Margaret H. Baron, MD, PhD, an internationally recognized developmental biologist at the Mount Sinai Health System, has been named Senior Associate Dean for Education and Director of the
MD-PhD Program at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. In her new role, Dr. Baron, the Irene and Dr. Arthur M. Fishberg Professor of Medicine, will draw upon her leadership experience in graduate education to train the next generation of physician-scientists at Mount Sinai.
“Not only did Dr. Baron go through rigorous MD-PhD training herself, but she has remained actively involved and interested in education for decades,” says David Muller, MD, Dean for Medical Education and the Marietta and Charles C. Morchand Chair for Medical Education at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “Her tried-and-true leadership skills, along with her thoughtful and thorough approach, will help elevate our program to new heights.”
Going forward, Dr. Baron plans to create new courses in biomedical sciences that have a greater emphasis on experiential, team-based learning and combine case analyses with active problem-solving.
“I’d like to find ways to modify the path through the MD-PhD Program so that clinical and research training are better integrated,” she says. “The challenge is to help students begin successful independent careers as early as possible without jeopardizing the quality and rigor of their research and clinical training.”
Dr. Baron earned her MD from Harvard Medical School and her PhD in molecular and cellular biology under Nobel laureate David Baltimore, PhD, at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, through the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology. Following her training in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, she performed postdoctoral research at Harvard with Tom Maniatis, PhD, a pioneer in modern molecular biology. After eight years as a Harvard faculty member, Dr. Baron joined Mount Sinai in 1997, where she has held a number of leadership positions.
“Her basic science research in stem-cell biology is highly cited and has opened up pathways for novel therapies in the field of blood disorders,” says John Morrison, PhD, Dean of Basic Sciences and the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, the W.T.C. Johnson Professor of Geriatrics and Adult Development (Neurobiology of Aging) and Professor of Neuroscience. “We are very pleased to have her in this new, critically important leadership role in the Graduate School.”
Prior to her appointment as Director, Dr. Baron served as Assistant Director of the MD-PhD Program, where she cofounded and codirected the Multidisciplinary Training Area in Developmental and Stem Cell Biology. Last fall, she and Robert Krauss, PhD, Professor of Developmental and Regenerative Biology, created an advanced stem-cell biology course for PhD and MD-PhD students. Dr. Baron is also Program Director of Mount Sinai’s first National Institutes of Health-funded T32 Training Grant in Hematology Research and is Director of Research in Hematology and Blood Disorders in the Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology.