Leadership Pathways for Women Faculty: Strategies for Navigating Uncertain Times

Angela M. Mills, MD is the J. E. Beaumont Professor and Chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons as well as Chief of Emergency Services for NewYork-Presbyterian (NYP) – Columbia. A national leader and expert in emergency medicine, Dr. Mills graduated with Alpha Omega Alpha distinction from Temple University Medical School and completed the University of Pennsylvania Emergency Medicine residency program serving as Chief Resident. As a University of Pennsylvania faculty member, she advanced academically being promoted to Professor of Emergency Medicine in 2017 and served in several capacities including Medical Director and Vice Chair of Clinical Operations.

In January 2018, Dr. Mills joined Columbia as the inaugural Chair of the newly formed Department of Emergency Medicine leading all academic and operational activities for the four emergency department sites: NYP-Columbia University Irving Medical Center, NYP-Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital, NYP-Allen Hospital, and NYP-Lawrence Hospital. As Chair, Dr. Mills has worked to successfully advance education, research, clinical care, and diversity and inclusion efforts while building a premier nationally recognized academic department of emergency medicine.

For her accomplishments, Dr. Mills has been honored with a number of prestigious awards including the Arnold P. Gold Foundation Humanism in Medicine Award in 2017 from the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine, the Mid-Career Award from the Academy for Women in Academic Emergency Medicine, and the 2020 Chair of the Year Award from the Emergency Medicine Residents’ Association. Dr. Mills is an elected member of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine Board of Directors where she currently serves as Secretary-Treasurer. She has authored over 100 scientific publications, has received federal and industry research funding, and has influenced the careers of numerous faculty and trainees.

Joan M. Bathon, MD is a rheumatologist, Professor of Medicine, and Chief of the Division of Rheumatology at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.  Dr. Bathon’s career has focused on understanding the pathogenesis and functional consequences of inflammation in rheumatoid arthritis (RA).  Her group is particularly interested in understanding the effects of chronic rheumatoid inflammation on the extraarticular phenotype of RA, as manifested by accelerated atherosclerosis, myocardial dysfunction and adverse body composition.  Current work focuses on defining prevalence and risk factors associated with altered left ventricular structure and function in RA.  Additional work focuses on defining genetic, protein and cellular biomarkers to identify RA patients at highest risk for cardiovascular disease.  Her work has consistently been funded by NIH-NIAMS, the Rheumatology Research Foundation, and other sources. 

Dr. Bathon has had an intense and consistent commitment to mentoring trainees and junior faculty throughout her career. Her mentees have spanned a number of disciplines including rheumatology, geriatrics, pulmonology, psychiatry, psychology, molecular medicine, and biomedical engineering. Most of the trainees have gone on to academic careers, many of them in investigative tracks. Her dedication to advancing the careers of women faculty and trainees is reflected by her past roles while at Johns Hopkins as Director of the Dean’s Office of Women in Science and Medicine, Co-Chair of the Women’s Leadership Council, and former Chair of the Department of Medicine’s Task Force on Academic Careers of Women in Medicine.  Since coming to Columbia University in 2010 as Chief of the Division of Rheumatology at Columbia, she has recruited a cadre of talented junior women faculty and revamped and expanded the fellowship training program to attract the most talented candidates.  She meets regularly with fellows and junior faculty to ensure that they are meeting milestones for successful careers.  As a previous Editor-in-Chief of a medical journal, she also coaches them on scientific writing skills.  As a member of her Departmental Promotions Committee and a recent member of Columbia’s University-wide Tenure Advisory Committee (and a Tenured Professor herself), she is well versed on milestones of a successful academic career. As a longstanding recipient of NIH funding, a member of multiple NIH study sections, and a current member of the NIAMS Advisory Council, she is also well versed in funding opportunities within the Institute and regularly update fellows and junior faculty of these opportunities.

