Faculty Deans

We are honored to serve as Faculty Deans of Leverett House, and we are proud and excited to share Leverett House as a home. We look forward to another year of joining and engaging the Leverett community throughout the House’s amazing spaces and to continue our journey working with students, tutors and staff to build trust and inclusion for all. As physicians and medical educators, we focus our work on caring for people. We also work in teams. With all members of Team Leverett, we strive to be positive members of a community that assumes value, brings people together to create a sense of belonging, is respectful of traditions and also forward-looking and creative.

Below, you will learn a bit about us, but be assured that every day we will be learning and growing with the Leverett community.

Photo of Eileen Reynolds and Dan Deschler

Eileen Reynolds and Dan Deschler (photo by Jon Chase)

 

Eileen Reynolds

Eileen Reynolds

 

With parents who were public school teachers (and both first generation college graduates) I grew up in Lexington, Massachusetts believing that education is the highest priority path to a secure future. At Harvard College I knew I wanted to go into medicine, and I concentrated in History and Science. My senior thesis was about 3 all-women’s medical schools in the late 1800s. That project launched my abiding interests in medical education, women’s health and gender equity in academic medicine.

I met Dan on our first day at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and we have navigated medical school, residency (in San Francisco), fellowships (in Philadelphia), faculty positions and our moves as a team. My academic focus is on graduate medical education (the training that comes after medical school). I spent 13 years as the residency program director for a yearly group of 164 internal medicine residents, seeing to their clinical competence, career aspirations, and program culture. Currently, I lead the Division of General Medicine with over 220 faculty members.  I direct clinical, educational, and research programs in primary care, palliative care, and hospital medicine. I created the Linde Family Center for Primary Care, where I teach about leadership training and innovation. I continue to have a small primary care practice, which sustains me. I love entertaining, ice cream, Boston sports teams, and paddle boarding (particularly on warm days and in calm waters).

We are so proud of our boys: Jack ’19 just completed the second year of a JD/PhD program at HLS and HKS and can occasionally be spotted in the Leverett dining hall or playing Lev IMs. Will, Northwestern ’21, is the operations and finance manager for a small art museum in Chicago. Stryker, our spirited 14-year-old cockapoo, continues his exploration of Leverett and the neighborhood, always on the lookout for friends and stray food items.

 

Dan Deschler

Dan Deschler

 

I grew up in rural Northern Illinois, where my father was a cement truck driver and my mother still runs a neighborhood restaurant and bar. My parents always emphasized the power of education despite never having attended college themselves. I graduated from Creighton University’s honors program with a degree in history; I was active in theatre and studied in Vienna. The opportunity to attend HMS transformed my life. At Harvard Medical School, I witnessed the wonder that academic medicine could be and met my best friend and my partner in life and medicine - Eileen.

After our training and early academic appointments in San Francisco and Philadelphia, we returned to HMS in 2000. My practice at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear (MEE) centers on the surgical, reconstructive, and longitudinal care of patients with advanced head and neck cancer; my research and academic writings explore multiple aspects of patient care, caregiver needs, and surgical innovation. I direct the HMS student experience at MEE, created and co-direct our head and neck cancer fellowship and serve as Vice-Chair of Academic Affairs for my Department. I feel grateful every day to make a positive difference in people’s lives as a caregiver, educator and mentor, and to have the benefit of learning so much from those around me.

I love family time, theatre, movies and music – and any related trivia questions. I enjoy the wonder, heartbreak and elation all sports bring – as seen in my years of Little League coaching and Chicago/Boston fandom. But most of all, I love seeing the joy people exhibit when they engage in something special and from the heart. I am so fortunate to have this opportunity to learn, live and love Lev.

 

 

Read more about Eileen and Dan here.