Dr. Magdalena Slosar-Cheah Receives Inaugural BUA Distinguished Alumnus/a Award
Boston University Academy’s Alumni Council is honored to present the inaugural Distinguished Alumnus/a Award to Magdalena Slosar-Cheah ’99 for her work in the field of infectious disease. The award celebrates an alumnus of the school who best exemplifies BUA’s values and makes an impact on the community and world around them.
Dr. Slosar-Cheah grew up in Massachusetts, daughter of a puppeteer and an architect and the oldest of three sisters. After graduating from Boston University Academy in 1999, she obtained her BA in physics at Yale University, where she also enjoyed taking classes in medical anthropology, modern literature, and Anglo-Saxon, and her MD from the medical school at the University of Massachusetts (now UMass Chan). She subsequently completed her internal medicine residency at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell in Manhattan followed by a fellowship in infectious diseases at Montefiore/Einstein in the Bronx.
Upon completing her medical training, Dr. Slosar-Cheah continued to work at Montefiore for six years as an attending physician in infectious disease, where she saw general infectious disease consults, cared for a panel of patients living with HIV, and helped expand hepatitis C treatment into primary care. In addition, she ran the second year microbiology course for medical students at Albert Einstein College of Medicine for two years.
After 11 years in New York City, Dr. Slosar-Cheah moved back to Massachusetts in 2019 to take up a faculty position as Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of infectious diseases and immunology at UMass Chan Medical School/UMass Memorial Health, where she continues to see patients and serves as program director for the infectious diseases fellowship. During the pandemic, Dr. Slosar-Cheah managed the hospital COVID-19 team, shaped hospital policies, and treated COVID-19 patients.
She is also a wife to a fellow physician, the mom of a kindergartener and a toddler, an aspiring gardener, and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in the history of medicine. Dr. Slosar-Cheah reflects on the significance of being the first recipient of the BUA Distinguished Alumnus/a Award:
“It is such an unexpected honor to receive the BUA Distinguished Alumna Award. My time at BUA was so formative – the source of vivid experiences, memorable and inspiring teachers, and lifelong friendships. I remember that time fondly – many of the books we studied still sit on my shelves at home and many passages from those books continue to sustain me in difficult times. And yet, though I am grateful for the solid academic foundation, what has stayed with me most strongly is the combination of enthusiasm, curiosity, reverence, and irreverence that was nurtured by my teachers and by my classmates. I hope to carry that spirit forward and am grateful for this opportunity to reconnect with the school that has had such a lasting impact on me.”
We look forward to welcoming Dr. Slosar-Cheah back to campus this year to celebrate her accomplishments.