Reem Al-Atassi (she/her), Emory
Reem grew up in metro Atlanta. She attended Emory University for college, where she majored in Biology and English-Creative Writing. She then headed to Dallas to study Quranic Arabic before returning to Emory for medical school. There, she was heavily involved in the school’s literary magazine, and she led an extracurricular learning series on ACEs and trauma-informed care. Her activities in the broader Atlanta community included developing and directing an award-winning program called You4Prevent with the help of a refugee-turned-cardiologist. The program combines health promotion in a refugee community with mentorship for underrepresented pre-medical students. Separately, she worked on a weekend school for the Rohingya refugee community. She is thrilled to train at UCSF, where she looks forward to exploring her interests in prevention, primary care innovation, and community- and family-oriented care. Outside medicine, she enjoys spending time with loved ones, cooking, yoga, and being in nature. [email protected]
Jacob Arellano-Anderson (he/they), Harvard
Jacob is a born and raised Texan, from birth and childhood in El Paso and the north Texas ‘burbs, to the University of Texas at Austin, where he studied Chemistry and Iberian/Latin American Languages & Cultures. In his college, he helped lead mentorship and outreach efforts for students and communities underrepresented in STEM. He also worked as a tutor, a rideshare driver, and at the UT International Office with Latin American students. Intimate experiences with addiction and witnessing the failures of the healthcare system to meet the needs of people on the margins drove him to medicine and an interest in primary care and public service. At Harvard Medical School, Jacob continued to advocate for underrepresented students in medicine and local minority communities with the Latino Medical Student Association, LGBTQ+ and Allies at HMS, and the Racial Justice Coalition. He is academically interested in the intersection of sex- and- gender informed medicine and substance use disorders, as well as physician advocacy for gender-affirming care, harm reduction and refugee/immigrant health. He finds joy in dancing, queer art (drag name: Santita La Cob), practicing Spanish/Portuguese, making salsa, immersive tabletop/video games and US electoral politics. [email protected]
Nida Bajwa (she/her), Jefferson
Nida grew up in a tiny town in rural Pennsylvania and attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois for college. She graduated with a degree in journalism and global health studies. Through various classes and justice organizations, she developed her convictions as an activist, deciding that practicing root-cause medicine was practicing primary care. As a medical student, Nida served as the president of the Jefferson Students for Human Rights and the Outreach Director for the Philadelphia Human Rights Clinic, a student-run organization that provides no-cost physical and psychological evaluations to those seeking asylum. She is also a member of Doctors 4 Camp Closure, with whom she drafts letters to advocate for the release of detained individuals. She sees her future in medicine as intrinsically tied to principles of social and health justice, working to create truly healthy communities by creating healthier systems of care. Outside of medicine and writing, she loves reading, hiking, traveling, and exploring new places on foot. [email protected]
Kelley Butler (she/her), UC Irvine
Hailing from Los Angeles, Kelley has committed herself to various causes dedicated to students and professionals of color, people battling substance use disorder and addiction, people experiencing houselessness, and others. Prior to coming to UCSF, Kelley graduate from the UC Irvine School of Medicine and completed her Masters of Public Health in Health Policy at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. There, she aided in organizing efforts in juvenile justice reform and prison divestment, completed a fellowship in Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, increased civic engagement on campus through voter registration and health policy education and oversaw a conferences and workshops designed to support minoritized trainees. Following her masters studies, she went on to serve rural and frontier communities in Oregon as an Opioid Response Program Associate for Greater Oregon Behavioral Health Inc. Kelley graduated from Howard University in 2015 with BS in Biology and a unique awareness of the social circumstance of the urban underserved. A Leo sun, Sagittarius moon and Aquarius rising, Kelley isn’t afraid to speak truth to power in the face of injustice. She is excited to continue this work as an advocate inside and outside of the exam room with her partner, Shane, alongside their pup and strong Black queen, Rosa Barks. [email protected]
Li Chen (she/her), Johns Hopkins
Li grew up in Taiwan and southern California amongst family that taught her the importance of relationships. While studying public policy and global health at Duke University, she worked as an HIV testing counselor and with organizations focused on community development, women's empowerment, and migrant health. After college, she worked with health workers and midwives in Haiti, supporting programs that addressed various social determinants of health. She moved to Baltimore for medical school and an MPH, and continued to learn about the structures that impact our collective wellbeing while advocating for affordable medication access, participating in mutual aid, and organizing with Baltimore residents surrounding housing, displacement, and policing. Li is honored to be a part of the SFGH family and to learn from radical organizing and resistance in the Bay Area. She enjoys hiking and biking, yoga and stretching, water (especially the ocean and most types of tea), plant-based foods (especially with spice), and traveling. [email protected]
