Graduate Medical Sciences MS in Genetic Counseling Program Celebrates 20 Years at Boston University
BUGCP is New England’s only genetic counseling program located in an academic medical center with a safety net hospital on campus
In 2007, the Boston University School of Medicine (now Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine) graduated its first cohort from the Master of Science in Genetic Counseling program.
The five-person cohort began their academic journeys in 2005, two years after the completion of the historic Human Genome Project that revolutionized our knowledge of genetics and their applications to disease diagnostics and therapeutics.
Twenty years later, the program is celebrating its 20th anniversary with 30 students enrolled between its 2026 and 2027 classes and an alumni network of over 150 professionally trained genetic counselors.
Genetic counselors are master’s-trained health care professionals who combine a wide range of scientific, medical, and counseling theory with skills in genetic risk assessment and communication to serve clients and their families for a diverse set of genetic or genomic indications.
They are employed in both clinical and non-clinical settings, with many counselors involved in teaching and research. The field has grown rapidly, with over a 400% increase in certified genetic counselors (CGCs) since 1992.
Currently directed by Clinical Associate Professor Kathleen Berentsen Swenson, EdD, MS, MPH, CGC, the Genetic Counseling Program at BU has kept pace with the field’s significant growth since its founding.
Early Days: Building a Sustainable Program
MaryAnn Campion, EdD, MS, CGC, now a professor of genetics at Stanford University, led the team that launched the Genetic Counseling program at BU. Campion also co-directs Stanford’s master’s program in human genetics and genetic counseling.
Campion transitioned to BU three years after completing her masters degree, where she took on the program’s first director role. At the time, genetic counseling was a burgeoning field in the Greater Boston area, but there was only one other genetic counseling master’s program in New England.
Alongside her team, Campion spent two years designing a curriculum for a new program at BU that would “think outside the box about what a genetic counselor could do” and cater to what they expected would be massive growth in the field over the coming years.
“And it did [grow],” Campion said. “At the time, when we started, I think there were about 35 genetic counselors in Greater Boston. Within four years, that number had doubled, and then within 10 years, I think it had quadrupled. That was because genetic counselors were being hired into more of these emerging markets.”
Campion spent the next 13 years at BU as the program continued to evolve. The program intentionally grew at the same pace as the number of genetic counselors in the region to ensure that there were enough rotation sites for students. BU’s Genetic Counseling Program was one of the first to offer rotations in fields like public health, advocacy, industry and research, in addition to clinical rotations like prenatal, pediatrics and cancer.
“I really want to shout out the small but mighty team we had at the beginning, and the fact that none of us had extensive training in education or curriculum development or program design, but we had the energy and enthusiasm and the wherewithal to bring in experts to help us learn,” Campion said.
“I think you can never underestimate the potential of a small group of people to make something big happen if they remain open-minded and committed to the goal.”
The Program’s First Graduate: Samantha Baxter ‘07
Samantha Baxter, MS, CGC, was a member of the Genetic Counseling Program’s first graduating class – and the first member of her cohort to cross the stage at Convocation.
Baxter applied to the BU Genetic Counseling Program following the completion of her bachelor’s in neuroscience at Lehigh University. While at Lehigh, Baxter had the opportunity to learn more about genetic counseling right as the Human Genome Project finished sequencing.
Born and raised in Massachusetts, Baxter learned about a program close to home developing at BU and decided to apply. “I knew if I got in, that’s where I wanted to be,” Baxter said.
As a member of the first Genetic Counseling Program class, Baxter witnessed the very beginning of the program’s growth. She credits that experience with igniting a passion for “pushing the boundaries” of what genetic counselors can do beyond the clinic.
Baxter is now the Associate Director of Data Sharing and the operations manager for the Genome Aggregation Database (gnomAD), at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. gnomAD is a large population database of aggregate exome and genome information for over 800,000 individuals.
She uses this data to work with patient organizations to determine the aggregate carrier frequencies of their disease areas of interest. From there, she can estimate the number of people born nationally or internationally with that disease.
“There was something contagious about being on the cutting edge,” Baxter said. “[…] I now do stuff that most genetic counselors don’t do. But I’m very proud of the fact that I’ve rarely taken a job that a genetic counselor held before me, but there’s always a genetic counselor that replaces me.”
A Community-Connected Curriculum
Swenson, the current program director, has been involved with the Genetic Counseling Program since its first class graduated, serving as a clinical supervisor and capstone advisor before officially transitioning to BU in a teaching role in 2010.
Now, as director, Swenson also works alongside her team to oversee the program, its curriculum and its accreditation processes. The leadership team also includes Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology Lillian Sosa, MS, CGC (GMS ‘14), Assistant Professor of Medical Sciences & Education Kim Zayhowski, MS, CGC, Assistant Professor of Medical Sciences & Education Nikkola Carmichael, PhD, MS, CGC and Associate Professor of Pediatrics Jodi Hoffman, MD.
