What was your path/journey after you graduated from Cornell?
After graduation, I moved to Boston to attend Harvard Medical School. I met my husband there, fellow Cornell '95 alum Tom Sequist. We married the day after medical school graduation, and the following week I started my residency in internal medicine at Brigham and Women's hospital, followed by a fellowship in medical oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Those were hard years - it was before medicine trainees had a maximum 80 hour work week, but we made it through.
During medical training, I also completed a Master in Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health and had my first child, Jackson, in 2004. In 2005, I took a faculty position at Massachusetts General Hospital as an academic medical oncologist focused on thoracic oncology (i.e., lung cancer). Tom and I have made our home in Newton, MA, and had a second son, Gabe, in 2008.
I am at Mass General and have immensely enjoyed my career thus far, blending research, patient care, and public health advocacy. Though I focused my research on new oncology drug development for the first 15 years of my career, I am now studying lung cancer risk and screening technologies, including AI.
Currently, Jackson is a junior at Cornell in ILR and Gabe is a junior in high school with a new driver's license. It is really fun to visit Ithaca and Jackson as much as possible, but I find it hard to believe he is nearing college graduation! We also have two beagles to keep us busy, and my favorite hobby is studying Hawaiian language and culture.
There is no one favorite memory, but a happy mix tape of good times with friends: Setting up our room each year with my roommate Patrice (Winter) Rousell; studying with Stephen Friedfeld and Dave Willis, quizzing each other before chemistry prelims; arriving at Uris with Stephanie (Lessans) Geller at opening time so we could claim our favorite seats; eating lunch with Jon Kalkstein at the Big Red Barn; playing piano with Jake Palm; dancing with Tri Delt sisters Melissa Held and Aimee Seungdamrong; Sammy formals; Libe Slope and chimes at the end of the day.
What advice would you give to a student starting at Cornell in Fall 2025?
Enjoy the time, it goes by too fast. Be sure to take nature breaks and behold the beauty of the campus and the area around you! Try as many classes in varied areas as your schedule and your requirements allow - take them Pass/Fail if you want, but you will not have such a rich chance later in life to learn from experts about "random" topics.
What is your favorite memory from your time at Cornell?
What random or surprising encounters with Cornell, or Cornellians, have you experienced since you left?
I always really loved the chimes at Cornell and even tried out to become a Chimesmaster, making it to the final round before getting cut. In 2005, when we bought our house in Newton, MA, I was excited there was a local church with a belltower within earshot. I would occasionally hear the chimes and it reminded me of Cornell. In 2023, I saw a Cornell Club of Boston newsletter that CU alums actually played the chimes there and I attended a concert. I have now become a regular chimes player there, a dream realized!