Meet 2026 Award Recipient
Fatima Bah
Fatmata is a first-generation, low-income international student from Sierra Leone, where she completed her secondary education before earning a full scholarship to attend an international boarding school in Hong Kong. She came to the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai from Middlebury College, where she majored in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry and minored in Global Health.
Before medical school, Fatmata worked as a Research Assistant at Massachusetts General Brigham - Brigham and Women's Hospital, where she used stem cell models to study neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental diseases. She matriculated into the MD program in 2022.
During her time at Icahn Mount Sinai, Fatmata held leadership roles in the General Surgery Interest Group and Students for Equal Opportunity in Medicine. She was also deeply involved in community service through the East Harlem Health Outreach Partnership (EHHOP), the student-run, physician-supervised free clinic, where she served as a Chronic Care Senior Clinician and Teaching Senior in the Liver Clinic.
In addition to completing her MD, Fatmata earned a Master of Public Health degree and conducted extensive research in global surgery, resulting in two first-author, peer-reviewed publications. She was also inducted into the Gold Humanism Honor Society.
Fatmata is deeply grateful to her parents, Mr. Umaru Juhe Bah and Mrs. Amaru Kumba Bah, as well as her husband and siblings, for their enduring support and unconditional love. She would also like to thank her mentors, Dr. Linda Zhang, Dr. Raja Flores, and Dr. Sergie Khaitov, for their continued support. She also expresses deep appreciation for Dr. Susan Lerner, Dean Michelle Sainte, Dr. Ann-Gel Palermo, Dr. David Muller, Darinka Gadikota-Klumpers, and the many faculty at Icahn Mount Sinai who have supported her journey and made her medical education profoundly transformative.
Fatmata will graduate with her MD and MPH and continue her training in General Surgery at Washington University.