Caitlin Felder-Heim, University of Colorado

Caitlin spent most of her early childhood abroad with her family in Antananarivo, Madagascar. After moving back to the US, her family eventually settled in New Jersey. Caitlin attended Washington University in St. Louis for undergrad, where she played soccer and studied Anthropology. Caitlin then attended medical school at the University of Colorado, where she was a member of the Urban Underserved Track and one of the founding members of The DAWN Clinic, an interprofessional student-run free clinic serving uninsured patients in Aurora, CO. She also took an extra year at CU to obtain her MPH with a focus on community health. Her interests include LGBT* health, obstetrics, and Integrative Medicine. Outside of medicine, Caitlin enjoys being active, music of all kinds, and spending time with her partner and their huge dog. [email protected]

 Nhi Tran, UC Davis

Born and raised in San Diego, Nhi moved to the Bay Area to attend UC Berkeley where she studied Biology and Ethnic Studies. Her passion for public service and community health led her to Asian Health Services, a FQHC in Oakland, where she served as a prenatal health educator and case manager. She then attended UC Davis School of Medicine and participated in the TEACH-MS urban underserved medicine track, and was deeply involved in diversity and inclusion work. Recognizing the importance of systems level change, she obtained a MPH with a concentration in health policy at Harvard T.H. Chan. Nhi aims to use a critical race theory framework and justice-centered approach to healing and serving. She is committed to addressing racial health inequities through policy advocacy, education and mentorship. Outside work, she enjoys karaoke, adult coloring, and is one of the biggest Chargers fans you will meet, despite her disapproval of the NFL corporation. [email protected]

Reem Al-Atassi, 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, 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, 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, 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, Johns Hopkins

Li grew up in Taiwan and southern California amongst family that taught her the importance of relationships from a young age. While studying public policy and global health at Duke University, she volunteered as an HIV testing counselor and worked with organizations focused on asset-based community development and maternal and child health. After college she lived and worked with health workers in rural Haiti, supporting programs that address 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 volunteering in free clinics, building relationships with youth, and organizing with East Baltimore residents surrounding housing, displacement, and policing. Li is honored to be a part of the UCSF/SFGH family and to learn from the histories of organizing and resistance in the Bay Area. She enjoys hiking and biking, yoga (and stretching - though not equating the two!), anything with water (especially the ocean - but also lakes and drinking lots of water and tea), plant-based foods (especially with spice), and traveling (during non-pandemic times of course). [email protected]

Shane Hervey, 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, 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 7^th 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, 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]

Yumi Nakamura, 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, UC Davis

Kimberly Ngo was born and raised in San Jose, among a community of Vietnamese refugees. She studied Public Health and Anthropology at UC Berkeley, where she found her passion for public service through volunteering as a labor doula with Asian Health Services, a FQHC in Oakland and for community organizing through involvement in Asian American/Southeast Asian student groups. She continued her community work at LifeLong Medical Care, a FQHC in Alameda County through Community Health Corps and later as a medical scribe. At UC Davis School of Medicine, she was involved in a variety of activities, most notably in Asian Pacific American Medical Student Association, Paul Hom Asian Clinic (a student run clinic) and Organized Medicine. In her roles, she always thought critically on how to pursue social justice and health equity through advocacy, community engagement, and education/mentorship. [email protected]

Jenny Nguyen, 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, 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, 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, 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, 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]

Lily Barnard, UCSF

Lily grew up outside of Boston and went to undergraduate university at Tufts where she studied Public Health and Biology. After, she worked as a care manager at Lynn Community Health Center. She made her cross-country move to attend medical school at UCSF. Here, she found many ways to engage with social justice, with the majority of her focus on advocacy with people experiencing homelessness. Lily looks forward to deepening her professional passions in residency including improving gender care, sexual and reproductive health, care for underserved populations, as well as community-based and community-led medicine. When not at work, she enjoys hiking by the beach, cooking with friends, and hopefully soon, playing with her new cat. [email protected]