Shane Hervey (he/him), OHSU
Shane was born in Orange County, California but raised in Portland, Oregon. He has unique ties to community organizations, institutions and causes on the west coast. Shane has dedicated himself to supporting underrepresented minority students pursuing careers in medicine as a fervent advocate within the OHSU Center for Diversity and Inclusion and has a desire to continue this as his career progresses. During medical school at OHSU, he served in numerous capacities for the Student National Medical Association, has contributed to advocacy and action around gun violence, climate change in healthcare and participated in research surrounding adolescent suicide. Within Oregon, Shane served on the Oregon Health Policy Board Health Care Workforce Committee and was an active supporter of community engagement and institutional collaboration for North by North East, a primary care home for Portland’s Black population. His clinical interests include: sports medicine, community medicine, and social determinants of health. Shane is a die-hard Seattle Seahawks (hardest part about moving to SF) and Oregon Duck fan, a hybrid Trailblazers-Lakers fan and a ‘pawther’ to a Rottweiler named Rosa Barks. Outside of the hospital, he enjoys live music, traveling, good eats, yoga, lifting weights, video games, and spending time with his partner and fellow co-resident, Dr. Kelley Butler. [email protected]
Dedriana Lomax (she/her), Howard
Dedriana was born and raised in San Francisco and attended Howard University in Washington, DC for her undergraduate career. Dedriana spent her first year after undergrad working for the Safe Passages program in Oakland, CA through AmeriCorps. There she worked with 7th graders as both an educator and a mentor. She then moved on to work at the San Francisco Department of Public Health, and while there she gained a love for community health. She went on to attend medical school at Howard University, and she continued to be active in her surrounding community. She is committed to addressing racial and health disparities through education, advocacy, and mentorship. Outside of medicine, some of the things Dedriana enjoys includes spending time with family and friends, brunch, cooking, and listening to music. [email protected]
Sophie Mou (she/her), Cornell
Sophie Mou grew up in Sunnyvale, CA, and attended Cornell University, where she experienced having four seasons for the first time. After college, she returned to the Bay Area to work at the SFDPH's Family Planning Program, where she engaged with the community clinics to assess need for services pertaining to contraception and STI screening. She also worked as a pregnancy options counselor at UCSF's Women's Options Clinic. With these experiences, Sophie entered medical school at Weill Cornell Medical College ready to advocate for more comprehensive training around sexual and reproductive health for medical students. She was also involved in the student-run free clinic as a co-director of the Mental Health Clinic and drafted medical affidavits for people seeking asylum with the Weill Cornell Center for Human Rights. Sophie is so happy and grateful to have landed in a program that will foster her learning in not only medicine, but also in advocacy and health equity. Sophie loves her bike commute, the vibrant arts scene in SF, thrifting, and any activities that can pull her away from the infinite scroll. [email protected]
Yumiko Nakamura (she/her), University of Florida
Yumiko grew up in Port Chester, New York and Cape Coral, Florida. She studied psychology with neuroscience at Yale. After college, she worked as a Community HealthCorps volunteer at a federally qualified health center, where she helped structure an insurance outreach and enrollment program in a predominantly Latinx community. Yumiko returned to the sunshine state for medical school at the University of Florida, where she deepened her understanding of community engagement and advocacy, specifically around issues of immigrant health and homelessness. She is excited to join her UCSF colleagues in promoting health equity as a family medicine physician. In her free time, she enjoys dancing, discovering new music, and swimming. [email protected]
Kimberly Ngo (she/her), UC Davis
Kimberly Ngo was born & raised in San Jose, CA. She studied Public Health & Anthropology at UC Berkeley, where she found her passion for service through volunteering as a labor doula with Asian Health Services & for community organizing through Asian American/Southeast Asian student groups. After college, she worked at LifeLong Medical Care via Community Health Corps (AmeriCorps) & as a medical scribe. At UC Davis, she was involved in a variety of activities, most notably in Asian Pacific American Medical Student Association, Paul Hom Asian Clinic, & Organized Medicine. In her roles, she always thought critically on how to pursue social justice & health equity through advocacy, community engagement, making personal connections & education/mentorship. Kimberly is excited to join this residency, to learn with amazing faculty & co-residents, & to serve the communities of San Francisco. Her interests include: diversity & inclusion, immigrant/refugee health, maternal-child health, & public health. When not working, you can find her exploring SF, browsing bookstores for a good book, trying new restaurants & new recipes, or relaxing with yoga. [email protected]
Jenny Nguyen (she/her), Temple
