Joint Committee on the Status of Women (JCSW) Dean’s Awards
Since 1998, the JCSW has honored faculty and staff at Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Dental Medicine for their contributions to advancing women’s careers. These awards, initiated by former HMS Dean Joseph B. Martin, recognize leadership in recruiting, retaining, and promoting women. Over the years, new awards have been introduced, including the Shirley Driscoll Dean’s Leadership Award for the Enhancement of Women’s Careers and the Nancy J. Tarbell Dean’s Award for Emerging Leaders in Women’s Careers, celebrating individuals at different stages of their efforts to support gender equity in academia.
This year’s awards were presented at a ceremony on June 3, in the Gordon Hall Waterhouse Room.
Joseph B. Martin Dean’s Leadership Award for the Advancement of Women Faculty
- Carla F. Kim, HMS professor of pediatrics in the field of regenerative medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital
- David S. Friedman, the HMS Edith Ives Cogan Professor of Ophthalmology at Massachusetts Eye and Ear
Joseph B. Martin Dean’s Leadership Award for the Advancement of Women Staff
- Piper Derenoncourt, associate director of strategic projects for The Family Van at HMS
Shirley Driscoll Dean’s Leadership Award for the Enhancement of Women’s Careers
- Barbara N. Weissman, HMS professor of radiology, emerita, at Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Nancy J. Tarbell Dean’s Award for an Emerging Leader in Women’s Careers
- Loren Rabinowitz, HMS assistant professor of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Excellence in Mentoring Awards
The Excellence in Mentoring Awards were established at HMS to recognize the value of quality mentoring relationships and the impact they have on professional development and career advancement in basic and clinical medicine, research, teaching, and administration.
This year’s awards will be presented in a ceremony on June 11.
Recipients are:
William Silen Lifetime Achievement in Mentoring Award
This award was established in 1997 as the Lifetime Excellence in Mentoring Award and renamed in 2001 to honor and acknowledge the lifetime commitment William Silen made to mentoring students, residents, and faculty.
- Robert Barbieri, the HMS Kate Macy Ladd Distinguished Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Biology at Brigham and Women’s
- Edward Marcantonio, HMS professor of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess
- Long Ngo, HMS associate professor of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess
- Rachel Lee Rosen, HMS professor of pediatrics at Boston Children’s
A. Clifford Barger Excellence in Mentoring Award
This award was established in 1995 as the Excellence in Mentoring Award and in 1997 was renamed to honor the memory of A. Clifford Barger, who, among other things, devoted his career to bringing out the best in those who studied, trained, and worked at HMS.
- Hermioni Amonoo, HMS associate professor of psychiatry at Brigham and Women’s
- Irene Ghobrial, HMS professor of medicine at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
- Tara Kent, HMS associate professor of surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess
- Cindy Liu, HMS associate professor of pediatrics at Massachusetts General Hospital
- David O. Williams, HMS professor of medicine, emeritus, at Brigham and Women’s
Young Mentor Award
This award was established in 2005 to recognize faculty who are still in the early stages of their career but are devoting their time to providing mentoring for others.
- Christina Astley, HMS assistant professor of pediatrics at Boston Children’s
- Alejandro Bertolet, HMS assistant professor of radiation oncology at Mass General
- Helen Burton-Murray, HMS assistant professor of psychiatry at Mass General
- Sanjay Divakaran, HMS assistant professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s
- Stephen Juraschek, HMS associate professor of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess
President’s Innovation Challenge
The President’s Innovation Challenge is an annual competition for students across all 13 schools at Harvard University as well as select alumni and affiliates pursuing ventures that address the world’s most pressing problems.
To learn more about the 2026 finalists and winners and watch a recording of the May 6 awards ceremony, visit the Harvard Innovation Labs website.
Winning teams led by HMS and HSDM students, faculty, and postdocs are:
$25,000 winner
- FIND Neuro: Revolutionizing drug-resistant epilepsy surgery with an FDA-path clinical decision support platform. Represented by Noam Peled, HMS instructor in radiology at Mass General, and Steven Stufflebeam, HMS associate professor of radiology at Mass General.
$2,500 winners
- Bite By Byte: An AI-powered custom night guard embedded with micro-pressure sensors that continuously measures bite force, frequency, and duration in real time, transmitting data to an app for both patients and clinicians. Represented by HSDM student Mhary Grace de Francia.
- VitaLoop: Shifting dialysis care from centralized supply chains to resilient, point-of-care manufacturing with low-cost, on-demand production of sterile peritoneal dialysis fluid using local water and non-grid-dependent energy. Represented by Nang San Hti Lar Seng, HMS clinical fellow in medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess.
Bioethics Essay Award
SK Sharma, a student in the Master of Science in Bioethics (MBE) virtual program at HMS, has won the 2026 Bioethics Essay Award from the HMS Center for Bioethics. His paper, “The Aggregation Machine: Parfit’s Moral Mathematics and the Hidden Ethics of AI Triage Systems,” was selected from a record number of submissions as the best scholarly essay on ethics and medicine by a student at HMS or HSDM. The recognition comes with a $1,500 prize.
Fellow MBE student Siqi (Mandy) Zhou received an honorable mention for her paper, “Beyond the Clinical Gaze: Rational Mistrust, Structural Vulnerability, and the Demands of Relational Solidarity in BRCA Genetic Testing for African American Women.” Honorable mentions may receive a $500 prize.
Read the winning essays on SharePoint.
Aramont Fellowships
Two young scientists from HMS have been named Aramont Fellows by the President of Harvard University. Established in 2017 and supported by a gift from the Aramont Charitable Foundation, the Aramont Fellowship Fund for Emerging Science Research supports early-career faculty and postdoctoral scholars at Harvard engaged in high-risk, high-reward research across the life and physical sciences, engineering, and medicine.
“Early-career support is so enabling for faculty and researchers,” said Senior Vice Provost for Research John Shaw, whose office administers the fund. “Coupled with the strong network of Aramont alumni, this program provides an invaluable opportunity for the University’s most promising scientists.”
The new fellows from HMS are:
- Daisy Hoagland, research fellow in immunology in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS, who will investigate how coxsackievirus infection may cause lasting damage to the pancreas, even after the virus has been cleared from the body. By developing a new way to track cells that survive infection, Hoagland hopes to identify biological pathways that could lead to better treatments and help predict who is at risk for pancreatic diseases such as pancreatitis and type 1 diabetes. She is based in the lab of Ruth Franklin, assistant professor of stem cell and regenerative biology at HMS.
- Shira Weingarten-Gabbay, assistant professor of microbiology at HMS, who will explore how viruses evade detection by the immune system while maintaining their ability to infect and reproduce. By identifying viral mutations that help viruses escape immune attack, Weingarten-Gabbay hopes to uncover new vaccine targets and develop more effective antiviral therapies.
Adapted from an article in the Harvard Gazette.
