuestra Medicina: A Culture-Centered Community Songwriting Approach for Latine/Hispanic Women in the U.S. Experiencing Barriers to Healthcare Access Isioma Deborah Nwonye Point To Where It Hurts: A Comic on the Social Forces Behind Baltimore’s Opioid Crisis Daranie Pin Unheard Voices: An Animated Narrative Intervention on Medical Gaslighting of Women with Gastrointestinal Symptoms Mia Toubian A Death Sentence for Dissent: Iran’s State-sanctioned Femicide Medha Tripathi The Cost of Fighting: A Video Intervention on Hospice Decision-Making in NeuroOncology Ava Tsapatsaris Pathophysiology of Diabetic Foot Infections: Implications for Multidisciplinary Care and Medical Journalism Candace Bethany Williams Dear Fathers: An Investigation into the Role of Partner Advocacy in Reducing Maternal Health Disparities Among Black Women in the United States Melanie Winuk Discipline or Disorder? Orthorexia Nervosa, Social Media, and the Moralization of Health Zihua Zackery Yao From Clinical Gaze to Cultural Screen: Caregiving, Anxiety, and a Media Intervention on Relational Distress in Preoperative Cancer Care in China Hannah Shaye Young Hannah’s Monster: An Amalgamative Examination of Science, Scientists, and Self Through Creative Nonfiction

Master of Medical Sciences in Immunology Congratulations MMSc Immunology Graduates!

Mike, Gavin, Naima, and I all want you to know how immensely proud we are of each and every one of you! 2026 has been a year of almost universal disarray. But in the exact sciences – progress continues to be made. In this past year – the discoverers of regulatory T cells received Nobel honors. Work that many of you have done will keep the field moving forward – even when the world seems to be in a state of confusion. You are all poised to have a huge and positive impact, each in your own way, and we look forward to hearing about your future successes and accomplishments in the years to come.

We have been connected closely since the fall of 2024. We have watched with great pleasure as you have grown into knowledgeable immunologists and confident investigators in the making. It has been especially gratifying to listen to you present your findings during our monthly lunch meetings. You have each described with sophistication, thoughtfulness and rigor, the wonderful work that you have been doing as part of the thesis projects that you have all successfully defended. We know you are on your way to do great things in the years to come!

We all recognize that no other aspect of modern biology is more intimately connected to human disease than immunology. Medicine without immunology would be akin to the body without a brain, or an automobile without an engine. It is one of the most important drivers of rational therapies.

There is an almost divine quality to the exquisite precision with which our immune cells find their cellular partners to have a conversation with during an orchestrated, protective response. But things do fall apart sometimes. Beautiful, mind-blowing, precision can be put out of kilter. Distortions in an exquisitely regulated balance can contribute to the initiation of chaos. It is the loss of immune precision that is, as we all know, the underlying basis of disease. This is frighteningly apparent to all of us today. We are confident that all of you will continue to use your knowledge to change the world in the years and decades to come.

Congratulations once again! May you and your loved ones enjoy the moment, enjoy the day and stay healthy. We look forward to hearing from you about the great things you will continue to do. Stay in touch!

Shiv, Mike, Gavin and Naima

Yuxin Chen Reprogramming Natural Killer Cells for Sensitive and Specific Targeting of Intra- and Extracellular Tumor Antigens Héctor Ferrando Gómez Regulatory T Cells at CNS Borders: Responsiveness to GLP-1 Receptor Agonism and Characterization of the Human Dural Compartment Sri Vidya Niharika Gullapalli Human Mast Cell Plasticity and Lineage Stability Shaped by Microenvironmental Signals Qianqin Guo New Knock in Mouse Lines Dmp1em1(CreERT2) and Dmp1em2(ZsGreen) Enable Precise Osteocyte-Specific Targeting and Visualization Fengting Huang Dissecting the Antiviral Role of MUT-7 Caelyn Jarrett Poetz Exploring the Expression and Function of Mechanoreceptors on Human Mast Cells Jialun Lily Li Immunotherapeutic Targeting of Viral Infection in the Central Nervous System Keying Liu Investigating How Dynamic Changes in Dendritic Cell Activation States Can Be Leveraged to Enhance Anti-Tumor Immunity Samriti Balaji Mudaliar Interrogating the Role of Type I Interferon in the Dysregulation of AhR Activity in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Yukun Ou Epigenomic Liquid Biopsy: Nucleosome Repositioning, Gene Expression Inference, and Chromatin Dynamics in Cell-Free DNA Haiyue Song Nanoparticle-Mediated Modulation of Innate Immune Signaling to Enhance Dendritic Cell-Mediated Antitumor Immunity in Bladder Cancer Yu Sun Leveraging Trafficking Signals to Modulate Next-generation Tuberculosis Vaccine Responses

Kavya Thanki Enteric Neuronal Culture System as a Platform to Study Neuroimmune Interactions in the Gut James Townsend Immunotherapeutic Enhancement of NK-cell Responses to Emerging Orthopoxviruses and Treatment-Refractory Lymphomas Marie Verdonck Noncanonical Targeting of pHLA Complexes Sophia Villa Characterizing CD4 T Cells Involved in the Extrafollicular Response Yixue Wang Decoding and Engineering the Tumor Secretome for Precision Immunotherapy Yiyang (Jennifer) Wang Structural and Biochemical Characterization of Human NOD2 Activation and Assembly Miaoer Xu Modulating Visceral Adipose Tissue Immunometabolism: GLP-1RA Semaglutide’s Impact on Immune–Stromal Networks Zifeng Xue Mapping the Interaction of Human Albumin with the Invariant Chain Zhiyi Zou Intercellular Mitochondrial Transfer between Fibroblasts and Macrophages: An Extrinsic Mechanism for Organelle Quality Control

Master of Science in Healthcare Quality and Safety From the Master of Science in Healthcare Quality and Safety program, we write to congratulate our graduates in the Class of 2026!

It has been a tremendous one to two years in the MHQS program. We watched you come with full intention to your work and execute with grace and clarity. Whether in the most rural village clinics of your home country or in the well-resourced hallway of the academic medical center, we saw you apply your curiosity to the problems at hand. You won over your faculty, your classmates, and your peers and leaders at home. You were

able to apply the tools and frameworks, adapting along the way to the unique challenges you faced. And you have made us so proud.

