Team

Ahad Abid

Ahad Abid is a graduating resident at the University of North Carolina who continues to have a passion for clinical education. Outside of work, he is a self taught graphic design artist and is the director of merchandise for the CP Solvers. He hopes to continue his involvement in furthering clinical education and is passionate about diagnostic reasoning. 

Maria Jimena Aleman

María Jimena Alemán was born and raised in Guatemala where she currently works in community and rural health care. After suffering from long standing neurophobia, she has embraced her love for neurology and will pursue a career in this field. She looks forward to dedicating her life to breaking barriers for latin women in medical fields and improving medical care in her country. Maria is one of the creators of a medical education podcast in Spanish called Intratecal. Her life probably has a soundtrack of a mix between Shakira and Ella Fitzgerald. Outside of medicine, she enjoys modern art, 21st century literature, and having hour-long conversations over a nice hot cup of coffee or tequila.

Twitter: @MariaMjaleman

Andrea Anampa-Guzmán

Andrea Anampa-Guzmán was born in Lima, Peru. She is a medical student at Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos. In 2017, she took a break from her medical studies to perform a research rotation at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2021, she became a permanent resident of the United States and moved to Buffalo, New York. She performs research for the Department of Medicine at the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center. Nowadays, she volunteers for the Social Media Working Group of ASCO (American Society of Clinical Oncology) and the Social media committee of AMWA (American Medical Women’s Association). Additionally, she is part of the team of the Clinical Problem Solvers and the #HemOnc Fellows Network. She is interested in medical education, survivorship, global oncology, and lymphoma. Andrea Anampa-Guzmán is open about her experience living with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and advocates for mental health, diversity, and equity. 

Twitter: @AndreaAnampaG

Laura Araujo was born in Brazil. She attends medical school at Universidade Federal de São João Del Rei. Her passions are clinical reasoning, medical education, and communication. Her biggest dream is becoming a teaching physician and taking long walks to go to work while enjoying the sun.  

Outside of Medicine, she enjoys spending time with her family (which includes her 3 cats and 3 dogs), dancing, writing her thoughts down and creating graphic designs. If her life was a movie, the soundtrack would be ready (it’s true, she’s made that playlist).

Catalina Aron 

Catalina was born in Lima, Perú and she is a medical student at Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia. Her interests include pediatrics, neonatology, infectious diseases and research. Her work with CPSolvers involves being a part of the Spanish schemas team. Outside of Medicine she loves practicing yoga, running, dancing, taking care of her plants and spending time with her dog.

Priyanka Athavale

Priyanka Athavale grew up in San Jose, CA and attended college at University of California, Berkeley. At Cal, she developed a strong interest in public health and social justice and spent time abroad as a Fulbright Fellow in India before starting medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, where she is now an Internal Medicine resident. Priyanka loves baking and trying new recipes, enjoys being creative, and spends her free time hiking with her fiance or picnicing in the park with friends. She is interested in clinical reasoning, medical education, implementation science within public health.

Twitter: @pri_athavale

Sukriti was born in India and growing up moved to multiple cities with her family. She graduated from Medical School in Bangalore this summer and will be pursuing a residency in Internal Medicine. A visual learner and self-taught artist, she loves to learn using art as an aid to simplify complex medical concepts.

She is the author of “Learning Medicine with Art”, a compilation of medical illustrations which aims to make learning fun for the medical student! Outside of medicine, she enjoys yoga, cartooning, and exploring new Asian cuisines.

Twitter: @sukritibanthiya

Amanda Barreto

Aaron Berkowitz

Aaron recently joined the founding faculty of Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine as a professor of neurology and director of global health. He previously served as an associate professor of neurology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, where he directed the Mind-Brain-Behavior course for first-year students and was a teaching attending on the neuro-hospitalist service and in the general neurology resident clinic. As a health and policy advisor to Partners In Health and senior specialist consultant to Doctors Without Borders, he has worked tirelessly to bring neurology care and education to regions where it is limited or non-existent, including co-developing the first neurology residency in Haiti. He is the author of Clinical Pathophysiology Made Ridiculously Simple, Clinical Neurology and Neuroanatomy: A localization-based approach, and most recently One by One by One, which tells the complex, moving, and inspiring stories of patients he and colleagues brought from Haiti to Boston for neurosurgery for brain tumors. When he is not trying to #EndNeurophobia, Aaron loves hiking, backpacking, and obsessively researching outdoor camping gear.

