Meet 2026 Award Recipient
O'Jay Stewart
O’Jay Stewart has been selected for the Terry Ann Krulwich Doctoral Dissertation Prize and the Outstanding Research Award for Immunology. Can you review his biography? We aim to ensure that everything are students are sharing is accurate to the best of our knowledge:
O'Jay arrived at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai by way of CUNY John Jay College, earning a Bachelor of Science in Cellular and Molecular Biology with a minor in Philosophy. He joined Sinai as a PREP Scholar, immersing himself in full-time biomedical research at the Precision Immunology Institute before matriculating into the MD-PhD program two years later.
Throughout his time at Sinai, O'Jay wove together science, service, and mentorship. He was an active member of the East Harlem Health Outreach Partnership (EHHOP), eventually leading its pharmacy team, and invested considerable energy into shaping the next generation of physicians as an MCAT instructor and pre-medical admissions coach.
At the heart of his doctoral work, conducted under the mentorship of Dr. Dusan Bogunovic, was a fundamental question in human genetics: why do individuals carrying the same disease-causing mutation so often present so differently? That pursuit yielded a first-author paper in Nature, and invited oral presentations at leading international conferences including the European Society for Immunodeficiency, the Clinical Immunology Society, and Keystone Symposia.
O'Jay is grateful to his family, his partner Roshanna, Dr. Bogunovic and mentors for making this chapter of his training as rewarding as it was rigorous.