Emma Benn

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Emma Katherine Tara Benn is an American biostatistician who studies how causal factors contribute to health disparities and how to reduce them. She is an associate professor in the Department of Population Health Science at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where she is also part of the Center for Biostatistics. Benn serves as associate dean for faculty well-being and development and founded Mount Sinai’s Center for Scientific Diversity.

Benn is African American and grew up in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Her mother worked at Bryn Mawr College, and Benn developed early connections with Bryn Mawr mathematicians, including Helen G. Grundman. She attended Swarthmore College for her undergraduate degree, where Garikai Campbell was a mentor.

She earned a chemistry bachelor’s degree in 2004, and earned a master’s and PhD in public health from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. At Columbia, she co-founded the Biostatistics Epidemiology Summer Training (BEST) Diversity Program. After completing her DrPH, she joined Mount Sinai in 2012.

In 2022, Benn was named a Fellow of the American Statistical Association, and in 2023 she became a Fellow of the Association for Women in Mathematics.