Twitter: @AaronLBerkowitz

Daniella Cal is a medical student at Universidade do Estado do Pará in Brazil. She speaks Portuguese, English, tries her best at French and will jump at any chance to practice, albeit with some difficulty, Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS). Her main interests include health equity, medical education, and languages. She’ll pursue a balance between these interests as a future Internal Medicine physician. If you ever need her attention play Taylor Swift or any musical soundtrack and hand her a cup of lemongrass tea. And if she says it’s on her calendar, she will surely be there.

Twitter: @CalDaniella

Alec Calac

Alec is a medical student at UC San Diego, where he is also pursuing a PhD in the Joint Doctoral Program in Public Health at the UC San Diego Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science and School of Public Health at San Diego State University. As the national president-elect of the Association of Native American Medical Students, he works tirelessly at the local, state, and federal level, identifying barriers and facilitators to greater inclusion of Native Americans in medicine and the allied health professions. He also works collaboratively with the Global Health Policy and Data Institute on research projects that synthesize public health, global health, social media, and health technology.

 Instagram: @aleccalac Twitter: @ajcalac  

Kiara Camacho

Kiara Camacho-Caballero was born in Lima, Perú and she is a medical student at Universidad Científica del Sur. She is passionate about Internal Medicine, Cardiology and medical education and currently working on her thesis about cardio metabolic disease. Her research interest are cardiology, neurology and geriatrics. She has participated in the WIM Summit this year as a student volunteer and her plans are to apply to Internal Medicine residency at the US next year. Outside medicine, she is a past triathlete and her dream is to perform an IRONMAN 70.3 someday. Kiara enjoys running, spending time with her dog named Zacarías and her favorite food is turkey legs.

Twitter: @kiaracamacho96

Madellena Conte was born and raised in San Francisco, CA. She completed her undergraduate degree at Dartmouth College. After college, she worked at Collective Health, a healthcare insurance technology company, and then completed her Master’s of Science in Global Health at UCSF where her research focused on understanding preferences for HIV care among people experiencing unstable housing. She is a MS4 at the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell in New York and is currently taking a research year in the Division of HIV, ID, and Global Medicine at UCSF. Outside of medicine, Madellena loves to travel, meet new people, run, figure skate and really do anything outdoors. She plans on applying into internal medicine residency. 

Ashley Cooper 

Ashley Cooper is the co-director of the CPSolvers Antiracism in Medicine Series. She is currently a student at Harvard Medical School, pursuing a Master’s in Media, Medicine, and Health. She recently graduated from Harvard College in 2021 with an A.B. in Neuroscience and Anthropology and also holds an MPhil in Health, Media, and Society from the University of Cambridge. Ashley aims to increase equity in mental health care dispersal, and especially to foster increased accessibility to mental healthcare for the Black community. Ashley is also a musical theater librettist, lyricist, and actor, who seeks to create works that lie at the nexus between mental health and theatrical expression, in an effort to increase awareness of racial gradients in mental healthcare and foster elevated mental health equity for Black individuals. 

Catarina Costa 

Catarina was born and raised in Porto in the north of Portugal, yet completed her medical degree at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Lisbon. She is currently an Internal Medicine Resident at Porto University Hospital Center and teaches medical semiology and pathophysiology at the ICBAS School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences of the University of Porto. If you can’t find her at the hospital, she is probably trekking in the wilderness, reading, or watching true crime documentaries.

Arsalan Derakhshan

Arsalan was born in Iran and moved to Atlanta, Georgia as a young child. He loves to travel and considers himself a global citizen. After graduating from Emory University, he attended the Medical College of Georgia and completed internal medicine residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and is now a Cardiology fellow at The Cleveland Clinic. He spends his time attending on inpatient team, staffing resident clinic, and working as the global health track director. He enjoys working with medical students and interns to help them discover their passions. His primary interests include clinical reasoning, global health,  and medical innovations.He enjoys listening to hip-hop, drinking tea, and having lively discussions with friends. He dislikes ticking clocks, the idea of skipping leg day, and how much air is in a bag of potato chips.

Twitter: @ArsalanMedEd

Utibe R. Essien

Utibe Essien is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh and a health disparities researcher in the VA Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion. He additionally serves as the director of the Career Education and Enhancement for Health Care Research Diversity Program for Medical Students (CEED II) at Pitt. Dr. Essien completed Primary Care residency and General Internal Medicine fellowship at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Essien’s research focuses on developing interventions to advance equity in the management of cardiovascular diseases.