Kathleen J. Sikkema, PhD, Stephen Smith Professor and Chair of Sociomedical Sciences in the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, conducts community-based intervention research focused on HIV prevention and mental health treatment in the U.S. and in low- and middle- income countries. Previously, as the Gosnell Family Professor of Global Health, and Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University, she served as the Director of Clinical Psychology and Founding Director of Social and Behavioral Sciences in the Center for AIDS Research (CFAR), the Global Mental Health Initiative and Doctoral Programs at the Duke Global Health Institute (DGHI). As a clinical psychologist who specializes in health and community psychology, Dr. Sikkema has led pioneering scholarship in global mental health, specifically related to traumatic stress, coping and gender violence. Funded by NIH for thirty years, her research program has focused on community-level HIV prevention trials, mental health interventions to improve HIV care engagement, and university-community research collaboration. U.S.-based HIV prevention interventions and mental health interventions developed by Dr. Sikkema and her teams have been identified by CDC and SAMHSA as best evidence interventions. Her research on HIV and mental health has had wide-ranging impact, including the development of prevention programs to improve health behaviors and access to treatment in low resource populations in this country and abroad. She has worked in South Africa for twenty years.  An honorary professor at the University of Cape Town in the Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health, Dr. Sikkema’s current research focuses on integrating mental health treatment into HIV primary care for women who have experienced sexual trauma. This research addresses the syndemic nature of HIV and mental disorders, whereby social and economic contextual factors create and exacerbate the risk of disease progression.

Laura Lennihan, MD is Vice Chair of the Department of Neurology, Chief of the Division of Critical Care and Hospitalist Neurology, and Professor of Neurology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC). A specialist in the neurological care of inpatient populations, Dr. Lennihan oversees the Neurology Consult and Neurohospitalist Services at the NewYork-Presbyterian (NYP) Milstein Hospital, where she is an Attending Physician. She also oversees Neurohospitalist Services at the NYP Allen and Lawrence Hospitals.

Dr. Lennihan received her undergraduate degree from Harvard University and her medical doctorate from Cornell University Medical College. After completing residency in internal medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Lennihan came to Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital for residency at the Neurological Institute of New York. She remained at Columbia for fellowship training in both Cerebrovascular Diseases and Neuroepidemiology, and subsequently joined the faculty of the Department of Neurology at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1987. She has served in various clinical, administrative, and leadership capacities at NYP/CUIMC in the time since, while also serving as an Attending Physician (1989-2014), Director of Stroke Rehabilitation (1989-2006), and Chief of Neurology (1994-2006) at Helen Hayes Hospital in New York.

Dr. Lennihan is a current and longstanding member of the CUIMC Ethics Committee. She has been a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Society since 1977 and the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) since 1982, in which she received the formal distinction of Fellow (FAAN) in 1996. Dr. Lennihan has received numerous honors and awards, including the NewYork-Presbyterian Physician of the Year Award (2007), the Stephen Q. Shafer Award for Humanism in Neurology (2009), and the Lewis P. Rowland Teacher of the Year Award (2014).

A longtime advocate for women in academic medicine, Dr. Lennihan sits on multiple university and departmental advisory committees overseeing the recruitment, retention, appointment, and promotion of a diverse faculty. As Vice Chair of the Department of Neurology since 2011, she has worked to cultivate mentoring networks between junior and senior women faculty, including fostering broad participation in the Women of Neurology Seminar Series and the Women Physicians Initiative of NewYork-Presbyterian. Through her unwavering commitment to the creation of academic opportunities for women, Dr. Lennihan has helped steer the growth of the Columbia University Department of Neurology, which is currently ranked #1 in NIH-funded research, and is widely considered a leader in the field in terms of women faculty at each academic rank among neurology programs nationwide.

With her recent appointment as Advisory Dean for Clinician-Educator Faculty for the Office for Women and Diverse Faculty, she looks forward to continuing to provide mentorship and faculty development guidance to VP&S women and minority faculty.

Rini Banerjee Ratan, MD is Vice Chair of Education and the Berkowitz Family Associate Professor of Women’s Health in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.  She is currently the Residency Program Director and Chair of the Graduate Medical Education Committee of New York Presbyterian Hospital’s Columbia Campus.  She also served as medical student Clerkship Director for eleven years.  After earning her undergraduate degree at Yale University, she attended Harvard Medical School and completed her residency training at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital.  Her academic interests include developing innovative methods to enhance the quality of medical education.  Dr. Ratan has received the Charles W. Bohmfalk Award for Excellence in Clinical Teaching at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons, the APGO Excellence in Teaching Award, and the AMWA Outstanding Female Physician Award.  Dr. Ratan is a Fellow of the Virginia Apgar Academy of Medical Educators at CUMC.  She has served on numerous committees at the NBME, including Chair of the USMLE Women’s Health Task Force, and currently sits on the Board of the NBME.  She also serves as an oral board examiner for the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Dr. Ratan is deeply committed to ensuring that women and diverse faculty are included in leadership positions and scholarly advancement, and are appropriately represented in institutional honors and awards at VP&S.  Dr. Ratan became an obstetrician-gynecologist because of a passion for women’s health, and she is equally dedicated to assuring that women faculty have an equal presence in our medical school, and our larger community.