We designed MHQS with the intent that it would accomplish one critical thing. That our graduates would leave with instincts around quality and safety to improve healthcare for all. A mindset of sorts. What is the “QI Mindset”? It is an approach that doesn’t just accept the need to make something better. It instead expands to celebrate the opportunity to make it better. The mindset recognizes that problem solving requires thoughtful assessment of the risk and its root causes, not just checking the easiest box to fix things. The solution must match the actual problem. The approach is rooted in tools and structures that use hypothesis-driven questioning to guide the path and relies on data to make final decisions. Most importantly, the QI mindset demands that the perspective of healthcare providers, and the patients they serve, remain at the center of all design. Though tools and methods will reinvent themselves over the years, the QI mindset remains steadfast. And you have all shown us you now have this instinct in you.

We would be remiss if we did not thank the many people who helped make this program a success. First, to your families who were kind enough to share with us, thank you. Their sacrifices were not small, and this degree is their accomplishment too. Secondly, we thank your course faculty, project mentors, and the rest of the team at HMS for making the experience as smooth as possible for everyone. And we thank you for making this program what it is – a place to foster learning and change.

Congratulations! Please know that we are going to miss you but intend to stay in touch.

This is just the beginning of our journey together.

With warmth and best wishes, Anjala, Brittany, Kae, Katie, and Jenn Abdulsalam Mohammed Aleid Implementing Clinical Decision Support to Improve Compliance with Standardized End-to-End Anesthesia Care for ASA III–IV Surgical Patients: A Quality Improvement Initiative Entesar Abdulla AlHammadi Reducing Central Line-Associated Bloodstream Infections (CLABSI) in the NICU at Latifa Hospital, Dubai Bincy Anthony Secure And Fearless Event reporting (SAFE)

Engie Attia Optimizing Medication Reconciliation for Improved Accuracy in Transplant Patient Care M. Kathleen Borchardt Standardization of Antibiotics on Labor and Delivery to Improve Maternal outcomes Michelle Burke Health IT Solutions for Quality Improvement in Behavioral Health Systems Yew Woon Chia Reducing Emergency Department Boarding Time for Patients Who Require Telemetry Monitoring in the General Wards Edwin Aik Chen Chng Reducing Medication Transcription Error Rates in the Inpatient Wards of a Private Tertiary Hospital in Singapore Muhammad Ehtisham A Quality Improvement Project To Decrease Six-Month COPD Exacerbation Related Hospitalization by Decreasing “No-Show” Rate of COPD Patients in Pulmonary Clinic Stephanie Grenier Improving Timely Discharge Planning in a Geriatric Rehabilitation Unit: A Quality Improvement Project Matthew Heron Improving the Efficiency of Rocuronium Dosing for Neuromuscular Blockade Management During Anaesthesia Paul Sudhakar Issack Reducing Time to Surgery For Geriatric Hip Fractures at a Level 1 Trauma Center Nancy Jacob The Power of Breath: Modifying the Time Out Process in the Endoscopy Suite Naif Marzook P.A.I.N.L.E.S. Pain Assessment Initiative Narrowing Latency & Ensuring Serenity Amirah Momen Improving Written and Verbal Communication at Discharge from the St. Michael’s Hospital Inpatient Neurology Ward Tegan Mosugu Using Quality Improvement to Improve Efficiency in HIV Self-Testing Service Delivery in Lagos, Nigeria

Vikhashni Nagesh Protocol Adherence and Hypoglycemia Reduction in Pediatric Diabetic Ketoacidosis: A Quality Improvement Initiative Jeffrey Newman OR to CVICU Structured Hand-Off Reliability Initiative Florina Geok Cheng Ong Retained Surgical Items and Specimens – See It, Say It, Sign-Out Sristi Patodia Improving Tracheostomy Discharge Process including Caregiver Training and Follow-Up: A Quality Improvement Initiative in a Tertiary Care ICU in South India Hilary Radtke Improving the Culture of Mobility to Reduce Length of Stay in Hospitalized Medical-Surgical Patients on an Innovation Unit Dorcas Sackey Adapting the New Timing for Acute Care Surgery (nTACS) Classification To Improve the Quality of Emergency Surgical Care – a Quality Improvement Initiative James Sancrant Improving Signal-to-Noise Ratio in Radiology-Specific History of Presenting Illness Taro Shimizu Redesigning the Blood Culture Response Workflow to Reduce Time to Antimicrobial Therapy After Positive Blood Culture Notification Harsimar Singh Implementation of a Standardized VTE Prophylaxis Review To Improve PSI-12 Outcomes in Orthopedic Care Ameliane Tardif Digital Discharge Instructions for Acute Low Back Pain: A Quality Improvement Initiative in the Emergency Department Shaun Michael Warren Improving Mortality Index Among Oncology Inpatients with a Standardized Documentation Tool

Master of Medical Sciences in Global Health Delivery Dear graduates, colleagues, friends: our Global Health family could not be prouder of your accomplishments in these two years. We, the staff and faculty that have supported you all in this journey, are in awe of your brilliant scholarship in a dozen countries to

address the problem of delivery of care and the promise of health equity.

The advances in biomedicine in the twenty-first century are truly awe inspiring, yet the benefits of these advances are not shared equally across the world. More than a decade ago, this Master’s program in Global Health Delivery was designed for you—people who work tirelessly to improve the lives of patients around the world. We believe that scholarship to address health inequalities should come from those most proximate to suffering. You came to study Global Health Delivery at Harvard Medical School to understand and remediate the persistent gap between those who have access to the fruits of science and those who do not. Your work has interrogated the social forces of racism, gender inequity, and impoverishment to understand how these social forces create and sustain health inequity. In these two years you have learned to practice a biosocial analysis of health problems. You have developed quantitative skills and become facile with tools of social medicine—ethnographic and qualitative research. The latter-deep listening to those affected by adverse social forces—helped you to privilege the lived experience of patients in your research.

All of you used this bio-social lens to analyze complex problems in health delivery. And, so importantly, each of you proposed a roadmap for how we might remediate such suffering. Today you join more than 150 alumni of this unique program: people from communities across the globe—doctors and nurses, policy makers and managers, pharmacists and laboratory specialists--all of you--working toward a fairer world. We have no doubt that you will use the knowledge you have gained here to ease suffering and bend the moral arc of the university toward justice and health equity.

In this difficult time, where the very mention of equity has become politicized, we are especially grateful for this diverse community. We are grateful for having shared this journey with you. We have learned so much together. Our Department of Global Health and Social Medicine—indeed our entire community—is enriched by your intellect and passion. We are excited to continue to work with you in the future as our community grows!