Mauricio Bonilla, UC Riverside

Mauricio grew up in Pomona, California in a Latinx family of Mexican and Salvadorian heritage. His journey to medicine began when he and his family experienced immense difficulty in trying to navigate the medical system. His experience translating for his family during his grandmother’s stay in the ICU made him strive to become a physician that could speak the same language and provide culturally competent care to help Latinx families navigate the medical system in their moments of need. He attended the University of California - Riverside for undergrad and medical school where he volunteered at various free clinics, health fairs, and street medicine events, while further developing his understanding of the social determinants of health. He chose family medicine because he wants to serve and engage his patients at all ages and stages of life. Mauricio chose UCSF because the residents and physicians care about their patients and wish to make healthcare more accessible. In his free time, Mauricio enjoys cooking, and learning new things outside of medicine. [email protected]

Michael Broder, Brown

Michael was born and raised in a closely knit Jewish community outside of Boston. He studied community health as an undergraduate at Penn, where he engaged with local grassroots organizations serving the needs of immigrant and other historically marginalized communities in Philadelphia. After college, as a Fulbright Fellow in Guatemala, Michael provided support for a rural hospital’s community-based public health programming, before moving to Kansas City to work as a Medical Case Manager with Central Missouri’s migrant farmworker population. In medical school at Brown University, Michael completed his Master’s degree in Primary Care and Population Medicine, where he continued advocating for the health of migrant and immigrant communities in Rhode Island. Professionally, Michael is interested in the intersection of immigrant and LGBTQIA+ health and strengthening systems to ensure more equitable access to linguistically and culturally concordant care. Outside of medicine, Michael loves listening to lots of different genres of music, picking up new dance moves, hiking, exploring, and spending countless hours immersed in deep conversation with family and friends, old and new. [email protected]

Peter Callejo-Black, Duke

Peter was born and raised in San Francisco and went to UC Santa Cruz for his undergraduate education. Graduating with a degree in Human Biology, he spent his first year after college working in Santa Cruz with local community clinics to promote safe opioid prescribing practices. In the following year, Peter returned to San Francisco to serve with the Community HealthCorps, working with the San Francisco Homeless Outreach and Shelter Health Teams. After a year performing outreach in encampments and shelters around San Francisco, Peter left for Durham, North Carolina to begin medical school at Duke University. At Duke, Peter became involved with numerous community projects addressing food insecurity, including a clinic-based free fresh produce distribution for patients in need, as well as gardening projects with a local women and children’s homeless shelter. This desire to engage with and support community health improvement efforts led Peter back to his hometown to begin residency, where he looks forward to practicing medicine and creating systems to improve health equity for all San Franciscans and for the greater Bay Area. On his days off, you’ll find Peter trekking through the hills of Marin or the Santa Cruz mountains, watching and playing soccer, gardening, or indulging in theatrical pursuits. [email protected]

Anna Dailey, Rosalind Franklin

Anna grew up in Seattle, in a family of cyclists. Driving was never an option, so she became a bike commuter on her first day of kindergarten. She developed a love of the outdoors through cycling and then began running, which became her new passion. Anna ran track and cross country at the University of Washington while majoring in Drawing and Painting. During that time as well, Anna connected with unhoused youth through a shared passion for art and expression. After graduating from UW, she studied Spanish in Heredia, Costa Rica. Upon returning, she worked for Country Doctor Community Health Centers doing referrals, medical records, and registering patients. She went away to Chicago for medical school, and is incredibly grateful to now be back on the west coast, surrounded by salt water and mountains. Anna paints, runs, bikes, bakes, and makes friends with every dog she meets during her non work hours. [email protected]