Julia Iyasere, MD, is the Executive Director of the Dalio Center for Health Justice at NewYork-Presbyterian. In this role, she leads the Center’s efforts to address longstanding health disparities due to race, socio-economic differences, limited access to care, and other complex factors that impact the wellbeing of our communities disproportionately. Established in 2020, the Center for Health Justice works collaboratively with representatives from NYP, Weill Cornell Medicine, and Columbia Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons to be a leader in the understanding and improving of health equity, and to drive action that results in measurable improvements in health outcomes for all.

A native of Southern California, Dr. Iyasere moved to the East Coast to attend Yale University where she graduated with a B.S. in Molecular Biology with a focus in Neuroscience. After a year working in cancer cell biology and cell signaling cascades at Harvard Medical School, she joined the Columbia community at Columbia Vagelos College of Physician and Surgeons (VP&S), eventually choosing to pursue a dual degree with Columbia Business School and graduating with an MD/MBA in 2008. After completing her residency in Internal Medicine at Columbia, Dr. Iyasere stayed for a year as Chief Resident before joining the Division of General Medicine at Columbia in 2012. She completed a part-time fellowship in Medical Simulation at the Mary and Michael Jaharis Simulation Center at VP&S during her first year with the Division.

Dr. Iyasere brings more than a decade of experience in medicine to her new role. She was previously the Associate Chief Medical Officer for Service Lines and the Co-Director of the Care Team Office. She was also Director of the Leadership Education and Development for Physicians (LEAD) Academy, Associate Designated Institutional Official for Graduate Medical Education at NYPH, and the Associate Program Director of the Columbia Internal Medicine Residency Training Program. An Assistant Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, Dr. Iyasere continues to see patients as an internist in the Section for Hospital Medicine.

Melissa Stockwell, MD, MPH is the Chief of the Division of Child and Adolescent Health and a tenured Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Population and Family Health in the Department of Pediatrics at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Department of Population and Family Health at the Mailman School of Public Health. She is also the founding director of the Department of Pediatrics’ Center for Children’s Digital Health Research. She is Medical Director of the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital Immunization Registry (EzVac) and Co-Director of the Columbia University Primary Care Clinician Research Fellowship in Community Health. Additionally, she is a pediatrician in a NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital-associated community clinic, and is Associate Director of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Pediatric Research in Office Settings (PROS) practice-based research network. 

Dr. Stockwell’s research program, which concentrates on underserved children and adolescents, focuses on translational interventions to improve vaccinations, with an emphasis on health technology and health literacy. Throughout her career, she has had continuous research support from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and Health Resources and Service Administration (HRSA). She has been inducted into the American Pediatric Society, the oldest academic pediatric organization in North America.

Laura Landweber, PhD is a Professor in the Departments of Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics, Biological Sciences, and Systems Biology, in the Colleges of Physicians & Surgeons and Arts & Sciences. Prior to moving her lab to Columbia University Medical Center she was faculty at Princeton University from 1994-2016, and a Junior Fellow of the Society of Fellows at Harvard University, where she received her PhD in 1993. She has authored over 150 publications in molecular and evolutionary biology and edited 3 books, in areas ranging from genetics and evolution to biological computation. She is President (2017) of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution (SMBE) and has served on several panels, working groups, and advisory committees for the NSF, NIH, and NASA, including co-chairing the NHGRI Comparative Genome Evolution Working Group from 2003-2007. Recent awards include a Guggenheim fellowship (2012) and a Blavatnik award for young scientists (2008), and she was elected a Fellow of AAAS for probing the diversity of genetic systems in microbial eukaryotes, including scrambled genes, RNA editing, variant genetic codes, and comparative genomics. Her work investigates the origin of novel genetic systems and complex genome architectures, using the ciliate Oxytricha as a model. Recent discoveries include the ability of small and long non-coding RNA molecules to program genome organization across generations, bypassing the information encoded in DNA.