Joan M. Stoler, MD
Program Director; Residency Director; Site Director, Boston Children’s Hospital
Dr. Stoler is a clinical geneticist at Children’s Hospital Boston and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. She is board certified in pediatrics and clinical genetics. She has evaluated and followed many patients over the last eighteen years, both adults and children with connective tissue disorders, such as Marfan syndrome and Ehlers Danlos syndrome. She has been a co-investigator on a study of mitral valve prolapse in Marfan syndrome and written an article on chronic pain in Ehlers Danlos Syndrome.
Farrah Rajabi, MD
Assistant Program Director
Dr. Rajabi is a clinical geneticist at Boston Children’s Hospital.
Cynthia C. Morton, PhD
Education Director
Cynthia Morton, Ph.D. is the William Lambert Richardson Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology and Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School, Associate Director of the Partners HealthCare Personalized Medicine and Director of Cytogenetics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Her research interests are in molecular cytogenetics, hereditary deafness, genetics of uterine leiomyomata, hereditary hearing loss, and cytogenetic approaches to gene discovery for developmental disorders. Her full-time academic laboratory contributed to the development of diagnostic testing for chromosome studies that cross the lifespan, which include preimplantation and prenatal diagnostics, perinatal and childhood studies in the evaluation of congenital and developmental disorders, infertility and pregnancy loss studies, and cytogenetics of leukemias, lymphomas and solid tumors. Her laboratory has been a major site for training laboratory geneticists in clinical cytogenetics.
Daniela Grunfeld
Program Coordinator
Daniela Grunfeld joined the Harvard Medical School Training Program as the program coordinator on September 2019. She is in charge of administrative logistics of the program. She coordinates the training program with all faculty, fellows and administrative staff at the affiliated institutions.
Jonathan Picker, MD
Course Director, Advanced Human Genetics Course
Dr. Picker is a clinical geneticist at Boston Children’s Hospital. His research focuses on the neurobiology of behavioral disorders. We are particularly interested in developmental factors, which lead to the neurological problems seen in disorders such as schizophrenia, Fragile X syndrome and other neurocognitive disorders.
Yiping Shen, PhD, FACMG
Course co-Director, Advanced Human Genetics Course
Dr. Shen is a molecular geneticist at Boston Children’s Hospital. His research focuses on the genetic basis of child development, including physical development (e.g. short stature) and neurodevelopment (e.g. Autism spectrum disorders). He specializes in genetic testing and variant interpretation.
Stephanie Coury, MS, CGC
Director, Advanced Human Genetic Course
Stephanie Coury, M.S., C.G.C. is the Director of the Advanced Human Genetics Course. The Advanced Human Genetics (AHG) course occurs over two semesters and offers an intensive overview of medical, biochemical, molecular, quantitative, and cytogenetics. AHG is a requirement for all residents and fellows, but also is freely available and attended by a range of healthcare providers in the Boston area. Mrs. Coury is a board certified genetic counselor at Boston Children’s Hospital.
Azra Ligon, PhD
Director, Cytogenetics and LGG Fellowship
Azra Ligon is the Director of the Cytogenetics Laboratory at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and oversees training in the HMS ABMG Clinical Cytogenetics program. Dr. Ligon received her Ph.D. in Cancer Biology from the University of Texas/M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in 1995. She completed her Medical Genetics training at Baylor College of Medicine in 1997 and, after a research postdoctoral fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), joined the Staff of the BWH Cytogenetics Laboratory in 1999 as an ABMG-certified Clinical Cytogeneticist. In 2003, she assumed leadership of the HMS ABMG Cytogenetics training program. Dr. Ligon’s research activities include translation of basic research findings into clinical diagnostics, especially those relevant to the area of cancer diagnostics.
Gerard T. Berry, MD
Director, Clinical and Medical Biochemical Genetics Fellowships
Gerard T. Berry, MD is co-director of the Clinical Biochemical Genetics program and director of the Medical Biochemical Genetics program. Dr. Berry specializes in biochemical genetics (metabolism). He is the Diretor of the Metabolism Program at Children’s Hospital Boston and Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Berry holds Board Certifications in Pediatrics, Biochemical Genetics, and Pediatric Endocrinology.
Heather Mason-Suares, PhD
Director, Molecular Genetics and LGG Fellowship
Heather Mason-Suares, Ph.D., is an Assistant Director at Partners’ Personalized Medicine Laboratory for Molecular Medicine and the Cytogenetics Laboratory at Brigham & Women’s Hospital Center for Advanced Molecular Diagnostics. She also oversees training in the HMS ABMGG Clinical Molecular Genetics program. Dr. Mason-Suares received her Ph.D. in Genetics from Case Western Reserve University in 2010. She completed her Clinical Molecular Genetics and Cytogenetics training at Emory School of Medicine in 2014. Her current research and clinical interests concern the application of molecular diagnosis using next-generation sequencing and microarray technologies to chromosomal abnormalities in prenatal cases, RASopathies, and cardiomyopathy.
Joel Krier, MD
Director, Internal Medicine/Medical Genetics Residency; Site Director, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Joel Krier, M.D. is a clinical attending at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Amy Roberts, MD
Co-Director, Pediatrics/Medical Genetics Residency
Amy Roberts, M.D., is a cardiovascular clinical geneticist and supervises trainees in the clinic and on the inpatient consult service. She also teaches in the Advanced Human Genetics course. She is conducting research on genotype-phenotype correlations in Noonan syndrome and congenital heart disease gene discovery. She co-directs the combined Pediatrics/Clinical Genetics residency training program with Ted Sectish, M.D. at Boston Children’s Hospital. She co-directs the combined Maternal Fetal Medicine/Medical Genetics fellowship with Louise Wilkins-Haug, M.D. at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Neal Lindeman, MD
Director, Molecular Genetic Pathology Fellowship
Dr. Lindeman is a Molecular Genetic Pathologist. He serves as the Director of the HMS Molecular Genetic Pathology Training Program. He is also the Director of the BWH Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory, and thus supervises students during their clinical rotations there. In addition, he teaches in the Advanced Human Genetics course and the Topics in Genetic Laboratory Medicine Seminar series.
Paula Goldenberg, MD
Site Director, Massachusetts General Hospital
Dr. Goldenberg is the Clinical Director of Genetics at Massachusetts General Hospital and the site director of the MGH clinical rotation for the training program. Her clinical and research interests focus on 22q11.2 Deletion , DiGeorge, Velo-Cardio-Facial, and Stickler/Marshall Syndromes as well as Prenatal Testing and Diagnosis.