Advisory Board
Our Board of Advisors members are among the most prominent leaders in the fields of medicine, teaching and research.
Their knowledge and access to institutions of learning and practice are helping us to develop a phenomenal Summit that will bring together some of the most high-achieving students from around the world to learn, weigh and contemplate the future of medicine.
Dr. Steve A. N. Goldstein, M.A., M.D., Ph.D., F.A.A.P.
Provost
Dr. Goldstein serves as the chief academic officer and the second ranking member of the Brandeis University administration. Dr. Goldstein graduated Phi Beta Kappa at Brandeis in 1974, earning B.A. and M.A. degrees in biochemistry. Dr. Goldstein holds an M.D. and Ph.D. in immunology from Harvard University and is an accomplished scientist and scholar. He is a leading authority on mechanisms underlying normal function of the heart and brain and sudden, life-threatening diseases. Previously, Dr. Goldstein was on the faculty at the Yale University School of Medicine and founded the Section of Developmental Biology and Biophysics. In 2004, he moved to the University of Chicago to become chair of the Department of Pediatrics and Physician-in-Chief at Comer Children’s Hospital. While at Chicago he founded the Institute for Molecular Pediatric Sciences and co-founded the Institute for Translational Medicine.
Dr. Samuel Thier, M.D.
Professor of Medicine and Health Care Policy
Dr. Thier serves as a professor of medicine and professor of health at Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Thier served as the chief executive officer of Partners HealthCare System from 1996 to 2002. Previously, Dr. Thier served as the president of The Massachusetts General Hospital from 1994 to 1997 and president of Brandeis University from 1991 to 1994. He served as the president of the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He serves as a trustee emeritus of Cornell University and the chair of The Commonwealth Fund. Dr. Thier serves as a director of Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
Dr. Michael Freed, M.D.
Cardiologist
Dr. Freed has had a long and distinguished career at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, where he rose to become the chief of the Division of Inpatient Cardiology. Dr. Freed chaired or served on more than two dozen committees or task forces ranging from quality improvement and patient care, to graduate medical education and governance. Dr. Freed has served on the executive committees of the American Heart Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Cardiology.
Susan Birren, Ph.D.
Dean, Arts and Sciences
Professor Birren, dean of Brandeis University's College of Arts and Sciences, is an internationally recognized researcher in developmental neurobiology who studies how developing nerve cells respond to the local environment to create the nervous system. Dean Birren is affiliated with the National Center for Behavioral Genomics and the Volen Center for Complex Systems. Dean Birren received her Ph.D. in biological chemistry from the University of California at Los Angeles and did post-doctoral work at the California Institute of Technology, where she studied the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the development of the mammalian nervous system.
Irving R. Epstein, Ph.D.
Henry F. Fischbach Professor of Chemistry
Professor Epstein’s research focuses on oscillatory chemical reactions, spatial pattern formation, dynamical systems and neurobiology. He is the recipient of a prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institute grant, which he used to found Brandeis’ Science Posse, a merit-based scholarship program that encourages students to pursue the sciences.
Bruce Birren, Ph.D.
Program Director
Dr. Birren is the director of the Genomic Sequencing Center for Infectious Diseases and co-director of the Genome Sequencing and Analysis Program at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University. He also is the founding advisor to the institute's Diversity Initiative in Scientific Research and oversees a number of programs dedicated to developing a new generation of leaders from under-represented minorities in genomics-related fields.
Dr. Eleftheria Maratos-Flier
Harvard Medical School Professor of Medicine
Dr. Maratos-Flier is one of the world’s foremost diabetes researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess and is an expert in the role of the central nervous system in regulating feeding behavior and energy homeostasis. Her lab is focused on particular hypothalamic-striatal pathways and in particular on the role of the hormone leptin and the neuropeptide MCH in modulating motivated behavior.