Joia, Christina and Katie

Dawnn Pauline Cruz Bituin “Why Can’t She Just Leave?”: Pathways Toward Women's Liberation from Intimate Partner Violence, a Mixed Methods Study in Mabinay, Negros Oriental, Philippines Ameena Mumthaz Mangattu Chalil "Before and After It Had a Name" - The Journey of Diagnosis, Understanding, and Living with Bipolar Affective Disorder in Northern Kerala, India Eddie Charles Utilization of Mental Health Services During Socio-Political Violence in Haiti: 2015–2024 Tamba Amadu Gbamanja From Donor Reliance to Domestic Ownership: Barriers to fully funding a Community Health Workers Program in Sierra Leone Ahmed Abdurahman Hajikedir Assessing and Exploring Factors Influencing Sexual and Reproductive Health Service Delivery and Experiences of Adolescent and Young Women in Conflict-Affected Areas of Ethiopia Vera Kabanda Understanding the Multi-Sectoral Approach in Responding to Gender-Based Violence in Neno District, Malawi Emmanuel Kamanzi Adaptation of an Evidence-Based Patient Navigation Model to Enhance Treatment Outcomes for Patients with Breast Cancer at Butaro Cancer Center of Excellence (BCCoE) in Rwanda Mariama Mahmoud Evaluating the Readiness for Community-Based Management of Multidrug/Rifampin Resistant Tuberculosis (MDR/RR-TB) in Sierra Leone Keisha Carisse Pamilar Mangalili Understanding the Factors Affecting the Implementation and Utilization of the Konsulta Package in Public and Private Facilities in the Philippines: A Mixed Methods Study Evan Yutaka Kamealawelawe’imi’āina Masunaga Financial Toxicity in Craniofacial Care

Cecilia Doble Needham Facilitators & Barriers in Outpatient Malnutrition Treatment in Neno, Malawi: A MixedMethods Study Nguyen Do Thu Phuong Understanding Mental Health Issues Facing Young Women in the Hmong Community: A Qualitative Descriptive Study in Sapa, Vietnam Ikechukwu Nnanna Causes of Severe Acute Malnutrition amongst the Under-five Children in Koidu, Sierra Leone Stephen Wortejieh Picka Assessing Barriers and Compliance with Antibiotic Stewardship Guidelines in Rural Hospitals in Southeastern Liberia Priyanka More Than Medicine: A Biosocial Analysis of Engagement with Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis Preventive Treatment Among Close Contacts in Kazakhstan Nilufar Qahorova Understanding High Cancer Mortality in Uzbekistan: Identifying Barriers to Early Detection and Prevention of Screenable Cancers: A Mixed-Methods Study on Breast, Cervical and Colorectal Cancer in Uzbekistan Cinta Nurindah Sari Evaluation of a Community-Based Nutrition Program using Positive Deviance/Hearth Approach: A Biosocial Analysis of Determinants Influencing Effectiveness in Sambas and Malang Regencies, Indonesia Nindya Nabilah Utami Understanding Sociocultural Characteristics in Shaping Professional Burnout and WellBeing Among Resident Physicians in Indonesia’s Teaching Hospital: A Mixed-Method Study Christy Abigail Wulandari Bridging the Gap Between the National TB Program and Indigenous Communities: The Importance of Indigenous Community Health Workers in the Orang Rimba of Indonesia's Rainforest

Master in Clinical Service Operations Over the course of the Master of Science in Clinical Services Operations program, you have committed yourself to the noble pursuit of advancing your leadership in health care clinical operations, which are fundamental to the delivery of patient care and the patient experience. We are impressed by your commitment to safe, accessible, equitable, efficient, compassionate, and affordable high-quality patient care.

Our three pathways of general clinical operations, industry leadership, and executive leadership have created a dynamic multi-disciplinary learning community of physicians, nurses and other clinicians, administrators, and industry professionals. A major focus of our program has been learning novel approaches to clinical operations, and you have immersed yourself in workflow management, innovation and technology, service lines, supply chain, health care finances, data analytics, value-based healthcare, and much more. You have also grown your leadership skills in teamwork, critical thinking, change management, strategic communications, stakeholder alignment and relationship building, mentorship, trust building, and crisis management.

Along the way, we watched you grow and develop into a cohesive unit, a true community of learners despite your locations across the globe. It has been heartwarming to see your friendships develop and to see how each of you contributed to the education of your peers. Each of you has brought a unique set of professional backgrounds and personal stories, and these diverse backgrounds have made for lively classroom discussions that reflected your collective experiences.

As you leave HMS to assume new challenges, new responsibilities, and new leadership roles, we hope that the lessons that you have learned in the classroom and beyond will remain with you. We are in a challenging era as healthcare professionals as we navigate the rising cost of healthcare, capacity constraints, and workforce challenges. Yet it is also the most exciting time in the history of health care with breakthroughs in health care including artificial intelligence, remote monitoring and telemedicine, integration of social determinants of health into care, and personalized medicine and genomics. We are positive that all of our MCSO graduates will play a significant role in transforming your organizations. We wish you all the success in your professional and personal journeys.

Kevin, Rachel, Ann, Harry, Preeti, and Teresa

Alistair Jacob Aaronson CAIT Connect: Novel AI Platform that Addresses the Operational Challenges Faced by Parents Taking Care of Children with Medical Complexity Bosede Adesola Afolabi Establishing a Cost-Effective and Streamlined Cardiovascular Supply Chain Asmaa Mahmoud Ali Ahmed Pilot Implementation of a Value-Based Care Model for Diabetes: Optimizing Clinical Outcomes and Economic Sustainability in a Public Hospital Setting Layth Suleiman Al Sayegh Implementation of an Integrated In-House Specialty Pharmacy Service (SPS) Model: An Operational Framework for High-Complexity Care in the United Arab Emirates Bader Ahmad S Alajlan Home Hospital Program for Capacity Optimization at King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre Faisal Abdullah Alowaidi Establishing an Inventory Management System for Public Health Laboratory Maximus Bekada Ateba Operational Blueprint for Commercializing Ambient Documentation Technology in Academic Medical Centers: A Reimbursement-Ready Scale Pathway for Mass General Brigham Fatma Jamal Badyadaran Hospital Beyond Walls: Designing an Inpatient Home-based Acute Care Model for Dubai Health.