Wyatt Hanft, UC Davis

Wyatt grew up in the small rural community of Raymond, California in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Having been raised in this area without a regular source of healthcare, he came to appreciate medicine for what it should be – a system that gives options to those in need, regardless of who they are and where they come from. As a first-generation college student, he went to UC Davis and majored in Genetics and Chicano/a Studies. After undergrad, Wyatt continued his education at UC Davis School of Medicine in the Rural PRIME track – as part of this track he gained addition experience in rural healthcare through volunteering and working in rural, underserved communities. During his medical school training, Wyatt came to realize his passions in Reproductive Health Justice and LGBTQIA+ healthcare. To further pursue these interests, he took an additional year at UC Berkeley School of Public Health to study Reproductive Health Policy. At UCSF, he now continues to pursue these passions through his training in Family and Community Medicine. When not working, Wyatt enjoys spending time with family and friends, hiking, rock climbing, cooking and gardening. [email protected]

Rebecca Hofer, Harvard

Rebecca Hofer grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan and studied evolutionary biology at Harvard. She then taught high school geometry near McAllen, Texas, studied French in Lyon, France, and participated in research on community heath workers, shared decision making, and geriatric "prehab" before surgery. She returned to Harvard for medical school. She plans to work with underserved patient populations with a focus on providing comprehensive women's health care and family planning within primary care. Outside of medicine she enjoys running, ultimate frisbee, painting, and gardening. [email protected]

Nathan Kim, UCSF

Nathan Kim is a proud Bay Area native, grandson of Korean immigrants, and son of missionaries in Thailand where he spent most of his formative years. He graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in Public Health where he was a haircutter at the Suitcase Clinic for people experiencing homelessness. An AmeriCorps alum, he spent two years doing HIV quality improvement and outreach in shelters, needle exchanges, and clinics in the Tenderloin community of San Francisco. At UCSF medical school, Nathan and his classmates at White Coats 4 Black Lives partnered with Black elders in the Bayview to teach safe sex practices and substance use harm reduction. He also found his community organizing family through the Do No Harm Coalition and loved creating community with Asian Pacific American Medical Student Association (APAMSA) and Christians on Campus. Nathan is passionate about decolonized healing for people experiencing homelessness, trauma-informed healing in primary care clinics, HIV care, and substance use harm reduction. In his spare time, Nathan likes baking with orange zest with his partner, cooking multi-course meals for community, playing the ukulele and flute, and reading with friends. [email protected]

Arturo Martinez, University of Arizona

Undergraduate: BA Biology and Romance Languages, Johns Hopkins University
Extracurricular Interests: Live music; Cooking; Traveling; Leisure runs; Learning Geographic Information Systems and exploring maps

[email protected]

Tiffany Phon, UC Riverside

Tiffany was born and raised in Southern California, spending most of her childhood helping at her family’s small donut shop. She earned her BS in Psychobiology at UCLA, while also working with different organizations to address the unique health needs of local communities and abroad. She went on to receive her medical degree at UC Riverside School of Medicine. During medical school, she continued to feed her passion for global health and community outreach. She was involved with studying health care structure in Poland, participating in local free clinics, peer-mentoring, and reaching out to prospective applicants for UCR SOM. She is honored to be continue her journey in family medicine at UCSF/SFGH and hopes, with the skills and opportunities she gains, she can continue to build a more united and compassionate health system to address the unique needs of the community. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, traveling, and spending time with her very cute dog, Ace. [email protected]

Sarah Rosenwohl-Mack, UCSF

Sarah grew up in San Francisco. She studied comparative literature and health policy at Harvard, where she worked to increase low-income patient access to social safety net services. After college she lived in London, where she received a Masters of Public Health at Imperial College London as a Fulbright Scholar, worked in infectious disease epidemiology in the UK’s National Health Service, and was a suicide hotline volunteer. In medical school at UCSF, she organized around issues of racial justice, immigration, and structural violence. Sarah is invested in health policy and universal healthcare access as tools to reduce inequity. Her clinical interests include women’s health, LGBTQ health, addiction medicine, and palliative care. Outside of medicine, she enjoys hiking, outdoor swimming, poetry, cooking with friends, and spending time with her wife and dog. [email protected]

