HST 55th Speakers

Bernard Chang, MD

Dean for Medical Education and the Daniel D. Federman, MD Professor of Neurology and Medical Education at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Chang has had extensive experience as both a curricular leader and an advisory dean. He was one of several faculty involved in the creation of Pathways, a transformative curricular approach at Harvard Medical School and served as the advisory dean of Peabody Society. At Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Dr. Chang cares for patients with seizure disorders and has served as Vice Chair for Education in the Department of Neurology and as Division Chief for Epilepsy and Clinical Neurophysiology. His research efforts have centered on the study of developmental brain disorders associated with epilepsy and learning difficulties.

David E. Cohen, MD (HST '87), PhD

Former Co-Director of HST, 2007-2016. Chair of the Department of Medicine at Cedars Sinai. Prior to his July 2025 appointment at Cedars Sinai, Dr. Cohen was the chief of the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Endoscopy at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, Association of American Physicians, the Interurban Clinical Club, and the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Dr. Cohen’s research has focused on obesity-related liver disease, diabetes and metabolic syndrome.

George Q. Daley, MD (HST '91), PhD

Dean of Harvard Medical School and the Caroline Shields Walker Professor of Medicine at HMS. Dr. Daley is an internationally recognized leader in stem cell science and cancer biology. He is also a longtime member of the HMS faculty whose work spans the fields of basic science and clinical medicine. Daley’s research focuses on the use of mouse and human disease models to identify mechanisms that underlie blood disorders and cancer. His lab aims to define fundamental principles of how stem cells contribute to tissue regeneration and repair and improve drug and transplantation therapies for patients with malignant and genetic bone marrow disease.

Alan M. Garber, MD, PhD

President of Harvard University. President Garber is also the Mallinckrodt Professor of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School, a Professor of Economics in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Professor of Public Policy in the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management in the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. An economist and physician, he studies methods for improving health care productivity and health care financing. As Provost (2011-2024), Dr. Garber was responsible for oversight of academic activities throughout the university, with direct responsibility for inter-school initiatives, faculty development, research policy, international affairs, and advances in learning.

David Golan, MD, PhD

Dean for Research Initiatives and Global Programs and George R. Minot Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Golan is a professor in the Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, where his laboratory applies biophysical and cell-imaging methods to the study of membrane proteins in blood cells. Dr. Golan is a senior physician in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, where he sees patients as a practicing hematologist and clinician teacher.

Wolfram Goessling, MD, PhD

Former Co-Director of HST, 2016-2025. Chair of the Department of Internal Medicine at Yale School of Medicine, chief of Internal Medicine at Yale New Haven Hospital, and physician-in-chief for Medicine across the Yale New Haven Health System. In his laboratory, Dr. Goessling identifies regulators of liver growth and differentiation during development, organ regeneration, and cancer formation. He pioneered the use of zebrafish models for studying liver disease and, with his colleagues, was among the first to use chemical genetic screening methodologies to identify molecules for use in clinical trials.

Thomas Heldt, PhD (HST MEMP '04)

Associate Director, Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES), Richard J. Cohen (1976) Professor in Medical Engineering and Science and Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT. Dr. Heldt is also is a Principal Investigator with MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE) and directs the Integrative Neuromonitoring and Critical Care Informatics Group in IMES and RLE. Dr. Heldt's research interests focus on signal processing, mathematical modeling, and model identification to support real-time clinical decision making, monitoring of disease progression, and titration of therapy, primarily in neurocritical and neonatal critical care.

Junne Kamihara, MD (HST '08), PhD

Associate Director of HST, MD advising. Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Dr. Kamihara is a Pediatric Oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) and Boston Children's Hospital and leads the Pediatric Cancer Genetic Risk Program at DFCI, a multidisciplinary program for children and families with genetic risk for developing cancers and secondary malignancies. She is chairs the HST MD Board of Advisors and leads the Growth of the Physician Scientist (GPS) program. Dr. Kamihara's research and clinical interests focus on pediatric cancer predisposition syndromes.

Sally Kornbluth, PhD

President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. President Kornbluth is also Ellen Swallow Richards (1873) Professor of Biology. She has launched a series of initiatives inspired by the achievements and aspirations of Institute faculty, including the MIT Health and Life Sciences Collaborative (MIT HEALS), designed to accelerate and deliver solutions, at scale, to society’s most urgent, intractable health challenges and the MIT Generative AI Impact Consortium to explore how gen AI can spawn transformative solutions for real-world challenges and help ensure that its societal impact is broadly beneficial. Before she closed her lab to focus on administration, her research focused on the biological signals that tell a cell to start dividing or to self-destruct — processes that are key to understanding cancer as well as various degenerative disorders.

Alex K. Shalek, PhD

Director of the Institute for Medical Engineering & Science (IMES), the Director of the Health Innovation Hub at MIT, and the J. W. Kieckhefer Professor in IMES and the Department of Chemistry at MIT, as well as an Extramural Member of its Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. Dr. Shalek is also an Institute Member of the Broad Institute, a Member of the Ragon Institute, an Assistant in Immunology at MGB, and an Instructor in Health Sciences & Technology at HMS. His lab’s research is directed towards the development and application of new approaches to elucidate cellular and molecular features that inform tissue-level function and dysfunction across the spectrum of human health and disease.

Collin M. Stultz, MD (HST '97), PhD

HST Director, Nina T. and Robert H. Rubin Professor in Medical Engineering and Science, a Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, a member of the Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE), and an associate member of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at MIT. Dr. Stultz's scientific contributions have spanned multiple fields including computational chemistry, biophysics, and machine learning for cardiovascular risk stratification. Currently research in his group is focused on the development of machine learning tools that can guide clinical decision making. He is also a practicing cardiologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).

Maria Yang, Interim Dean School of Engineering at MIT

Maria C. Yang, PhD

Interim Dean of Engineering and William E. Leonhard (1940) Professor of Mechanical Engineering, MIT. Dr. Yang is the founder and director of MIT’s Ideation Lab, faculty director for academics for the MIT D-Lab, and associate director of the Morningside Academy for Design. Dr. Yang is an internationally recognized leader in design theory and methodology, with a current focus on the role of design representations and both physical and AI-based tools for design. Her research considers early-stage processes used to create successful designs, from consumer products to complex, large-scale engineering systems, and their role on design outcome.

Keynote Speakers and Moderators