Previous Retreat Speakers

The Combined Degree Program has hosted many distinguished speakers through the years. List is below. (Note that the speakers' titles are listed as they were at the time of the event. Visit links for current titles and information.

2020 Retreat Speaker
Tal Zaks, MD, PhD
Chief Medical Officer
Moderna Therapeutics, Inc.

2019 Retreat Speaker
Serpil Erzurum, MD
Alfred Lerner Memorial Chair in Innovation Biomedical Research
Pathobiology Department, Lerner Research Institute, Cleveland Clinic

2018 Retreat Speaker
Shirley M. Tilghman, PhD
President of Princeton University, Emeritus
Professor of Molecular Biology and Public Affairs

2017 Retreat Speaker
Barbara Sampson, MD, PhD
Chief Medical Examiner, City of New York
Chair, Department of Forensic Medicine, NYU

2016 Retreat Speaker
Thomas Insel, MD
Former Director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the component of the National Institutes of Health charged with generating the knowledge needed to understand, treat, and prevent mental disorders. He is currently with Verily, Google’s Life Sciences division.

2015 Retreat Speaker
Christopher Vakoc, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and member of the Penn MSTP graduating class of 2007

2014 Retreat Speaker
George Daley, MD, PhD
Samuel E. Lux IV Professor of Hematology, Director of the Stem Cell Transplantation Program at Boston Children's Hospital

2013 Retreat Speaker
Andrew Feinberg, MD, MPH
Daniel Coit Gilman Scholar, Johns Hopkins University
King Fahd Professor of Medicine, Oncology, and Molecular Biology & Genetics, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Professor of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Director, Center for Epigenetics, Johns Hopkins Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences
Chief, Division of Molecular Medicine, Department of Medicine

2012 Retreat Speaker
Michael Hayden, MB, ChB, PhD, FRCP(C), FRSC, CM, OBC
Senior Scientist, CMMT, University of British Columbia
Canada Research Chair in Human Genetics and Molecular Medicine
University Killam Professor, Department of Medical Genetics, University of British Columbia

2011 Retreat Speaker
Charles Sawyers, MD
Chair, Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program

2010 Retreat Speaker
Karl Deisseroth, MD, PhD
D.H. Chen Professor of Bioengineering and of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University

2009 Retreat Speaker
Nancy Andrews, MD, PhD
Dean of the Duke University School of Medicine and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs

2008 Retreat Speaker
Christine Seidman, MD
Professor of Medicine and Genetics at Harvard

2007 Retreat Speaker
Michael S. Brown, MD
Nobel Laureate
Director of the Jonsson Center for Molecular Genetics at The University of Texas Southwestern
Co-Director of the MD/PhD Program
Molecular Genetics and Internal Medicine
Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences

2006 Retreat Speaker
Kevin M. Shannon, MD
Roma and Marvin Auerback Distinguished Professor in Molecular Oncology
Professor, Pediatrics, UCSF

2005 Retreat Speaker
Alan D. D’Andrea, MD
The Fuller-American Cancer Society Professor, Department of Radiation Oncology, Harvard Medical School
Chief, Division of Radiation and Cancer Biology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

2004 Retreat Speaker
J. Michael Bishop, MD
Nobel Laureate and UCSF Chancellor

2003 Retreat Speaker
Richard P. Lifton, MD, PhD
Chairman, Department of Genetics
Sterling Professor of Genetics, Medicine and Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry