We are pleased to announce that Lauren Cohn, MD will join the MD-PhD program as an Associate Director, effective January 1, 2023. Dr. Cohn will be replacing Dr. Tamar Taddei, who has recently been appointed Chief of Digestive Diseases at the VA Connecticut. Dr. Cohn is a Professor of Medicine in the Section of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine; she also directs the VA Pulmonary Clinic in Newington and is co-director of the Yale Center for Asthma and Airway Diseases. Dr. Cohn came to Yale after completing her residency and postdoctoral training at Columbia, joining the lab of immunobiologist Kim Bottomly. Dr. Cohn quickly established herself as a leader in understanding the pathogenesis of airway inflammation and asthma, publishing scores of papers with her trainees that identified key signals and effectors of allergic inflammation in murine models of disease. More recently, Dr. Cohn has focused on studying the use of asthma biologics in patients, and on discovering novel drivers of asthma in humans.
We have all benefitted tremendously from Dr. Taddei’s advice and wisdom over the past eight years as an Associate Director. Dr. Taddei has been a strong champion and advocate for the program and its students and has introduced many curricular innovations that we now take for granted: longitudinal clinical electives during the PhD (for credit!); a re-entry elective; an organized and streamlined process for preparing to return to clinical training. Behind the scenes, she has made sure that MD-PhD student interests are considered in setting policy, curricula and timelines within the medical school. An exemplary clinician and educator, she received YSM’s Alvan R. Feinstein Award in 2017 as “outstanding teacher of the year of clinical skills”. She has also made a lasting impact on YSM through her work to establish the annual lectureship “Perspectives of Women in Science”, which recognizes accomplished researchers for their scientific discoveries and transformational mentorship.