Rose Christine Campomanes AI-Enhanced Infectious Disease Exposure Management: Optimizing TB Exposure Surveillance at Scale Through Workday Integration, Machine Learning, and Intelligent Workflow Automation Kyli Brooke Day Operational Strategies to Improve Clinical Documentation Compliance, Revenue Protection, and Outcome Performance in a Mixed-Payor Behavioral Health System Juan De Dios Del Castillo Calcáneo Implementing an Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) Pathway for Anterior Lumbar Interbody Fusion (ALIF) to Reduce Length of Stay at Centro Médico ABC

Utíéyinashola Christine Dediare Enhancing Adult Oral Nutrition Supplements (ONS) in Electronic Healthcare Systems (EHS) for Palliative Care Post-Hospital Discharge to Primary Care Settings Sangu Julius Delle Healthy Aging@Home: Designing a Preventive, AI-Enabled, Home-Based Geriatric Service for Urban Accra Emmanuel Desravines Who is My Provider? Building Smarter Virtual Hospitals: Workflow and Communication Innovations in Hospital-at-Home Care Models Chen Duan Design and Optimization of a Hospital-Wide Bed Control Center: A Planning and Operations Perspective Bethel Amei Dzobo Measuring What Matters: Developing and Validating an Outcomes Dashboard for the Kinnections Brain Health Initiative at Asbury Methodist Village Rana Elgendy Implementing Early Obesity Risk Tracking and Family Education in Pediatric Primary Care to Prevent Long-Term Disease.

Hossam Hassan Abdelhamid Elmasry Strategic Framework for Addressing Ageing and Escalating Medication Costs in the Medical Services Fund Under the Egyptian Cabinet Hessa Fezai Centralization of Medical Imaging Services Access at Dubai Health Contact Center to Enhance Patient Experience William Lee Gregory Addressing the Underdiagnosis of Malnutrition in a Rural Health System Ilian Grigorov Designing a Data-Driven Preventive Health Clinic: A Model for Early Detection and Lifestyle Interventions to Extend Healthy Lifespan Candi Holyfield Designing a Scalable, Telehealth-Enabled Oral Appliance Therapy (OAT) Pathway to Enhance Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) Treatment Access and Long-Term Adherence

Anmar Homeida System-Wide Emergency Department Throughput Optimization at Massachusetts General Hospital: Reducing Length of Stay and Improving Patient Flow Through DataDriven Consult Workflow Redesign Susan Hong In Cancer Care, Food is Medicine: Addressing Food Insecurity in Cancer Patients on Active Treatment at a single NCI-Designated Comprehensive Cancer Center Lubna Jamal Viz.ai Workflow Redesign for Secondary Stroke Prevention: Implementing AI-Enhanced Workflow Modifications to Reduce Cardiology Referral Delays for Secondary Stroke Prevention Sarah Elizabeth Johnson Regional Helicopter Emergency Medical Services (HEMS) Auto Launch System in Rural South Carolina Payam Katebi Kashi Enhancing Palliative Care Access for Gynecologic Cancer Patients at Inova Schar Cancer Institute Badreya Ibrahim Khadim Reducing Ultrasound Patient No-Show Rates at Dubai Academic Health Corporation: A Targeted Intervention Across Rashid, Dubai, and Latifa Hospitals Rouba Bashar Khair Optimizing Rehabilitation Service Utilization: Reducing Cancellations and No-Shows at Argan Riaya Hospital Brandon Kirshner Front-End Utilization Review as a Strategy to Improve Observation vs. Inpatient Status Accuracy in a Rural Community Hospital James Hsing-Hsi Lee Establishing a Center of Excellence for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ+) Patients at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle, WA Franck David Nelson Addressing Sickle Cell Disease Through a Comprehensive and Standardized Operational Approach

Ahamefule I. Okorozo Optimizing Procedural Efficiency and Scheduling Adherence in the Gastrointestinal Suite: A Quality Improvement Initiative at Montefiore Medical Obiora Okoye Exploring Opportunities to Improve Patient Access to Early Phase Clinical Trials: The Altido Blueprint Eleonora Zusman Orloff Improving Pediatric Eye Care and Operational Efficiency at Bronx Eye Associates Through Workflow Redesign and Strategic Referral Optimization Abiola Oyewo Optimizing Dialysis Delivery in Resource-Constrained Settings Shehnaz Yasin Pancholi Integrated Chronic Care Management Focused on Hypertension, Diabetes, and Cardiac Conditions for Senior Citizens Covered by Medicare to Reduce Hospital Admissions and Readmissions Najimdin Pedro Operational Strategies to Reduce Length of Stay and Alternative Level of Care Days in a Safety-Net Hospital: A Throughput Improvement Initiative at Harlem Hospital Shannon Ranella Optimizing Advanced Practice Provider Utilization in a Thoracic Surgery Clinic: an Operational and Financial Analysis Bhavana Rebba Integrating Outpatient Blood Transfusion Services (OBTS) into a Nursing Home Setting to Reduce Hospital Transfers and Subacute Readmission Rates.

Aneesh Remani Ravi Bridge to Stability: Implementing a New SMS Based Post-Discharge Engagement Model at CER Hawaii Crisis Shelter (EKOLU) Patrick Oliver Renner Dynamic Recruitment Timeline Prediction Tool: Enhancing Accuracy of Study Delivery at Citruslabs Lindsay Richerson Closing the Gap: Improving Alumni Engagement and Continuity of Care at Lantana Recovery

Barak Ringel Standardizing Endoscopic Documentation and Image Analysis to Improve Clinical Consistency in the Rhinology and Skull Base Clinic Jose Santiago Santa-Cruz Sanchez Developing Balanced Scorecards as Tools for Organizational Alignment in the Outpatient Service of a Rural Hospital Jovanna Michelle Schlossenberg Improving Clinical Research Trial Recruitment Through Digital Patient Matching: Development of ClinMatchGO Platform and the Clinical Research Trial Match System (CRTMS) Adele Simard-Lebrun Building a Comprehensive Ophthalmology Division in an Academic Center of Montreal to Address the Problematic of Growing Wait Times Wempy Supit Optimizing Clinical Operations: Balancing AI Diagnostics Tools and Workflow Efficiency Maximilian David Cyril Thompson Implementation of a Technology-Enabled Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) Pilot Program in Primary Care for Underserved Patients with Chronic Conditions in New York City Scott Patrick Tisoskey New Knock in Mouse Lines Dmp1em1(CreERT2) and Dmp1em2(ZsGreen) Enable Precise Osteocyte-Specific Targeting and Visualization Petra Tkacikova Improving Blood Culture Collection: A Bundle Strategy Approach to Improve Sepsis Quality Measures and Ensure Accurate Sepsis Diagnosis Grace van Leeuwen Strategic Roadmap for Transitioning to a New ECMO System Helena Varela de Araujo Scaling Diagnostic Services: Building Capacity and Efficiency in Clinical Flow Cytometry Taylor Nicole Vreugde Optimizing Space Utilization of an Ambulatory Oncology Clinic

Ariani Dewi Widodo Establishing Multidisciplinary Aerodigestive Clinic in a National Referral Center for Children: Integrating Care and Benefiting Patients Salma Yassine AI-Driven Smart Patient Flow and Risk Prediction System in Pediatric Ophthalmology Emily Zimmerman-Bartko Integrating Operational Excellence with Community-Centered Care: A Comprehensive Model for Standardized and Centralized Scheduling in Cancer Infusion Centers

Master of Science in Clinical Research Congratulations to the inaugural class of the SMCR program on your graduation!