Cindy Saenz-Leiva, Mt Sinai

Undergraduate: BA Biology and Anthropology, Columbia University
Extracurricular Interests: salsa dancing; cooking; running

[email protected]

Martin Shapiro, USC

Martin grew up in Los Angeles, California and attended Yale studying mechanical engineering with a focus on medical device design. Continuing his study of health innovation, he completed his MD/MBA with a graduate certificate in Health, Technology, and Engineering at USC. During medical school, he supported efforts to integrate technology into global health care delivery in Cambodia and Guatemala. He also worked as a Senior Venture Architect for Boston Consulting Group Digital Ventures building healthcare startups and driving thought leadership in clinical artificial intelligence and digital therapeutics. In addition, Martin served as the Primary Care Innovation Fellow at the American Academy of Family Physicians researching the intersection of technology and primary care. Throughout his educational training, he has organized musical performances with colleagues for patients while playing the flute. Outside of residency, Martin enjoys playing volleyball, exploring the outdoors, and traveling. [email protected]

Simone Vais, Boston University

Simone was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. After graduating from Barnard College, she spent a year as a high school biology and STEM teacher, director of student activities and volleyball coach at a brand new school in NY. She moved to Boston for medical school and continued to develop her interest in teaching and mentorship as a leader of STEP, a mentorship program for public high school students from underrepresented minorities in medicine. Learning medicine at Boston Medical Center, a safety net hospital, triggered her passion for caring for the urban underserved and for creating systemic changes to reduce barriers to care. Throughout medical school, her research focused on developing novel rideshare programs to address transportation insecurity, first in a refugee women’s clinic, and then throughout multiple high-risk pediatric clinics. Within medicine, she’s excited to continue exploring her passions for social determinants of health, substance-use disorders in pregnancy, inpatient medicine, QI research, and teaching. Outside of medicine she spends as much time as possible competing with her adult gymnastics team, and pursuing her newest hobby- unicycling. [email protected]

Cazandra Zaragoza, University of Arizona

Cazandra Zaragoza was born in Guanajuato, Mexico and was raised in Fresno, California. She graduate from the University of Arizona with a Physiology degree and an MPH in Policy & Management. During her time in medical school, Cazandra served as Class president of the COM Tucson Student Government; co-chair of the Student Diversity Advisory Committee; and Western Regional Chair for the Organization of Student Representatives of the AAMC. Cazandra’s research has focused on best practices in medicine and increasing the number of underrepresented in health professions through service-learning and peer mentorship and advocating for equity for migrant/asylum seekers and undocumented patients in a health care setting. Cazandra also completed three Distinction Tracks at the College of Medicine: Community Service, Rural Health, and Leadership & Innovation in Healthcare. At UA COM she also served as a volunteer facilitator for LGBTQ Safe Zone training and serves as a forensic medical evaluator for the Arizona Asylum Network. She is a member of the Gold Humanism Honor Society. She enjoys spending down time with her family and three-legged dog, Uno. [email protected]

Duron Aldredge, Meharry Medical School

Duron was born and raised in Oakland California. After graduating high school he enlisted in the Navy as Corpsman (medic), where he discovered his passion for medicine. He finished most of his undergraduate work while in the military and graduated from Brandman University after the end of his enlistment. After he returned home to finish his requirements for medical school he began working with the Oakland-based Black Organizing Project, a community organization focused on African American issues from a community perspective. Primarily he worked on the Better Our School Systems campaign which focused on combating the local school to prison pipeline. After finishing his medical school pre-requisites, he attended Meharry Medical College where he earned his medical degree and master’s degree in Health Science. Duron enjoys hanging out with family and friends, and loves discovering, learning, and experiencing new things. [email protected]   