The Genetic Counseling Program is fully accredited by the Accreditation Council for Genetic Counseling. Students enrolled in the full-time, two-year program are required to complete 48 credit hours of coursework, a research project and fieldwork placements.
They are also required to participate in at least 10 hours of community or peer genetic education, along with other activities such as seminars, grand rounds, and advocacy experiences.
One of the most unique aspects of the program, according to Swenson, is the opportunity to engage with work at Boston Medical Center. As the largest safety net hospital in New England, the majority of BMC’s patients come from low-income, under-resourced, and underinsured populations.
“Our students are consistently being exposed to social determinants of health and how that impacts patient care,” Swenson said. “They have constant exposure to a resource-limited setting, which requires people to get creative and find solutions to problems with the resources they have. I think it really brings a unique training opportunity when you’re in that kind of setting.”
Students rotate through placements in a variety of settings throughout the Greater Boston area, depending on their interests. During their first year, students observe in core and specialty genetic counseling clinics before beginning to participate in core clinics during their second semester.
Students participate in a six-week, full-time external rotation during their intervening summer at sites across the country. In their second year, students complete four, seven-week rotations at BMC and throughout New England: including a prenatal, pediatric/general, cancer and non-clinical site. The program also has a dual-degree MS/Master of Public Health program in partnership with BU School of Public Health.
“The benefit of that is that being in Boston, the students also get to experience the other healthcare systems in the city,” Swenson said. “They can see how different health systems work, and they can see how access to different resources could change patient care or genetic testing options that could be offered to somebody. So, they really get a broad picture of the population being served by genetic counselors and also where genetics fits in broadly across healthcare in different communities.”
Pursuing A Vision for Health Equity: Kai Blumen ‘25
Kai Blumen, MS, CGC, matriculated into the Genetic Counseling Program in 2023 eager to work on research pertaining to transgender individuals receiving genetic counseling care.
“Kim Zayhowski is really a forerunner in LGBTQ research within the field of genetic counseling,” Blumen said. “So, I knew I wanted to work with her.”
Blumen worked in a wet lab as an undergraduate student at Brandeis University but decided to pursue a career that combined genetics knowledge with a more people-centered environment. After learning more about the program at BU, Blumen applied.
What most drew Blumen to the program were interactions with faculty, as well as students from previous cohorts. Additionally, Blumen was impressed by the program’s ongoing emphasis on inclusion and equity, and willingness to engage in difficult conversations.
“Just talking to the students that came before me, everyone just seemed so excited to be in the BU program, and I knew that was just the energy I wanted to be around, and a place that I wanted to be and engage with,” Blumen said. “The faculty is [also] so supportive and really invested in our personal growth. I know when I was selecting a program, that was just immensely important to me to know that I was with people that would care about me.”
Having recently graduated from the program, Blumen looks forward to keeping in touch with the network of Genetic Counseling Program alumni both from the 2025 cohort and cohorts past.
Graduating Genetic Counselors of the Future
As the program continues to grow alongside the profession, Swenson anticipates many opportunities to incorporate new pathways and technologies into the curriculum.
Part of this work to evolve will include working with the program’s vast and engaged network of alumni present both in the Greater Boston area and across the country. Many of the program’s alumni have returned to the program to teach or serve as capstone advisors or fieldwork placement supervisors.
“Our biggest resource is the alumni of this program,” Swenson said. “[…] I think that fosters a great networking community, because they are familiar with the training provided at the BU program.”
From Student to Faculty: Phil Connors ‘14
Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology Phil Connors, MS, MPH, CGC, is a 2014 graduate of the Genetic Counseling Program and a faculty member in the program. Connors also serves as the lead genetic counselor for Boston University Medical Group and BMC.
He was drawn to the program as a student, and ultimately again as a faculty member, because of its mission to care for patients who may not otherwise receive genetic counseling services.
“That’s incredibly important in a field like genetics, that’s almost always referral-based or being done without a genetics expert in the room sometimes,” Connors said. “I think it’s very easy for patients not to get the care that they need, or to never be referred for something that could really be life-changing, or lifesaving in some circumstances.”
For Connors, the program’s growth since he first matriculated “speaks to both the need for genetic counseling in our healthcare sphere, and also, the sustainable vision for our profession that the BU Genetic Counseling Program has.”
Swenson agrees. “The program has been consistently forward-thinking,” she said. “[…] Because the field has transitioned so broadly in such a short amount of time, we want to consistently be thoughtful to how our training is going to impact our future colleagues and make sure that we are exposing them to current circumstances, current discovery and new ways of thinking about genetics overall.”
“Our goal is not to graduate genetic counselors of today, but to graduate genetic counselors of the future.”