Welcome to a moment that, one year ago, existed only on paper.

We know that there was a mix of excitement and some anxiety when you were accepted into this program as our inaugural class. Our program back then was merely an idea of what we wanted it to be. It needed more than a curriculum and a course schedule— it needed believers like you. You may or may not know this, but we selected you not merely for what you had accomplished, but for your potential to shape what the SMCR will become. We are happy and proud to say that you delivered on that promise substantially.

With your dedication to academic work and scholarship, you proved yourselves 100%.

You chose the unconventional path. And because of that, you weren’t just students—you were our partners. You taught us, the faculty, as much as we taught you. You modeled the exact qualities this changing world needs: resilience in the face of ambiguity, and innovation when there is no roadmap. Despite the unknowns that we faced as we welcomed your class, you helped build the foundation upon which the future SMCR cohorts will stand. In that regard, you are to be congratulated not just for your graduation, but also for your trailblazing role in the SMCR program. You have left an indelible mark on our institution, the SMCR program, and us!

Throughout this past year, you consistently showed up to advance your skills in evidencebased medicine. You actively participated in course work ranging from statistics to omics and from mixed methods to meta-analysis. And you successfully completed your Capstone projects probing the strengths and limitations of the existing literature and articulating implications for future research and clinical work. You did all that while managing the unique pressure of being the “first.” You have proven that you not only have determination to accomplish what is asked of you, but also agility needed in today’s

rapidly changing world.

As you graduate, you are embarking on a journey as an expert in evidence-based medicine destined for leadership. You will be the author of your own career path. We know that you will take the high standards you demanded of yourselves here during the SMCR program and apply them to your work, your communities, and your lives. In your careers, you will inevitably face situations where there is no precedent. When the world tells you, "we’ve never done it this way before." In those moments, we want you to remember your inaugural SMCR class. We want you to remember that you are capable of turning a blank page into a masterpiece. We are so proud of your dedication, brilliance, and boldness.

We look forward to hearing from you about the great things you will continue to do. We wish you the very best for your future.

Lourdes, Sagar, and Katie

Abdelrahman Ahmed Fekry Abaza Evaluation of the Therapeutic Efficacy and Safety of Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor–Based Combination Therapies for the Management of B-Cell Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Jeremiah Adie Brain Computer Interfaces for Motor Restoration in Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury Mohammad Abdulrahman M Almesned Endoscopic Submucosal Dissection Versus Minimally Invasive Transanal Surgery for Rectal Tumors: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Precious Idorenyin Anthony Direct Oral Anticoagulants Versus Warfarin in Patients with Atrial Fibrillation and Moderate to Severe Chronic Kidney Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Chi Wing Kandace Chan* Lesion Topography and Etiological Subtypes of Acute Ischemic Stroke as Predictors of Post-Stroke Epilepsy: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Meiling Milagros Carbajal Galarza Bruton’s Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors in Multiple Sclerosis: Systematic Review and Metaanalysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

Inha Hwang Efficacy and Safety of Oral Orexin Receptor 2-Selective Agonist in Narcolepsy Type 1: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis Jumana Omar Mazhar Survival and Clinical Outcomes of Premolar Autotransplantation to the Anterior Region: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Charlotte Grace Logue Nyland Allogeneic Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation in AML Harboring inv(3)(q21q26.2)/t(3;3)(q21;q26.2): A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Oseiga Praise Odafen S100B Protein – A Potential Biomarker of Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy in Neonates Rohan Andrew Pancharatnam Indexed Oxygen Delivery During Cardiopulmonary Bypass and Acute Kidney Injury: A Quantitative Synthesis of Physiological Exposure Patterns Daniya Fatima Riha Assessing Comparative Effectiveness and Safety Profile of Roflumilast versus Ensifentrine as an Add-on Therapies for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Exacerbation Reduction: A Systematic Review, Meta-analysis and Bucher indirect Comparison Sebastian David Santos Patarroyo Percutaneous Left Atrial Appendage Closure Versus Oral Anticoagulation for Stroke Prevention in Atrial Fibrillation: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials Assel Talaspayeva "Risk Factors for "Strong" versus "Weak" Response to Anti-VEGF Therapy in CenterInvolved Diabetic Macular Edema".

Akshaya Thoutam Transcriptional Programs Underlying Malignant Cell States in Cholangiocarcinoma: A Systematic Review and Meta-analytic Synthesis of scRNA-seq Evidence * Note: All degree requirements have been completed. Final degree conferral is pending verification of completion of bachelor's degree or equivalent.

Master of Medical Sciences in Clinical Investigation To the Class of 2026, we could not be prouder of your tremendous achievement— congratulations to you, to your families, friends, and all who supported you along the way.

In the years you spent with us at Harvard Medical School, you learned the foundational skills necessary to succeed in clinical and translational research. You put these skills into practice by conducting cutting-edge research that addressed a spectrum of challenging research questions. Your growth and experiences over the last two years will serve as the foundation of what we hope will be a fulfilling, life-long journey as curious, innovative, and collaborative investigators. As Harvard graduates you are uniquely poised to tackle the most complex research questions, make discoveries that will impact patients' lives, and change the future of healthcare in your communities and the world.

We are truly excited to see the accomplishments that lie ahead for each of you, and we hope that you will continue to engage with and broaden your Harvard community.

Many congratulations and stay in touch, Finnian, Martina, Rosalyn, Kerri, Suman, Molly, and Opeyemi

Habibah Azzahra Putri Agianda Blood-Based Biomarker Discovery in Childhood-Onset Hereditary Spastic Paraplegias Yeside Olubunmi Akinbolagbe

The Effect of Radon Decay Product Exposure on Asthma Morbidity in Students with Asthma & the Impact of Radon on Lung Health in Children with Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia

Mohamad Zaki A Alzaher Biomechanical Breakdown: The Roles of Radial Meniscal Tears and Bone Mineral Density in Subchondral Insufficiency Fractures of the Knee Victor Anyebe Anyebe Body Mass Index and the Risk of HIV Acquisition in Transgender Women and Men who have sex with Men: A Secondary Analysis of the HVTN 505 Trial & Global Prevalence of Metabolic Syndrome in Adolescents Living with HIV: A Systematic review and Meta-analysis