Krystina Begonia, University of Hawai’i

Krystina was born and raised in Makakilo on the island of Oahu. She comes from a family of Filipino and Samoan immigrants. After 17 years of gradually developing island fever, she traded in sunny days for life in Seattle to pursue a Biology degree at the University of Washington. There, she did health education work at an HIV/AIDs clinic and homeless shelters which sparked her interest in underserved populations and combating social injustices through the avenue of healthcare. Although Seattle brought her many good things (e.g., meeting her current partner, developing a love for Thai food, fulfilling an unknown dream of cooking in a ramen restaurant), Krystina had enough of the rain and made her way back home to attend the John A. Burns School of Medicine in Hawai'i where she developed her interests in mentorship of Asian and Pacific Islanders in medicine, homeless outreach via the Hawai'i H.O.M.E. Project, and photography as a means of sharing stories of those affected by homelessness. To maintain her sanity and replenish her cup, she attempts to make time for keeping up with friends and family, portrait photography, traveling, thrifting, spending time in the ocean, watching vlogs, and most importantly, sleeping. [email protected]

Cam Candido, University of Washington

Cam was born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil and immigrated to the state of Washington when he was 15. He graduated from Seattle Pacific University with a degree in Physiology. Before medical school, Cam did marine biology research and worked as a video game tester! He stayed in Seattle and graduated from University of Washington School of Medicine as a TRUST scholar. During his time in medical school, Cam was involved in mentoring underrepresented pre-health students as well as developing new tech ways to improve medical students learning. Cam has a special interest in working with undeserved communities, addiction medicine, medical technology and policy development. Hobbies include weight-lifting, playing soccer, eating good food with friends, videogames, and beer! [email protected]

Stephanie Chang, Brown University

Stephanie was born and raised in the Bay Area, and first began to learn the art of healthcare for people, not profit, while volunteering as a medic at the collectively-run Berkeley Free Clinic.  She studied Social Welfare as an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, and worked as a social work case manager, documentary filmmaker, and non-profit media consultant in Berlin, New York, Iraq, and Liberia before returning to school to complete her Medical and Master's Degree in Population Health at Brown University.  Outside of work, Stephanie enjoys exploring the city by bike and surfing in the cold Northern California water.  She is grateful to be surrounded by the community of inspiring and empathic change-makers at SF General Hospital, and is looking forward to being a part of the movement for health equity at home and abroad as a family physician. [email protected]

Calvin Chin, UC Davis

Calvin grew up in San Francisco and studied evolutionary biology and music at Harvard before coming back to California to attend medical school at UC Davis. His work in advocacy for healthcare access with underserved communities in Sacramento inspired a strong interest in public health and policy as tools in dismantling systemic prejudices and working towards health equity. In his free time, Calvin enjoys dancing for fun, creating music with friends, and exploring the outdoors. [email protected]

Sandra Gutierrez, UCLA Geffen

Sandra (Sandi) was born in El Salvador and grew up in the Bay Area.  She graduated from UC Berkeley with a BA in Public Health. At Berkeley she discovered her passion for understanding health disparities, social justice and immigration status as a social determinant of health. She participated in various global health projects in El Salvador and Ecuador. Experiencing health inequalities both at the local and global level, she was inspired to pursue a medical career that would allow her to work towards a solution. She enrolled at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA where she focused her energy on supporting community work through health fairs as a member of SNMA, LMSA and UndocuMed @UCLA. She is interested in delivering quality health care to underserved populations and working towards increasing the number of underrepresented minorities in medicine through mentorship. Outside of medicine, she enjoys dancing, baking, and spending quality time outdoors with family. [email protected]

New Latthivongskorn, UCSF

New is an immigrant rights & health justice activist. After moving to the U.S. as a child, his family has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento in California. Having experienced, first-hand, the alienation and confusion that immigrant families face in attempting to navigate health care systems in the U.S., he became interested with the idea of working to improve health for all marginalized communities. He is a graduate of University of California Berkeley, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health with a Master’s degree in Public Health, and the first undocumented graduate from University of California San Francisco, in the Program in Medical Education for the Urban Underserved (PRIME-US). Outside academia, he has been an immigrant rights activist—advocating for policies to expand higher education access and health care access, as well as to limit local ICE enforcement. He has engaged in reframing the public’s perception around the immigration in the U.S. New continues to engage in work at the intersection of immigrant rights, health & medicine, and culture change. [email protected]

