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SUNY Downstate College of Medicine Names Dr. Mariana ("Marni") Markell As Senior Associate Dean for Undergraduate Medical Education

By Office of Communications & Marketing | Mar 3, 2020

MEDIA CONTACT: John Gillespie | john.gillespie@downstate.edu | (718)270-2262

Dr. Mariana Markell
BROOKLYN, N.Y. (March 2, 2020) –
 SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University College of Medicine dean F. Charles Brunicardi, MD, FACS announced the appointment of Dr. Mariana ("Marni") Markell as the Senior Associate Dean for Undergraduate Medical Education, effective February 2020.

Dr. Markell will continue to lead and manage the undergraduate medical education program in the College of Medicine, helping to design new educational and wellness programs and strengthen the already excellent curriculum.

In addition to her duties in the College of Medicine, Dr. Markell currently serves as Professor of Medicine in the Division of Nephrology, where she attends and teaches students, residents, and Fellows on the Transplant service.

Dr. Markell graduated from Yale University and obtained her medical degree from New York Medical College. She completed her Internship and Residency at Columbia (NY)-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City and was a Nephrology Research Fellow at Columbia before finishing her Clinical Nephrology Fellowship at UCLA Medical Center.

She joined SUNY Downstate in 1987, where she was the Director of Inpatient Dialysis and then the Medical Director of the Kidney Transplant Program until 2006. Dr. Markell served as Director of Transplant Nephrology for nearly 15 years, where, in that capacity, she created the first Transplant Nephrology Fellowship Program in New York City that has trained some of the leading Transplant Nephrologists in the country.

When the Integrated Pathways Curriculum was proposed, she was selected to develop Unit 4, which includes the GI, Endocrine, and Reproductive Systems. She has worked in that capacity since 2011, as the Unit Director, as well as serving as the Nutrition Thread Master for the Medical School, helping to teach and integrate nutrition into the curriculum.

Dr. Markell's reputation as a clinician has resulted in her election to the Fellowship of the American College of Physicians, the National Kidney Foundation, and the American Society of Transplantation. She has also been named a Castle-Connolly "Best Doctor in NYC" for 20 years running, and for the past five years, she has been a "New York Times Super Doctor."

Dr. Markell's research interests include monitoring and treatment of allograft rejection, metabolic diseases of transplantation, and the progression of diabetic nephropathy. She has received over $1M in research funding and has created a summer program for rising second-year students that has produced over 35 accepted Abstracts presented at national meetings over the past several years. Recently, she worked on the development of a Research Experience Project that will strengthen the research curriculum in the Medical School and eventually allow all students to participate in research early in their medical school careers.

Dr. Markell sits on the Medical Advisory Board for the National Kidney Foundation and has published hundreds of papers, book chapters, and abstracts. She also serves on multiple national and international advisory boards.

Dr. Markell's many other honors include a teaching award for her work in Downstate's Integrated Pathways Curriculum, as well as the Arnold P Gold Foundation's Leonard Tow Award for Humanism in Medicine. In 2018, she was named as a Leading Physician of the World by the International Association of Healthcare Professionals, and since 2017, she has been named among Castle Connolly's Exceptional Women in Medicine.

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About SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University

SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University is the borough’s only academic medical center for health education, research, and patient care, and is a 342-bed facility serving the healthcare needs of New York City, and Brooklyn’s 2.6 million residents. University Hospital of Brooklyn (UHB) is Downstate’s teaching hospital, backed by the expertise of an outstanding medical school and the research facilities of a world-class academic center. More than 800 physicians, representing 53 specialties and subspecialties—many of them ranked as tops in their fields—comprise Downstate's staff.

A regional center for cardiac care, neonatal and high-risk infant services, pediatric dialysis, and transplantation, Downstate also houses a major learning center for children with physical ailments or neurological disorders. In addition to UHB, Downstate comprises a College of Medicine, College of Nursing, School of Health Professions, a School of Graduate Studies, a School of Public Health, and a multifaceted biotechnology initiative, including the Downstate Biotechnology Incubator and BioBAT for early-stage and more mature companies, respectively. For more information, visit www.downstate.edu or follow us on Twitter at @sunydownstate.