Manisha Rajesh Asrani The Impact of Automated Tools on Clinical Decision-Making in Gestational Trophoblastic Disease Samarra Badrouchi Clinical Features at Admission for Heart Failure and Their Prognostic Significance: AIEnabled Phenotyping from DELIVER and PARAGON-HF Zahra Bagheri Evaluating CDK4/6 Inhibitors Treatment Sequencing and Genomic Predictors of Response to AKT Inhibitor in HR+/HER2− Metastatic Breast Cancer Ilaria Caturegli Localized Drug Delivery: A Therapeutic Approach for Retroperitoneal Sarcoma Michael Christian Finding Those in Needs for Antiretroviral: A Validation of an HIV Risk Prediction Model for Women Aged 15-49 Years and Evaluation of the Diagnostic Test Accuracy of Nucleic Acid Testing for Early Infant Diagnosis Raysha Farah Combining Genomics with Lipid and Inflammatory Biomarkers to Predict Coronary Artery Disease Risk Chinmay Manoj Ghavat Impact of Post Operative Recovery Pathways on Peri-Operative and Oncologic Outcomes in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma Patients Andres Inzunza Martin del Campo Demographic and Diagnostic Characteristics of Virtual Reality Visual Field Testing in Primary Care Glaucoma Screening & Perimetric Outcomes of Melbourne Rapid Fields in Patients with Glaucoma: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Ting-Wan Kao Latent Morphologic Representations in Pathology Foundation Models and Their Implications for Algorithmic Disparities and Clinical Prediction

Basma Menif Genomic Epidemiology to Inform Infection Control and Clinical Decision-Making Olfa Messaoud Improving Genetic Diagnosis: Why and How. Why: Participant Perspectives on Rare Disease Genomic Research & How: Analysis of Splicing Coding and Noncoding Genes and Pseudogenes Reveals Novel Gene-Disease Relationships Kamila Muyasarah Engineering CAR-NK Cells with Enhanced Persistence and Functionality for Cancer Immunotherapy Loukman Omarjee Two Beats Within One Heart: Autonomic and Vascular Biological Aging in Obesity and Exercise Juliana Villanueva Congote Risk Stratification in Kidney Stone Disease: Environmental Drivers and Perioperative Infectious Outcomes Jason Young Defining Bacteriophage Dosing and Pharmacokinetic Parameters for Staphylococcus epidermidis Prosthetic Joint Infection Qilin Zhang Genomic Features Associated with Clinical Heterogeneity in Corticotroph Adenomas

Master of Medical Sciences in Biomedical Informatics Dear graduates, families, and guests!

The Department of Biomedical Informatics is excited to celebrate the achievements of our new graduates. This year is especially exciting because our first cohort of students is graduating from the newly redesigned Master of Medical Sciences in Biomedical Informatics program. This two-year training program complements our rigorous core curriculum with a year-long research thesis where students can apply their skills to real biomedical questions.

The 30 graduates crossing the stage today came to us with impressive training in biomedical and computational sciences and a desire to enhance their skills. They entered the program intending to pursue career paths dedicated to improving human health

using advances in data science and technology, and indeed, many of these students will go on to pursue PhD and MD degrees, or to roles in industry and academic research.

These students are well-equipped to tackle the most pressing problems in biomedicine today with their multidisciplinary skillset. Over the past two years, they took courses in machine learning, large-scale data analysis, molecular mechanisms of disease, clinical data, and the design and execution of impactful research projects.

In addition, all of our graduates designed and completed thesis research projects with the mentorship of expert faculty and researchers. Their projects use data and computing to tackle a wide range of biomedical problems: for example, developing a machine learning approach to assess Parkinson’s Disease severity through speech measurements, disentangling the complex associations between drug use and tuberculosis transmission, or using multiomic data to identify potential genetic mechanisms of blood disorders. Our graduates’ theses reflect the extraordinary skill and care required to ask impactful questions and design rigorous analyses that push the boundaries of data-driven biomedicine.

As we celebrate the successful culmination of these graduates’ master’s training, we want to thank our instructional faculty and thesis advisors, who invest their time and energy into educating the next generation of biomedical informaticians and enable their success.

We are grateful to our graduates that they chose to come here to join our community, share their knowledge with us, and enrich our community by participating in the academic and social life in the Department of Biomedical Informatics and Harvard Medical School.

We are also thankful to the families of our graduates, who supported them throughout their studies, and who undoubtedly shared many of the sacrifices that our students made to be graduating today. Dear families, you have many reasons to be proud today!

But most importantly, dear graduates, we want to emphasize that today does not mark the end of your time in our community; it is the beginning of the next phase. As alumni of our program and the Department of Biomedical Informatics, you will now be working alongside your former teachers and mentors to define the future of our field and leave your mark on the future of medicine. The importance of informatics in medicine and biology has never been more evident than today.

Wherever your careers may take you, you will always be a part of our community.

Congratulations!

Nils Gehlenborg (Program Director), Aparna Nathan (Associate Program Director) Lilen

Uchima (Director of Educational Programs), Rebecca Fitzhugh (Senior Program Manager), and Jesse Ellis (Education Program Coordinator) Valentin Badea A Multi-Scale Computational Framework for the Longitudinal Analysis of Enlarged Perivascular Space Distributions Under Sleep Deprivation Mohammed Salim Baharoon Developing Collaborative Human–AI Systems for Radiology Yourong Bao Longitudinal Multi-Omics Analysis of Metastatic Melanoma Reveals Dynamic Tumor Evolution and Multi-Level Heterogeneity Grant James Bell Channel-Level Seizure Onset and Offset Detection in Stereo-EEG with Sub-Second Temporal Precision Using Machine Learning Shuo Cai Compositional Phenotype Representations and Population-Level Clinical Priors for Disease-Specific Missense Variant Interpretation Shyam Chandra Speech as a Digital Biomarker: A Computational Framework for Severity and Progression in Parkinson's Disease and Cerebellar Ataxia Jiayi Chen sc-Multiome Reveals a Time-dependent Regulatory Role of MECOM in Vascular Development Stephanie Chen Prediction of Progression from Mild Cognitive Impairment using Blood-Based Biomarkers and Amyloid-Beta PET: A Survival Analysis Approach Yanshi Chen Evaluating the Statistical Fidelity and Utility of Aggregated Patient Count as a Surrogate for Line-Level EHR in Kidney-Transplant Research Yunyi Cheng Get AHEAD of Acquired Epilepsy: An Acute Hospitalization Epilepsy Assessment and Detection tool

Jiabo Cui Foundation Model Guided Flow Matching on Tree Manifold for Differentiable Phylogenetics Neha Varma Dantuluri Development and Validation of an Interpretable and Longitudinal Risk Prediction Model for Stillbirth using Machine Learning Gaia-Marie Gerbaka Predicting Sample Size for fMRI-guided TMS Biomarker Studies using Cost-Effectiveness Analysis Surabhi Ghatti The Impact of Illicit Drug Use on Tuberculosis Transmission in South Africa Rishabh Goel Generating Actionable Clinical Summaries from EHR Data of Pediatric Patients Using Large Language Models (LLMs) Andrew Barry Gumbert Investigating Molecularly Defined Clusters of Parkinson’s Disease Based on Multi-Omics Data with Clinical and Biological Implications Rahul Gundamraj Discovery of Novel Rare Disease Genes Through Scalable Prioritization and Geometric Scoring of AlphaFold3 Structures Ningxi Huang Characterizing cancer phenotypes and their tumor microenvironment across malignant progression.

