Harvard Medical School will welcome new leadership in graduate education in August. Rosalind Segal, professor of neurobiology at HMS and co-chair of the Department of Cancer Biology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, has agreed to serve as HMS dean for graduate education. Beginning Aug.1, Segal will serve half-time in her new role, while continuing her research at Dana-Farber.
As dean for graduate education, Segal will be responsible for the strategy, oversight and coordination of graduate education at HMS, including PhD and master’s programs that encompass scientific, computational and social science research pertaining to biomedicine. These include nine PhD programs based at HMS, six Division of Medical Sciences programs and three cross-river programs, along with the master’s programs under the graduate education umbrella.
Given her impressive past experience as a mentor to graduate students and as a teacher and leader in neuroscience, Segal is optimally suited to this role. She is widely recognized for being community-minded and is thoughtful about addressing the unmet needs of students. She is a leader who fully embraces the importance of training future leaders in science to advance the HMS mission.
Segal’s priorities will include enhanced mentoring of students, focused efforts to expand diversity and inclusion, and increased cohesiveness among our HMS graduate programs. She will enact recommendations made last fall by a graduate education review committee and will work collaboratively with faculty and administrative leadership to ensure that we continue to provide our preeminent training programs.
Segal joined HMS in 1990 after earning her undergraduate degree in biochemistry at Harvard-Radcliffe College, her doctorate in cell biology from Rockefeller University and her MD from Cornell University Medical College. She completed postdoctoral training at the former Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, the Harvard Longwood Neurology Program, Boston Children’s Hospital, MIT and Dana-Farber. She is an accomplished neurobiologist whose work has focused on developmental neurobiology and brain tumor research.
Segal will assume responsibilities formerly held by David Golan, now dean for research operations and global programs. Golan led graduate education through a time of great transition and is now executing the vision of the Blavatnik Institute at HMS.
