Eimear Kenny, PhD, is the Founding Director of the Institute for Genomic Health, building resources for integrating genomic information and AI in routine clinical care, and supporting the sequencing and return of results to a diverse patients in the Mount Sinai Health System. She also the Founding Director of the Center for Translational Genomics and a Professor of Medicine and Genetics, at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, working on computational and translational genomic research. She is Principal Investigator in many large NIH-funded international consortium focused on computational genomics and genomic medicine, including eMERGE, PRIMED, CSER, GSP, TOPMed, PAGE, and HPRC. She is a strong advocate for the importance of diversity in genomic research, is improving the accessibility of genetics to global populations, and has led multiple genetics-based clinical trials. Her exceptional contributions to the field earned her the prestigious Early Career Award from the American Society of Human Genetics in 2022. In addition to her academic and research roles, Dr. Kenny serves as a scientific advisor to various genomic medicine initiatives in government, non-profit, and industry sectors.

Population Genetics in an Era of Genomic Health  

The overarching goal of my work is to advance genomics in medicine and research through diversity and innovation. The work of my group seeks to enrich our understanding of human genomic diversity by focusing on populations underrepresented in genomics, developing and disseminating computational genomic tools to enhance precision and accuracy in diverse populations, unveiling genetic architectures of diseases that can track with demographic history, and advancing diversity large-scale genomic databases. We also work to integrate new paradigms of genomic medicine into routine clinical practice, ensuring genomic insights are appropriately applied in real-world healthcare settings and lead to improved patient care and health equity. I will discuss aspects of this work with emphasis on why we should promote inclusivity, innovate methodologies, and harness the potential of diverse populations in genomic health.