Please note: Nominees must be able to attend the NYCMS St. Patrick’s Day Gala to receive the award.
Claire Kenney is a physician-scientist in training whose path to medicine has been anything but conventional. A Cleveland, Ohio native, she is a World Champion Irish dancer and before embarking on her MD-PhD, she served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ghana.
Dr. Kenney completed her PhD in microbiology at The Rockefeller University in the laboratory of Dr. Luciano Marraffini, one of the world's foremost authorities on CRISPR biology and the mentorship of Dr. Kyu Rhee at Weill Cornell. Her doctoral research illuminated how bacteria generate, store, and deploy "immunological memories" of viral invader and investigated how atypical CRISPR-Cas9 targets, those that recognize non-canonical DNA sequences, can mediate robust antiviral immunity. Her research work is published widely in peer-reviewed journals and she was recognized with an NIH NRSA F31 Award. Dr Kenney’s work carries important implications not only for our understanding of bacterial defense systems but also for the design of safer and more precise CRISPR-based gene editing therapies. She is commencing her residency and hopes to continue her work in Infectious Diseases.
The 2025 Michael O’Dell Award for Trainee Excellence was presented to Dr Fionnuala Crowley at the NYCMS St. Patrick’s Day Gala.
Dr. Crowley received her medical degree from UCC and relocated to New York to complete her Residency Program at Mount Sinai. She is the inaugural fellow in Mount Sinai's pioneering dual Hematology/Oncology and Palliative Medicine Fellowship program. Her research interests span oncology, palliative medicine, early drug development, and physician well being. She has contributed to scholarly work including a commentary on American Society of Clinical Oncology guideline updates for palliative care in oncology.