Twitter: @UREssien

Naomi Fields 

Naomi F. Fields is a proud Miami, FL native who studied chemistry, Africana studies, public health, and dance at Williams College. After working as a research assistant and dancer in Boston, she matriculated at the Perelman School of Medicine, where she has focused on support of underrepresented medical trainees, mentoring, and qualitative research regarding young women’s sexual health. Naomi plans to become an OB/GYN and policy advocate for women’s health and reproductive justice. In her free time, you can find her on her Peloton, cooking seafood mac & cheese, and Facetiming loved ones (but mostly on her Peloton).

Twitter: .@NaomiFFields

Anna Fretz

Anna is from Vancouver Island, British Columbia and came to the US for college. She studied public health as an undergrad at UC Berkeley and went on to get a Master’s degree in epidemiology at Johns Hopkins. After completing medical school at Dartmouth, she returned back to the west coast for residency, where she is currently a resident in Internal Medicine at UCSF. She is interested in hospital medicine, critical care and clinical epidemiology. In her free time, she enjoys doing anything outside, including hiking, biking, skiing, windsurfing, and petting as many dogs as possible.

Twitter: @AnnaFretz

Smitha Ganeshan

Smitha Ganeshan is an internal medicine resident at the University of California San Francisco. She was born and raised in Johns Creek, Georgia outside Atlanta. She studied Biology at the University of Georgia and then earned a MD/MBA at Harvard. She is interested in technology in healthcare, medical education, and physician leadership. Outside of the hospital, she loves traveling, running, and exploring Bay Area hikes.

Twitter: @SmithaGaneshan

Shelly Ganguli

Rabih Geha

Kiersten TâLeigh “Gillette” Gillette-Pierce

Kiersten TâLeigh “Gillette” Gillette-Pierce (she/they) is currently a student at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health pursuing a Master of Science in Public Health with a double concentration in Maternal, Fetal, and Perinatal Health and Women, Sexual and Reproductive Health. She also holds a Bachelor’s in Public Health and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from American University. With almost ten years of experience in the global sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice field, Gillette aims to improve sexual and reproductive health care and outcomes for disenfranchised communities and significantly improve pregnancy-related outcomes for people of African descent. Gillette believes in the power of a holistic approach to health and wellness, advocating for the use of ancestral healing modalities to complement clinical medicine within In the Tradition of Our Ancestors, a holistic wellness business she started in 2020. 

Yazmin Heredia 

Yazmin is a Mexican Graduate from the Universidad Autonoma de Yucatan. During her medical training, she developed a strong interest in Public Health, Medical Education, and Health Equity and is looking forward to pursuing a career in Internal Medicine. When she is not volunteering on a project, she likes taking care of her plants, developing her skills in the fine arts, or learning a new language.

David Hu

David Hu is a medical student at Case Western Reserve University who is applying into family medicine. He grew up in San Ramon, CA and attended UC Berkeley for undergrad. David is interested in primary care for under-resourced communities, immigrant health, and health equity. Outside of medicine, David enjoys playing mahjong with his family, re-listening to Frank Ocean albums, and cherishing every Steph Curry and Klay Thompson 3-pointer.

Maani Kamal

Maani Kamal grew up in Tuscaloosa, AL. She has previously studied engineering, business, and nutrition at Vanderbilt and Columbia before she completed medical school at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine(UABSOM). She is now an internal medicine resident at the University of Pennsylvania. Future interests include exploring the social determinants of health, particularly as they relate to cardiovascular medicine and minimizing health disparities in underserved communities. She plans to pursue a career in Cardiology. In her free time, Maani rewatches iconic speeches, teaches Zoom workout classes, and wonders if Vegemite will ever catch on in the US.

Twitter: @kamal_mz

Gurleen Kaur

Rohan Khazanchi is the co-director of the CPSolvers Antiracism in Medicine Series. He grew up in Omaha, NE and spent his undergraduate years studying neurobiology and music at Washington University in St. Louis. He is currently an M.D./M.P.H. student at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and University of Minnesota School of Public Health. His research and advocacy work have focused on addressing structural racism and advancing health equity, including projects on neighborhood deprivation & HIV disparities, social & structural vulnerability during the COVID-19 pandemic, parental incarceration & child/adolescent access to care, and structural competency in medical education. Rohan is also an avid musician, an ice cream connoisseur, and loves exploring restaurants and national parks with his family and friends.

Twitter: .@rohankhaz

Sudarshan “Sud” Krishnamurthy

Sud is from Bangalore, India, and graduated from the University of South Florida, Tampa, with a BS in Biomedical Sciences. After a year conducting research in the molecular basis of aging at the NIH, he matriculated at the Wake Forest School of Medicine to pursue a MD/PhD dual-degree program. Here, he participates in community-level advocacy work and research in health equity. In his freetime, he enjoys embarking on new culinary adventures, listening to a wide variety of music, and exploring the outdoors.

