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Ellen Ritchie is the Assistant Director of the Leukemia Program and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. She attended Barnard College and graduated in 1982 and returned to Barnard to do pre-med classes and went to Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons and graduated in 1997. Ellen did her residency and fellowship at New York Presbyterian Hospital at the Columbia campus. She is a clinical researcher concentrating on the development of new drugs to treat leukemias and related diseases such as myelodysplastic syndrome, myeloproliferative disorders, and other bone marrow failure syndromes. Ellen sees patients in the hospital and the office and have been involved in the development of several FDA approved drugs. While pursuing her career, Ellen had a family. She has three children, one of them is currently a freshman at Barnard.
Brenda Aiken, MD, FACP ‘77BC, ’81VP&S is Director of Medical Services at Columbia Health, the Student Health Service of the Morningside Campus of Columbia University. Upon graduation from medical school, Dr. Aiken began her residency in Internal Medicine at Harlem Hospital Center in Harlem, New York. Since her adolescent years, Dr. Aiken had dedicated her mission to service in her community. With the activism of the Civil Rights surrounding her, she determined as a young teenager that her life’s work would make a difference in her community. After residency training, Dr. Aiken spent the next two decades in community clinics and private practice in Harlem and the South Bronx, caring for Black and Latinx people on the margins of society. The eldest of four daughters of Evangeline Murray Aiken and the late Willie Aiken, who migrated from Orangeburg, South Carolina, the place where she was born, to Fort Greene, Brooklyn in search of improved social and economic opportunities, Dr. Aiken was the first in her family to graduate from high school and attend college. Dr. Aiken is an active member of the National Medical Association and its New York Affiliates and is currently President of the Susan Smith McKinney Steward Medical Society, an organization of women of color physicians founded in 1974. As an alumna of the University, she is an active participant in the Columbia Alumni Association (CAA) and is the recipient of the 2019 CAA alumni medalist award. Over her career she has informally mentored Barnard students of BOSS interested in medicine. She was the keynote speaker at BOSS Heritage weekend in 2004. She has attended most of the Alumnae of Color reunion events since its inception and is an active member of the Black Alumni Council. Dr. Aiken served as President of VP&S Alumni Association from 2014-2016. She is the 2018 VP&S Gold Medalist for Meritorious Service to the Alumni Association and is current Co-Class Chair. She attends class and weekend alumni events for VP&S, held alumni gatherings during the American College of Physician national meetings, chaired the Campaign for Diversity, participates on the Admissions Committee, the Home Away From Home program, and speaks to first-generation and young women medical students. Dr. Aiken celebrates 30 years of marriage and has two sons one a graduate Columbia University Business School and the other pursuing in doctorate in Africana Studies.
Emily Arsen is a Senior Research Analyst at United Hospital Fund's Medicaid Institute team, where she works on independent evaluations and analyses of the New York State Medicaid program. Emily has previously worked at Mount Sinai Health System on hospital system process improvements, at NORC at the University of Chicago providing technical assistance and external evaluations of federally-funded public health projects, and as an algebra teacher in Detroit through Teach for America. Her work experience has encompassed quantitative and qualitative data analysis, health system operations, process improvement, long term care delivery, and policy analysis. She has a B.A. in sociology from Barnard College and an MPH in Health Policy from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Dr. Jessy Warner-Cohen, PhD, MPH is the director of the psycho-oncology program at the Northwell Health Cancer Institute. She holds the title of Senior Psychologist, Northwell Health, and Assistant Professor, Departments of Psychiatry and Medicine, Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell. She completed her doctorate in clinical psychology at UMBC and her Master’s in Public Health at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Her fellowship at Albany Medical Center focused on health psychology, particularly eating disorders. She is a past-president of the Early Career Division of the New York State Psychological Association and a recipient of the American Psychological Association Early Career Award. Dr. Warner-Cohen was part of the MindFULL CARE team that won the 2016 Northwell President's Award for Innovation regarding specialized care for patients with dementia within the medical hospital. She was named to Long Island Business News’ 2018 Who’s Who of Women in Professional Business Services. She is also a member of the American Psychological Association, the American Psychosocial Oncology Society, the Medical Reserve Corps, and New York Road Runners.
Dr. Warner-Cohen has numerous publications and scholarly presentations, primarily focused on the impact of comorbid medical and mental health issues. She has spoken at hospitals across the region regarding adapting the hospital environment to meet the needs of patients with mental health and cognitive issues. Dr. Warner-Cohen has also presented to community groups across New York City and Long Island, particularly the topics of anxiety and of managing chronic illness. She has lent her expert opinion for numerous media outlets such as CBS News, Moneyish, Health Magazine, Self Magazine, WebMD, Huffington Post, Men’s Health, The Well, and U.S. News and World Report.
Danielle Boyda (BC ‘11) is a public health professional who is passionate about maternal and child health in sub-Saharan Africa. After graduating from Barnard with a degree in Political Science and Human Rights, she worked as an education consultant in Ghana before shifting her focus to the health sector. She moved to Botswana to support psychosocial support programs for adolescents with HIV as a Princeton in Africa fellow. While in Botswana, she helped start up a local NGO, Young 1ove, which adapts and scales evidence-based health and education programs by youth, for youth. Danielle was responsible for Botswana’s largest ever randomized control trial, to replicate an HIV-prevention study by the Jameel Poverty Action Lab. After completing a Master’s degree in Public Health, Danielle managed a community health systems strengthening program in rural Togo, helping bring basic, lifesaving healthcare to 140,000 people. She recruited and trained frontline healthworkers, helped develop a mobile phone app for clinical decision-making and data collection, and worked with the Togolese government to improve primary healthcare and family planning services. Danielle has recently joined Last Mile Health in New York to help improve healthcare access for the world’s most hard-to-reach populations.