Jenny grew up in New York City. She earned a B.S. in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University, where she was a leader in cultural life, social justice advocacy, and the performing arts. Interested in the intersection between structure and agency in urban underserved care, she earned a M.D./M.A. Urban Bioethics degree from Temple University. At Temple, she co-founded a community nutrition program, worked with Philadelphia Housing Authority CARES, and made hearts race while performing with the TachyChordia a capella group or teaching fitness classes. A vocal mentor for first-generation students, she served on Temple's Student Diversity Council and as Director of Medical Programming for 1stGenYale. Dedicated to health justice, she presented at policy competitions, won awards and published on access to care, gun reform, behavioral health, bioethics, and immigrant health. Jenny is a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society and Gold Humanism Honor Society. She is ecstatic to channel her endless enthusiasm into championing diversity and inclusion, policy, and advocacy for urban underserved immigrant communities. In her spare time, she loves exploring cities by foot, kickboxing, playing tennis, singing, playing her ukulele, cooking, baking, and going on dessert tour. [email protected]
April Pei (she/her), USC
April was born in China and grew up in Virginia. She double-majored in gender studies and statistics in college, then moved to New York where she worked for four years as a community health worker and volunteered as an HIV tester and counselor. Through this work she came to recognize the significant and often untapped potential of high-quality primary care to help empower individuals, families, and communities. This led her to medical school at USC where she was a proud member of the primary care track, advocated for the needs of asylum seekers, facilitated grief groups at a community organization, and conducted research on critical tattoo removal services for gang-affiliated individuals. She is interested in just about everything in family medicine but particularly minority and immigrant health, environmental health, palliative medicine, and multidisciplinary care. Outside of medicine she likes to read, nap, cook, drink tea, and look at beautiful art and buildings. [email protected]
Noemi Plaza (she/her), UCSF
Noemi is the daughter of Mexican immigrants, and she grew up between Paris, France and Napa, California. She went to Cornell University for her undergraduate education. In her gap years, she completed a Fulbright in the Dominican Republic where she worked with youth from Santo Domingo to establish an anti-machismo workshop series. At UCSF School of Medicine, she further focused on her interest in women’s health with her involvement in the annual Interpersonal Violence Prevention Conference as well as serving as Women’s Health Director of the student run homeless clinic. During her time at UCSF she became more passionate about diversifying the medical field, and finding ways to support URM students to engage with healthcare professions through her involvement with the Summer Urban Health Leadership Academy. Her academic interests include abortion care and OB. In her free time, you can find Noemi balling out on her local basketball court, spending time in California’s beautiful outdoors, and picking up new moves on the dance floor. [email protected]
Sydnie Turner (she/they), Rochester
Sydnie Turner grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area with family roots in Alabama and Mississippi. She attended Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans where she received a B.S. in Biology with Honors. Sydnie later moved to Rochester, New York to pursue her M.D. at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. During her tenure, she worked with the URMC Department of Public Health Science and the Healthy Baby Network of Rochester on their father-inclusive parenting programming for families during the perinatal period. She also helped develop a Reproductive Justice course for UR Public Health students. Sydnie’s professional interests include health equity and policy reform through community-based advocacy, reproductive and sexual health, LGBTQ+ health, and mental health. During her time in Rochester, Sydnie trained to be a 200 HR certified yoga instructor through Yoga for a Good Hood, a donation-based organization that offers yoga classes for the Rochester community. She has training in perinatal yoga and restorative yoga styles. Sydnie enjoys making music playlists for loved ones, watching Bay Area sports teams, and tending to indoor plants. [email protected]
Karen Zhang (she/her), University of Texas
Karen was born and raised around Dallas, Texas and grew up immersed in science and arts, eventually leading her down the path of medicine. She attended the University of California, Berkeley, where she spent much of her time volunteering as a health advocate at Highland Hospital and as an In Home Supportive Services (IHSS) worker. She graduated with a degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology with an emphasis in Immunology and went on to work a year as a ophthalmic tech in Oakland before returning to Texas for medical school. There, she discovered her love of primary care and integrative medicine as well as advocating for her patients. She focused on her leadership role in Physicians for Human Rights in creating voter registration booths, workshops on implicit bias, and organizing resources in fighting for justice and equity. She is excited to be back in the Bay Area and continue her education at UCSF, where she hopes to keep working among the community and underserved populations. Outside of medicine, Karen loves eating foods of all kinds, creating and discovering new music/art, and watching cheesy movies. [email protected]