Alumni Profiles

As director of the Pediatric Advanced Care Team at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, Dr. Jennifer Salant (M.D. ’13) and her interdisciplinary team provide support for children with serious illnesses and their families. If a child needs symptom management or other palliative therapies, she’s there. If a family needs guidance in making complex decisions about their child’s medical journey, she’s there. And if a family is grieving, she’s there, too.

Dr. Salant attributes her passion for supporting children and their families during their most critical and vulnerable moments to her experience as a medical student at Weill Cornell Medicine.

“Helping families achieve peace and dignity during some of the most difficult times is very gratifying for me,” says Dr. Salant, assistant professor of clinical pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine and assistant attending pediatrician at NewYork-Presbyterian Komansky Children’s Hospital. “What we do is a really beautiful facet of what can be a very serious side of medicine.”

Dr. Salant is also a pediatric critical care physician who spends part of her days providing medical treatments to children admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit. But her greatest passion — and much of her time — is focused on delivering medical care that aligns with family goals and values so children can live with the highest quality of life in the face of serious illness. The children she sees are very ill, many with advanced cancer, severe infectious diseases, respiratory problems and other potentially life-threatening conditions.

When a child dies, Dr. Salant and her team tend to families’ enormous sadness and confusion. She recently designed a longitudinal pediatric bereavement program that is seeking funding to launch sometime this year. If it does, Weill Cornell Medicine could soon be providing psychosocial bereavement support for families who have lost children, many of whom cannot afford private psychosocial care.

Dr. Salant enjoys helping today’s students develop the same passion for empathy, patience and medical excellence that she herself learned from such mentors as Dr. Susan Bostwick, chief of the Division of General Academic Pediatrics.

“I try to teach my students that no matter what specialty they go into, they’re taking care of people,” says Dr. Salant. “The principles of palliative care are human-centered, and that’s at the core of every physician-patient relationship.”

— Peter West

Dr. Frank Douglas (M.D. ’77) has built a distinguished career as a scientist, educator, entrepreneur and pharmaceutical executive. Since graduating from Weill Cornell Medicine almost 50 years ago, he has led teams of scientists that were involved in the development of important treatments, taught at top universities and started several business ventures.

Dr. Douglas, who was born and raised in Guyana, credits his success to several factors: the foundational scientific skills he learned at both Cornell University and Weill Cornell Medicine, and the resilience and perseverance he developed in response to the racial discrimination he experienced over the years. Dr. Douglas remains passionate about issues of workplace equity and inclusion, and he continues to counsel younger workers on how to confront bias in the workplace.

“I never let racism derail my dreams,” says Dr. Douglas, who came to the United States on a Fulbright scholarship in 1963 to attend Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. “In fact, I took those negative experiences and devised personal strategies that changed the perspectives of biased managers and improved corporate culture.”

He has authored books on his experiences, including “Until You Walk in My Shoes: A Reframing Methodology to Overcome Systemic Discrimination.” His consulting firm, Safe Haven Dialogues LLC, helps clients surmount injustice in their professions.

After earning a doctorate in physical chemistry from Cornell University in 1973, Dr. Douglas attended Weill Cornell Medicine because he sought a clinical foundation for his interest in drug development. He enjoyed the intellectual energy of high-level research and the challenge of managing teams of like-minded scientists, leading him to hold leadership positions at Ciba-Geigy, Aventis SA, Bayer HealthCare and other companies.

Under his leadership, several blockbuster medications were discovered, developed or obtained registration.

His contributions have earned him widespread recognition, including Weill Cornell Medicine’s Alumni Special Achievement Award in 2015. The recognition honored Dr. Douglas’ professional accomplishments and commitment to helping others.

“People,” he says, “must believe in themselves and turn their setbacks into positive actions.”

— Peter West

When Dr. Roshni Bhakta (Ph.D. ’05) negotiated the licensing deals for the world’s first and most widely distributed COVID vaccine, she was part of a small team tasked with orchestrating a complex partnership for a technology that would ultimately change the course of the pandemic.

Dr. Bhakta, vice president of business development and alliances for BioNTech, worked on the BioNTech-Pfizer alliance that led to the first regulatory approvals in history of an RNA product and of a COVID vaccine.

The vaccine was originally authorized for emergency use in December 2020, and Dr. Bhakta was one of a handful of people who was aware the ruling had gone through. “We knew that news would impact so many lives, and I felt more privileged than proud to be part of that journey,’’ she says.

Dr. Bhakta’s road to negotiating biopharma licensing deals wasn’t a direct line from her studies at Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences, where she received a doctorate in molecular pharmacology. But the community she built there helped advance her professional growth.

“The network I established opened vital doors for me,” she says. “I also made beautiful friendships that still endure.”

After a year on Wall Street, Dr. Bhakta pivoted to intellectual property deal negotiation, becoming a U.S. patent agent along the way.

Throughout her career, she has executed licensing deals for numerous biotechnologies and therapeutics in oncology and infectious diseases.

By following her heart — and pursuing the direction that resonated most strongly — Dr. Bhakta has landed at a place in her career that feels both professionally and personally fulfilling.

“Each deal closure means hope, whether it’s for a few patients with a rare disease or to address a pandemic, where the entire world will be affected,” she says. “Newly minted graduates should pursue what interests them — academia, finance, medical writing or negotiating deals. Do what you like, and you’ll find your path.”

— Linda Lombroso

Photo: Michael Marquand; Portraits: Nigel Buchanan