Annie Le, UC Riverside

Annie was born and raised in San Diego by her family and community of Vietnamese refugees. Her passion for connection, context, and advocacy grew from her grassroots organizing communities, and continues to be nourished by the comprehensive work of family medicine. She earned her BS in Human Biology with minors in History and Healthcare-Social Issues at UCSD, while learning the most from campaigns on anti-racism, environmental justice, labor rights, and education access. She went on to UCLA for her MPH in Community Health Sciences, where she contributed to community-based participatory research on API cancer disparities, an event series on mass incarceration, and primary care outreach to undocumented patients. At UCR SOM, she earned her MD with a Designated Emphasis in Medical Humanities. She led events on primary care and health equity, including the first SoCal conference on structural competency. She also conducted research on environmental health with Physicians for Social Responsibility-LA, served as a health educator at a local women’s prison, coordinated rapid response healthcare for asylum seekers, and participated with the free clinics, LGBT+ Health, and peer teaching and mentorship. She is a member of the Gold Humanism Honor Society and Delta Omega Honorary Society in Public Health. She is energized by breaking down silos, group exercise classes, and art and adventures of all kinds. [email protected]

Thomas Luong, UCLA Geffen

Thomas was born and raised in an immigrant community in the heart of Los Angeles. He is one of 6 children born to Vietnamese refugees. He attended UCLA where he majored in Physiological science and helped start a global medicine student group. After obtaining his undergraduate degree, he taught for a private tutoring company for 6 years. There, he learned of the disparities in education and sought opportunities to provide education equity to low-income communities. He attended the UCLA Re-Applicant program and developed a passion for mentoring aspiring physicians from disadvantaged backgrounds. He then attended UCLA for medical school where he continued pursuing his interest in underserved medicine through health fairs, mobile clinics, and a trip to Haiti. He decided to leave Los Angeles after 31 years for San Francisco after his UCSF residency interview. He is excited to be training in a residency program with such a strong mission-driven culture. In his spare time he enjoys hiking, camping, astronomy, archery, tennis, table tennis, playing the guitar, family gatherings, hanging out with his partner and their mini labradoodle, Rosie. [email protected]

Irene Ly, UC Davis

Irene was born in San Jose, CA and grew up bouncing back and forth between Sacramento and the Bay Area. She went to college at UC Davis where she studied anthropology and psychbiology, and discovered her passion for community-based medicine while studying US and Mexican health systems in Oaxaca, Mexico. She stayed at UC Davis for medical school, where she championed health equity and increasing access to care for the underserved in Sacramento. As a GE-NMF Primary Care Leadership Program fellow, she was exposed to the integration of addiction medicine in primary care and how that can lower the barriers to entry for the most medically disenfranchised individuals. While she is excited to roll up her sleeves and get to work, she's also looking forward to exploring a new city, and maybe make some things and eat some things ... and maybe even sleep! [email protected]