Twitter: @sudkrish

Anne Marie Kumfer

Kara Lau

Kara was born and raised in Los Angeles, CA. She attended undergrad at the University of Washington in Seattle where she fell in love with the wildflowers and the mountains, and made her way back to her dream home in San Francisco where she is a medical student at UCSF. She can usually be found in various cafes or parks writing, in the kitchen at 11PM baking, singing to herself while driving, studying or doing dishes, or on a run with friends. Her passions in medicine include clinical reasoning, education, narrative medicine, and palliative care.

Twitter: @ytk_lau

Kate Lang 

Kate is a medical student at Case Western Reserve University and plans to pursue a career in internal medicine. She is originally from Denver, and attended Kenyon College for undergrad prior to obtaining a nursing degree from CWRU and working on a procedural cardiology unit before attending medical school. Her interests include cardiology, critical care, and medical education.

Promise Lee

Emma Levine

Emma Levine is currently a resident at the University of California, San Francisco. She is interested in clinical and epidemiological research, medical education, and clinical reasoning. Her clinical interests include gastroenterology, with a special interest on how we can use food to heal the gut and better understanding the gut microbiome, as well as palliative care. When not in the hospital, Emma enjoys training and teaching as a barre instructor, traveling the world with her family, and exploring restaurants in San Francisco and abroad.

Twitter: @EmmaHLevine

Victor A. Lopez-Carmen

Victor Lopez-Carmen, also known as Waokiya Mani in his Dakota language, is an enrolled member of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe and is also from the Yaqui Nation. He received his traditional name and baptism as a baby on the Pascua Yaqui Reservation, attended traditional ceremonies every year of his life, and remains an active member of his community today. Currently, he is a third-year MD student at Harvard Medical School (HMS).  He also advocates for Indigenous health as elected Co-Chair of the UN Global Indigenous Youth Caucus, a research Advisory Board Member at Ariadne Labs (BWH), and a city-appointed member of Boston’s COVID-19 Health Inequities Task Force. His writing and research focus on adolescent mental health, human rights policy, and Indigenous health delivery. In his free time, he loves to write op-eds, salsa/bachata dance, snowboard, and hike.

Instagram: @Vlocarmen

Debora Loureiro 

Debora was born in Brazil where she graduated from UNICEUB University of Law. After passing the Brazil Bar exam to become a lawyer, she soon realized her passion was medicine and moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina to study at the Facultad de Medicina de la Universidad de Buenos Aires. She will graduate in 2023 with a focus on Internal Medicine. Her interests include clinical reasoning, pulmonary and critical care. Outside Medicine she enjoys a variety of exercises including Crossfit, running and cycling. She also loves to travel and taste wines

Samy Mady 

Samy is a last year medical student from the Medical University of Graz in Austria, who is planning on pursuing a career in internal medicine. He is passionate about general internal medicine, critical care and and especially clinical reasoning. His ultimate goal is to someday become a physician educator focusing on diagnostic reasoning and improving medical education, particularly in german speaking countries.

In his free time he enjoys playing basketball, working out, spending time outdoors and getting together with friends and family. 

Twitter handle: Samy Mady (@samymady12)

Reza Manesh

Twitter: @DxRxEdu

Twitter: @Rafameed

Daniel Minter

Twitter: @dminter89

H. Moses Murdock

H. Moses Murdock is an intern at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital. He is originally from Orlando, Florida, and received his undergraduate degree at the University of Central Florida in molecular biology and microbiology. In his free time, Moses enjoys running, reading, and discovering new vegetarian restaurants.

Twitter:@haematognomist

Franco Murillo

Franco Murillo was born and raised in Cusco – Peru. He completed medical school in Peru. After spending a year as a primary care physician in a community in the high Andes of Peru, He started working as a teacher in his medical school. Currently, he is pursuing an Internal Medicine Residency in the US. He is passionate about clinical reasoning and medical education. Outside medicine, He loves to play board games with his friends and watch sci-fi movies. Interstellar is one of his favorites.

Saman Nematollahi

Saman is from Tucson, AZ. He graduated from the University of Arizona College of Medicine, finished internal medicine residency at Columbia, and completed infectious diseases training at Johns Hopkins. He is currently a transplant ID faculty member at University of Arizona. He enjoys cooking with Reza and washing the dishes. In his spare time, he loves riding bicycles with his wife and son, who was featured in Episode 42 as AstroBoy.

