Richard Slusarczyk

Richard Slusarczyk is the Senior Associate Dean of Academic & Student Affairs at the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, Columbia University, and a 2021 graduate of the Narrative Medicine program. Richard earned his doctorate in Applied Physiology and conducted research that looked at the influence of HIV on resting energy expenditure. His post-doctoral research investigated the influence of HIV on resting energy expenditure during different stages of the menstrual cycle and was presented at the first NIH Conference on Women and HIV.

Richard’s affiliation with Narrative Medicine, which pre-dates the MS program, began when he and his colleagues were tasked with creating a course that would introduce pre-medical students to the field of Narrative Medicine. Having returned to Columbia in 2017 after working for an NGO in Somalia, Richard was eager to return to the field of Narrative Medicine and enrolled in the MS program. While a student in the program, Richard developed an interest in how plays and playwriting can be applied in Narrative Medicine. As a final project, Richard wrote a one-act play about a transgender man who is waiting for the results of a pregnancy test that was produced as part of the Q Theater Festival in Madison, Wisconsin.

As a graduate student, Richard drove a cab in NYC.