For Amherst students considering in a career in medicine, registration is now open for the 11th annual Fink Bioscience Symposium, to be held Thursday, April 11, with discussion revolving around the theme, “What Can You Do with a Medical Degree?”
Established in 2009 in honor of Gerald R. Fink ’62, the annual symposium is an opportunity for students who aim to work in health care policy, medicine and bioscience research to interact with Amherst alumni who are leaders in these fields.
The symposium—which will convene in the Cole Assembly Room of Converse Hall—is sponsored and directed by the Amherst class of 1962.
This year’s keynoter is Shirley Tilghman, president emerita of Princeton University, where she is a professor of molecular biology and public affairs. Also an Amherst trustee, she will deliver her address at 7:45 p.m.
Tilghman made a number of groundbreaking discoveries as part of the team that cloned the first mammalian gene, as an independent investigator at the Institute for Cancer Research in Philadelphia and as an adjunct associate professor of human genetics and biochemistry and biophysics at the University of Pennsylvania. Today, she advises undergraduates on independent work.
The symposium will begin with introductory remarks by George Carmany ’62, who founded the gathering with Fink . Carmany is a Boston-based investor in health care, former chairman of the Tufts Medical Center and a member of the Advisory Committee on Education at the Harvard Medical School. Fink is the Margaret and Herman Sokol Professor and the American Cancer Society Professor of Genetics at MIT.
Their Amherst classmate Marc Pohl, head of clinical hypertension and nephrology at the Cleveland Clinic, will be among the slate of speakers.
Mary Gehring, member of the Whitehead Institute and associate professor of biology at MIT, joins an otherwise all-Amherst menu of speakers:
- Richard Aronson ’69, the College’s assistant dean of students and health professions advisor
- Andrew Balder ’75, primary care physician and medical director of the Baystate Mason Square Neighborhood Health Center in Springfield, Mass.
- James Stoller ’75, chair of the Cleveland Clinic Education Institute and a pulmonary/critical care physician at the Cleveland Clinic.
- Elena Boley ’92, medical officer in the Office of New Drugs at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research and associate clinical professor of medicine at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences.
- Thierry Pauyo ’05, an assistant professor of surgery at McGill University.
- Jack Angiolillo ’07, a third-year medical resident at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
The day’s discussions will also include remarks from two Amherst students, Laboni Hoque ’19 and Natalie Braun ’19, co-presidents of the Association for Women in Science at Amherst.
Amherst students are invited to register for the symposium.