John Seong-pil Jun Deep Learning Pipeline Using H&E Images and Clinicopathological Features to Identify Early-Stage Melanoma Patients with a High Risk of Recurrence Jiatong Li Toward a Framework for Evaluating the Clinical Relevance of Cancer Cell Lines at SingleCell Resolution Yunxi Li Computationally Derived Histologic Features for Predicting Recurrence Risk in EarlyStage Melanoma

John Howard Lin Non-Invasive Identification of Clinically Actionable Gene Fusions in Gliomas Using Deep Learning-Enabled Analysis of Magnetic Resonance Imaging Scans Sunni Chinjo Lin Building a Generalized Decoder for Immune Profiling in Pathology Seshagiri Rao Mallina Early Detection of Pediatric Growth Disorders: A Deep Learning Approach to Longitudinal Electronic Health Records Ananya Prasad Divergent Effects of KLF1 Variants: Gain and Loss of DNA Binding Determine the Severity of Erythropoietic Disruption Siavash Raissi From Hidden Activations to Human-Interpretable Concepts: Explaining and Interpreting Computational Pathology Classifiers Using Concept Learning Jiarong Ye Domain Adaptation for Breast Cancer Computational Pathology: Evaluating FeatureLevel and Pixel-Level Approaches Under Leave-One-Domain-Out Evaluation Wenzhu Ye Bridging the Resolution Gap: Super-Resolution Enhancement of Dental Panoramic Radiographs to Periapical-Like Clarity Using Deep Learning Xingli Yu Investigating Antigen Recognition Patterns and T Cell Dynamics in Neoantigen Cancer Vaccine-Treated Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia Lanxin Zhang Decoding the pathogenicity of epilepsy-associated non-coding genetic variants

Master of Science in Bioethics We are overjoyed at the accomplishments of our 73 graduates of the Master of Science in Bioethics (MBE) program this year, bringing our community to more than 500 MBE graduates over the past decade. Bioethics is committed to exploring the moral dimensions and quandaries that are inevitable when we examine our lives and our health, and driven to broadening and deepening our moral lives and imaginations.

Bioethics is also demanding, asking us to bring knowledge, theory, and practice together because bioethics, as an applied field, is embodied in the doing. In that respect, MBE Class of 2026, you are prepared. You have bridged your academic learning in the classroom with practical experience through your Capstone work, collaborating with clinical teams, research programs, government agencies, and academic partners to tackle cutting-edge bioethical challenges. You have brought your whole selves to meet these challenges, with reason and emotion, principles and care, individuality, and relational commitments.

Today, respect for science and freedom of inquiry are at risk. Since its inception, the Center for Bioethics has steadfastly championed the pursuit of knowledge, the application of reason, and academic freedom. And we know that we cannot achieve these ideals without including as many voices as possible.

MBE Class of 2026, we are already proud of your remarkable achievements. You are advancing the work of bioethics by promoting health – and the human condition more broadly – with novel approaches and solutions to eliminate disparities and center the margins. As emerging technologies such as genome editing and artificial intelligence rapidly reshape healthcare, your training equips you to confront the ethical challenges they raise, ensuring that innovation is guided by transparency, accountability, fairness, and respect for human dignity.

Going forward, we have no doubt that you will use the strength of your minds, your hearts, and your bioethics community to continually improve the world we have inherited toward the goal of achieving a better planet that we imagine.

Congratulations!

Becca, Joni, Crystal, Jesse, Sadé and Sam (on behalf of the Center for Bioethics) Hany Hamdy Abdallah Physician Deference, Culture, and Refusal Daniel Aillaud De Uriarte Beyond the Patient: Ethical Responsibilities Toward Families Affected by Alcohol Use Disorder Nada Abdulaziz AlYousefi Responsible Use of AI in Bioethical Reasoning: Developing a Novel Assessment Toolkit for Medical Students

Radheesh Ameresekere Sovereignty in the Global Market: A Defense of Compulsory Licensing Mechanisms Nandita Ammanamanchi Narrative Threads: Ethical Narratives and Emotional Landscapes of Mental Health Advocates - A Poetic Anthology Sitara Anil Sivadas Moral Reasoning or Learned Logic? Evaluating Large Language Models Across Ten Reproductive Ethics Cases Hannah Rosemarie Bentz Who Counts as a Sjögren’s Patient? Gender, Classification, and Epistemic Injustice Karina Bhavsar Access, Autonomy, and Augmentation: Ethical Tensions Between Fair Access to Mental Augmentation and Protection of Free Will in Neurotechnology Madeleine Blair Bullen Old Frameworks, New Frictions: AI as a Catalyst for Improving Informed Consent Amanda Buster A Final Resting Place: Aligning Policy with Patient Values for Aging Adults in Long Term Care Facilities Lara Celik Shadows of the Self: Beyond Individual Autonomy in Glioblastoma Lawrence Chyall Should Informed Consent Precede Brain Death Testing? A Normative Analysis from Nursing Ethics Mariko Laura Costantini Ethical Participant Selection in Fentanyl Vaccine Research: A Normative Analysis Anna Beth Daley Considerations for the Organizational Structure of a Hospital Ethics Program Rohan Dasari Code of Professional Ethics for AI Developers in IVF/PGT Lourena C De Abreu Reimagining Healthcare Evaluation: A Transformative Quality Evaluation Framework

Nathaniel George De Luca How Much Should You Pay for a ‘Healthy Baby’? Developing Ethical Frameworks for Preimplantation Genetic Testing Patrick Delices Algorithmic Injustice in Psychiatry: A Bioethical Evaluation of AI-Driven Health Disparities in Black Patient Populations Jeffrey Dimascio Ground-Up Approach to Addressing Barriers to Curative Gene Therapy for Sickle Cell Disease Taposh Dutta Roy The Autonomy Index: A Validated Framework for Evaluating Large Language Models in Clinical Bioethics Julia Sheridan Etkin Regulating Consciousness: Epistemic and Exceptional Risks of Altered States Erica Ivoon Fernandez Care Beyond Words: A Bioethical Perspective on Artificial Intelligence Translation Applications in Healthcare Emily Ann Folse Ethical Considerations for Initiation of eCPR Alexandra Fouad Parent Perspectives on Withdrawing and Withholding Life-sustaining Treatments in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Louise Elizabeth Yulu Guentert Ethics Education: Digital Twin Technologies in Geriatric Oncology Sawsan Haider Regulating Foreign AI in Canadian Healthcare: Addressing Trust Deficits in U.S.Controlled EMR Systems Rand Hasan Acute and Chronic Scarcity in Bioethics: Ethical Perspectives on Resource Allocation Across Global Health Systems

