Peter S. Cahn joined MGH Institute of Health Professions in 2012 as Associate Provost for Academic Affairs and Professor of Health Professions Education. In that role, he oversees faculty recruitment and retention, curricular integration and assessment, and library and instructional design. Previously, he served as the inaugural Director of Faculty Development and Diversity at Boston University Department of Medicine, where he was a founding member of the New England Network on Faculty Affairs. Trained as a cultural anthropologist, his research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and the Harvard Radcliffe Institute. His publications on faculty development, interprofessional education and practice, and diversity, equity, and inclusion have appeared in Academic Medicine, Journal of Interprofessional Care, and Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions. He received an AB from Harvard University, MPhil from University of Cambridge, and PhD from University of California, Berkeley.

  • AB, Anthropology, Harvard University
  • MPhil, Latin American Studies, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
  • PhD, Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley

Research Interests

  • Faculty development
  • Antiracism in higher education and health care
  • Qualitative methods
  • Interprofessional education and practice

Presentations

How Interprofessional Collaborative Practice Can Help Dismantle Structural Racism Keynote, Interprofessional Care for the 21st Century Symposium, Jefferson Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA (via Zoom), 2021

Interprofessional Scholars Program, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX (via Zoom), 2020

Keynote, Center for Interprofessional Healthcare Education, Quinnipiac University, Hamden, CT (via Zoom), 2021

Keynote, American Interprofessional Health Collaborative members meeting, Minneapolis, MN (via Zoom), 2021

Interprofessional Communication Bridging Medical Gaps Collaboration annual conference, Dayton, OH (via Zoom), 2021

Cahn, P. S. (2019). Onramp to scholarship: Putting clinical faculty members on the path to academic productivity. Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions, 39(3), 218–222. https://doi.org/10.1097/CEH.0000000000000260

Cahn, P. S. (2020). How interprofessional collaborative practice can help dismantle systemic racism. Journal of Interprofessional Care, 34(4), 431–434. (Top five most read articles of 2020) https://doi.org/10.1080/13561820.2020.1790224

Cahn, P. S., Gona, C. M., Naidoo, K., & Truong, K. A. (2021). Disrupting bias without trainings: The effect of equity advocates on faculty search committees. Innovative Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-021-09575-5

Cahn, P. S., Makosky, A., Truong, K. A., Young, I., Boutin, E. R., Chan-Smutko, G., Murphy, P., & Milone-Nuzzo, P. (2022). Introducing the language of anti-racism during graduate school orientation. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 15(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000377

Cahn, P. S. (2022). Defusing land mines: Keywords about race in nursing education. Journal of Nursing Education, 61(7), 408–412. https://doi.org/10.3928/01484834-20220613-06

Contact Information

Awards and Honors

Fulbright U.S. Scholar, International Education Administrators Seminar in India 2019

The International Education Administrators (IEA) awards are seminars designed to help U.S. international education professionals and senior higher education officials create empowering connections with their counterparts and higher education systems of other countries. 

Katherine Hampson Bessell Fellow 2008

Harvard Radcliffe Institute

Frank and Sarah Olson Visiting Professor in Simulation Education, NYSIM 2015

The mission of NYSIM is to provide simulation education and research that fosters quality care, patient safety, and effective communication with patients and among health care professionals.