Noelle Martinez, Northwestern University

Noelle grew up in San Francisco, where she developed a love-hate relationship with hills but a love-love relationship with caring for San Franciscans. She went off to Columbia for undergrad, where she double majored in Political Science and Neuroscience. Her thesis focused on the experience of American citizenship/identity following traumatic exposures in Afghanistan, for military and refugees alike. During her time in New York, she also became involved with the Medicare Rights Center, which helped her think critically about the way individuals experience federal policies and the ways they must advocate for themselves to achieve their needs. She came back to San Francisco for AmeriCorps, where she coordinated the Sherman Elementary School Reading Partners program, training community volunteers to work one-on-one with students.  She then went to Northwestern for medical school, where she became interested in patient navigation as an intervention to improve transitions of care. In between third and fourth year, she pursued an MPH in Planned Social Change at the Harvard T.H. Chan School for Public Health. It was there that she became involved in issues of housing instability and medication assisted treatment; two areas she wishes to devote her future career to. She chose family medicine because of her belief in medicine as a tool for expressing solidarity. She chose to train at UCSF-SFGH specifically, because she was blown away by the vision, determination, and competence exhibited by each member of the department. She enjoys playing her cello, giggling with her sister, hiking (slowly), enjoying various combinations of cheese and bread, and pondering life's mysteries. [email protected]

AJ Millet, Stanford University

AJ was born and raised in Westford, Massachusetts. She studied human evolutionary biology with a focus on mind, brain, and behavior as an undergrad at Harvard. After college, she spent two years with Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program as an AmeriCorps health educator and outreach case manager. She switched coasts for medical school, and while at Stanford focused on primary care transformation, addiction in pregnancy, and access to reproductive health care. She couldn't be more excited to be training at the General and working towards a more just and equitable health care system alongside her amazing co-residents. In her free time, she can be found reliving her soccer glory days, crossword-puzzling, or exploring California nature with friends. [email protected]

Josh Pepper, UCSF

Josh (he/him/his) is a graduate of the UC Berkeley - UCSF Joint Medical Program (JMP). Originally from Fresno, Josh studied Environmental Studies at UC Santa Cruz and Civil & Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley, where he became interested in how the environment impacts health. Josh is a passionate cartographer and used maps and geospatial analysis to research the impact of air pollution on asthma in rural California for his Masters thesis. He also spent a summer in South Africa building the first comprehensive online map of HIV resources across 9 countries in southern Africa. Josh is interested in medical education and curricular development. He represented his class on the academic curriculum committee for three years, currently serves as a resident advisor to the new Kaiser School of Medicine in Southern California, and completed the UCSF Health Professions Education Pathway program. Josh also co-directed the JMP's student-run clinic for low-income and homeless populations in Berkeley, and believes that healthcare is a basic human right. Outside of classrooms and clinics, Josh enjoys cooking for his family and friends, gardening, playing guitar and mandolin, reading, and hiking on the coast and in the Sierra Nevada. [email protected]

Yoongi Tom, UC Davis

Yoongi (pronounced yoon-jee) was born in Jeju, South Korea and moved during babyhood to San Francisco, where she seems to have left her heart, somewhere on a hill. She attended UCLA, where she eventually had to settle on a major so she graduated with an undergraduate degree in Neuroscience and a dream to serve students and underserved schools as an educator. Her dream shifted when an illness in the family brought her up close to the field of integrative medicine. She returned to San Francisco to pursue studies at the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, wanting to promote integration of and access to alternative healthcare modalities, such as acupuncture. She then attended medical school at UC Davis, seeking to make more of an impact on community health by being in a position to do more advocacy work fighting for health justice and structural change. She is thrilled to be joining such an amazing, caring, justice-oriented, and people-centered group here at UCSF-SFGH. Yoongi will likely be found singing, climbing, dancing, eating, or binge-watching Netflix in her free time. [email protected]

Maxine Velazquez, UCLA Geffen

Maxine was born and raised in the greater Los Angeles. She comes from a large, close-knit, Mexican family. She attended UC Berkeley for undergrad where she was involved in a diabetes awareness organization that cultivated her interest in medicine. She gained a better understanding of the socioeconomic factors that impacted how her family members with diabetes accessed healthcare. After college she taught math & science, directed a health coaching program, and completed a post-baccalaureate program at UC Davis. Maxine graduated from UCLA PRIME and completed her MPH in health management at Harvard School of Public Health. Outside of medicine, she loves to cook, do indoor activities outdoors, and spend time with loved ones, especially her amazing siblings. [email protected]