News and Congratulations
Congratulations to CTSC KL2 alumna, Dr. Gunisha Kaur, MD, MA, for being named a 2023 Healthy Longevity Catalyst awardee by the National Academy of Medicine!
Dr. Kaur and her team were selected for their project, "Digital Solutions to Reduce Maternal Morbidity and Mortality in Refugee Women," indicating their project "has the potential to improve the healthy longevity of this vulnerable and understudied population for generations, and can be scaled for use across global humanitarian emergency settings" by clinically training and creating a digital health system for refugees.
With more than 1,100 applications were submitted for the 2023 cycle, the Catalyst Awards are part of The National Academy of Medicine's (NAM) Healthy Longevity Global Competition, focused on helping accelerate research and entrepreneurism to foster potential breakthroughs in healthy longevity. This multiyear, multi-phase international competition is designed with the aim to help advance bold, novel ideas with the potential to dramatically improve health as people age. The $50,000 award is the first of three progressive phases in the competition, during which awardees can secure up to $5,000,000.
Reflecting on her achievement, Dr. Kaur says that, “the CTSC was not just a ‘small part’ of my research journey, but the KL2 award was a critical part of what established me as an investigator in the realm of refugee health. I cannot thank CTSC enough for their support in those early days.”
Currently the Director of the Human Rights Impact Lab at Weill Cornell Medicine, Dr. Kaur also serves as the Co-Medical Director of the Weill Cornell Medicine Center for Human Rights and the Director of the WCM Anesthesiology Global Health Initiative. In 2018 published an interactive, digital textbook, Essentials of Global Health and Human Rights for Physicians.
Dr. Kaur was appointed a KL2 Scholar in 2018 where her research focused on "Chronic Pain Assessment in Refugee Torture Survivors". During her KL2 training, Dr. Kaur's mentoring team included Hugh Hemmings, Jr., MD, PhD of Weill Cornell Medicine, Zhenglong Gu, PhD of Cornell University and Arthur Kleinman, MD of Harvard Medical School.
The CTSC KL2 Career Development Core Program supports junior faculty and senior residents and fellows by providing salary support, protected time, advanced degree training, and practical skills necessary to conduct interdisciplinary Clinical Translational Investigation within a team research environment.