Anna Hayek Justice, Stigma, and Dignity in Women's Hormonal Health: Cross-Cultural Care for PCOS and Menopause Esther Peiying Ho Navigating the Grey Zone: Supported Decision-Making for Older Adults in the Margins of Capacity Jeffery Daniel Holiday The Ethics of Agreement: Sycophancy in Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Use for Mental Health Carmen Rae Holmes Ethical Stewardship in Neurology: Protecting Brain Death Determination in Organ Donation Systems Aleesha Imran The GUIDE Framework: Integrating Consensual Paternalism into Shared Decision-Making Kelly McKenzie Ivins-O'Keefe Exploring Knowledge, Beliefs and Attitudes Regarding Perioperative Do-Not-Resuscitate Orders Renuka Anjali Joshi-Dave From Brussels To Beyond: Bioethics as a Tool for The European Health Data Spaces & Informing Its Secondary Use Marharyta Krylova-Sutor Advancing Patient Autonomy in AI-Supported Clinical Care Through an IPDAS-Based Patient Decision Aid Bailey Ann Kuhn The Ethics of Medications for Opioid Use Disorder in the Adolescent Population Shun Wang (Max) Kwok* Ethical Governance of Adolescent Proxy Access in Patient Portals Zoe Lewczak From Black Box to Moral Space: A Behavioral Intervention to Increase Clinical Ethics Consultation (CEC) Utilization

Ying Yin Lim Organizational Ethics and Moral Distress in Palliative Care: Balancing Sustainability and Standards of Care in Singapore Noah Vinay Loran Navigating Autonomy in Cognitive Decline: Ethical and Policy Approaches to DecisionMaking Capacity in Alzheimer’s Disease Joseph John Lupski Implementing Organizational Ethics in Academic-Affiliated Hospitals Harvey J Mamon A Bioethical Analysis of Lab-Grown Meat William F Martin Ethical Leadership in Healthcare: A Multi-Level Framework for Physician Leaders Navigating Organizational Complexity Amanda Michael Protection of Sexual Partners in HIV Analytical Treatment Interruption (ATI) Studies Kiley Moran Justice at Birth - The Ethical Case for Universal Genomic Sequencing in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit David Christopher Motorniak Smoke or Vapor: Harm Reduction, Youth Protection, and Power in the Ethics of ECigarette Policy Bill Nam Nguyen What Do We Demand From Bioethics?

Sarah Diane Obenauer Everyday Care in a Landscape of Abandonment: Chronic Illness and Moral Life in Central Appalachia Stephen Anderson Orr Proactive Ethics Screening in the ICU: A Pilot for Early Identification of Ethical Concerns Zazai Tyyinga Owens Autonomy and Moral Agency in Community-Based Health Screening Encounters: An Ethics-Informed Community Health Education Initiative

Achyuth Ambat Parola Divergence in Legal, Clinical, and Ethical Stakeholder Values in Perimplantation Genetic Screening Tjörvi E Perry Governing Machine Learning as Care Mediation: A Normative Framework Beyond Rights-Based Compliance Ryan James Pogemiller Developing a Taxonomy of Bioethical Dilemmas in Long-Duration Spaceflight Expeditions Claudia Polgar Invisible Injury: Neuroethics and Narrative Ethics in the Diagnosis of Post-Concussion Syndrome Meena Ramadugu Practicing Curiosity: Stories of Uncertainty in Medicine Lily Fairchild Randell Is This Ethical? Navigating the Everyday Dilemmas of Early-Stage Dementia Caregiving Ilisa H Rooke-Ley Confinement as Treatment? Not So Fast: A Principled Analysis of Civil Commitment for Substance Use Disorders Deena Saadi Moving at the Speed of Trust: Public Health Risk Communication and Trust-Building During Infectious Disease Outbreaks and Beyond Rebecca Taylor Salky Beyond Tokenism: Ethical Patient Engagement in Research Leslie Schaar The Principle of Non-Extraction: Reclaiming Bioethics as a Public Good Zoey Ayden Scher A Visual Exploration of Disability-Related Assumptions About Quality of Life in Clinical Decision-Making Shantanu Kumar Sharma Ethical and Responsible AI in Biomedical Innovation: A Framework for Global Health Governance and Policy

Chaya Tzivia Shor Forever Empathy: An Arts- and Humanities-Infused Empathy Training Curriculum for Medical Students Serena Shughoury Reviewing and Refining the Bioethics Curriculum in Medical Education in Post-Conflict Syria Tin Yau Natalie So Promoting Patient Autonomy by Improving Surrogate Decision-Maker Designation Sydney Gabrielle Stupp Observational Study of the Pediatric Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant (HSCT) Consenting Process Taruni Sri Tangirala Narrative for Moral Distress in Medical Trainees: A Three-Year Capstone Project Dimitra Tzeferakou Navigating BRCA Testing: Previvor Decision-Making and Healthcare System Support in the US, UK, and Greece Ruixu Wang Healthcare Inequality in China: An Urban-Rural and Eastern-Western Comparative Analysis Yuxin Wang Relational Insensitivity in AI-Assisted Pediatric Mental Health Screening Andes Wong* Decisive Decision Making: Determining the Influences of Identity and Personal Experiences on the Decision-Making Process of Institutional Review Board Members Jeremy Chin Fei Wong Medicine’s Sacrosanctity and the Governance of Clinical AI: Patient Interests, AI Risk, and Long-Horizon Responsibility Jonathan Yasin Practices of Informed Consent in Surgery and Anesthesia in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Perspectives of Relational Autonomy Ruiming Zhang Parents, AI and Adolescent Development: Ethical Gaps and a Survey Design

David Zheng Deep Brain Stimulation, Authenticity, and Autonomy: a Dual-Basis Approach to Memory Changes in Alzheimer’s Disease Siqi Zhou Bridging the Gap: Ethical Analysis of Barriers to Breast Cancer Genetic Testing for African American Women * Note: All degree requirements have been completed. Final degree conferral is pending verification of completion of bachelor's degree or equivalent.

Congratulations, Class of 2026!