Mary Rojas, PhD

Dr. Mary Rojas is Associate Professor and Director of the Medical Student Research Office (MSRO) at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She leads institutional efforts to advance medical student research and scholarship by developing programs that strengthen research education, mentorship, scholarly project infrastructure, and student success throughout undergraduate medical education.

Dr. Rojas received her B.S. in Psychology from Southampton College and her PhD in Community Psychology from New York University. She completed predoctoral training in psychiatric epidemiology and postdoctoral fellowship training in child psychiatry at Columbia University.
For more than three decades, Dr. Rojas has built research programs and infrastructure across academic medicine, healthcare systems, and public health organizations. Her expertise spans clinical and health services research, epidemiology, implementation science, program evaluation, quality improvement, and research administration. She has led multidisciplinary initiatives supported by federal, state, foundation, and institutional funding and has extensive experience in research design, qualitative and quantitative methods, advanced statistical analysis, and healthcare quality improvement.

Since joining the Medical Student Research Office (MSRO), Dr. Rojas has focused her scholarship on advancing research and scholarship within undergraduate medical education. She develops innovative approaches to research training, mentorship, and scholarly program administration while creating systems that enable medical students and faculty mentors to successfully conduct and disseminate research. Her work also examines the role of institutional infrastructure in supporting student scholarship, physician development, and academic success.
Dr. Rojas is an active national leader in medical student research and mentorship. She collaborates with medical schools across the United States to identify best practices for supporting student scholarship and is engaged in initiatives that strengthen research opportunities, mentoring, and scholarly program development in undergraduate medical education.

Her research interests include medical education, research mentorship, health services research, implementation science, quality improvement, behavioral health, healthcare quality, and outcomes research. Across all aspects of her work, she is committed to building sustainable systems that integrate research, education, and mentorship to improve both medical education and healthcare.