Robert Gentile

Cahn Fellow 2020

Principal, The High School for Health Professions & Human Services

Manhattan, New York

Prior to his appointment as Principal of The High School for Health Professions & Human Services (HPHS), Robert Gentile served as the Assistant Principal of Social Studies at New Utrecht High School in Brooklyn where he spent the first eighteen years of his career and was a John Bunzel Award recipient for outstanding Assistant Principal of Social Studies.

The High School for Health Professions & Human Services is a public high school in Manhattan, New York. It specializes in preparing students for careers in the healthcare and human resources fields. The school is seventy percent female and serves students throughout New York City, many of whom will be first-generation college-bound students.

At HPHS, teachers strive to provide access to all students through a culturally responsive curriculum that challenges them to think critically as readers, writers, and speakers, so that all students will be more intellectually and emotionally engaged and thus more college and career ready. Under the leadership of Robert Gentile, HPHS ranks in the top 25% of schools in NYS. Every year since 2010, HPHS has been recognized by US News & World Reports as a Silver Medalist school.

Robert Gentile is dedicated to breaking down barriers that cause disproportionality and is committed to closing the achievement gap for all students. During his tenure, he created a partnership with Comprehensive Youth Development, a CBO, to expand student access to academic and social services and was awarded the College Board’s AP Computer Science Female Diversity Award.

Doug Geogerian

Cahn Ally 2020

Assistant Principal, The High School for Health Professions and Human Services

Manhattan, New York

Doug Geogerian taught for twenty-three years in the New York City public schools before becoming an Assistant Principal Supervision of English, ENL, and the Arts at the High School for Health Professions and Human Services. During his tenure there, he has overseen the expansion of Advanced Placement grow from three sections to ten to include a much wider range of students.

For the past two years, Doug has facilitated the school’s equity team by spreading the work of Courageous Conversations and other key concepts and tools designed to combat unfairness, bias, and disproportionality in education. Currently, he also supervises the school’s mathematics teachers as well.