Twitter: TxID_Edu

LaShyra “Lash” Nolen

LaShyra “Lash” Nolen is a Los Angeles native deeply passionate about the concerns of underserved and marginalized communities. Currently, she is a medical student at Harvard Medical School where she is serving as the university’s student council president, the first documented black woman to hold this leadership position. She is a published author and fervent advocate for social justice with plans to pursue a Masters in Public Policy along with her medical degree to advocate for humane healthcare reform as a physician activist. In her free time, she enjoys rapping, eating good food, and creating new memories with the people she loves.

Twitter: .@LashNolen

Michelle Ogunwole

Michelle Ogunwole is an Assistant Professor of of Medicine at Johns Hopkins Univiersity of School of Medicine. Her research focuses on clinical, policy and community-based approaches to improving maternal health equity. Michelle was born and raised in Dallas, Texas and enjoys playing basketball and competitive games of Uno with her family.

Twitter: .@DrChelleMD

Sarah Onorato

Sarah was born and raised in Boston, MA. She completed her undergrad at Yale, where she studied psychology and was a catcher for the softball team. After college, she returned to Boston, where she is currently a medical student at Harvard Medical School planning on applying into internal medicine residency. Outside of medicine, she enjoys reading, board games, and all things Boston sports!

Twitter: @sonorato11

Chioma Onuoha

Gregory Ow 

Anand Patel

Dr. Anand Patel is an assistant professor of medicine and director of the inpatient leukemia service at the University of Chicago. He attended University of Missouri-Columbia for medical school and completed both his internal medicine residency and chief residency at Northwestern. He then completed his hematology/oncology fellowship at the University of Chicago, where he was also chief fellow. Anand’s academic interests include medical education and clinical reasoning. Specifically within hematology-oncology, he is interested in clinical trial design using targeted therapies for patients with leukemias and myeloid neoplasms. Outside of medicine he loves watching/playing basketball (go Bulls!), eating ice cream, and binging movies/TV shows. 

Twitter: @Anand_88_Patel

Kirtan Patolia is a final year medical student from B.J. Medical College, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. He is currently applying for an internal medicine residency in the USA. He is excited to join the CPSolvers team as clinical reasoning is his biggest passion. You will frequently find him sharing clinical cases on VMR. Outside of medicine, he likes to read fiction, particularly Agatha Christie and Nancy Drew novels. He also loves kite flying, especially the aspect of using various techniques and maneuvers to fly the kites.

Twitter: @KirtanPatolia

Amanda Simard

Amanda Simard grew up in Boston, MA where she attended Boston College for undergrad before moving just a few hours away for medical school at the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine in CT. She is now a 4th year student pursuing a pediatric residency who is passionate about clinical reasoning, medical education, and learning from her patients and colleagues. Beyond the hospital, Amanda adores her time with family and friends, jogging at the end of a long day, singing in the car with the windows down, and spending time by the ocean. 

Ravi Singh

Travis Smith

Eugene Sun

Gabriel Talledo

Gabriel Talledo is a Peruvian MS2 student from the Cayetano Heredia University. He loves dermatology infectious disease, and public health. He is part of the scribing/teaching point VMR team. He is also on the Spanish schema team. One of his motivations for studying medicine stems in the creation of a just medical system for the LGBTIQ+ community. Apart from medicine, he enjoys cooking Peruvian food (guaranteed delicious) and philosophy.

Jennifer Tsai

Jennifer Tsai is an Emergency Medicine physician, writer, educator, and advocate in New Haven, Connecticut. Using activism and disruptive pedagogy, she seeks to rethink and advance health and climate justice, expand social medicine praxis, and support equity across health systems. She received a Masters of Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and heracademic work centers on the intersection between race, medicine, inequity, and trauma-informed care. Her essays and research have been published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Scientific American, The Washington Post, ELLE Magazine, STATnews, and the Journal of the American Medical Association among other outlets.

Twitter: @tsaiduck77

Simone Vais

Simone is a Family & Community Medicine resident at UCSF/San Francisco General Hospital. She was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, and stayed in NY to attend undergrad at Barnard College. She went on to complete medical school at Boston University School of Medicine before moving out to the west coast for residency. Her medical interests include taking care of the urban underserved, inpatient adult medicine, and substance use disorders (especially in pregnancy). Outside of work, she enjoys gymnastics, unicycling, and endless coffee consumption.

Twitter: @SimoneVais

Annette Wang

Annette grew up in Taipei, Taiwan and Auckland, New Zealand, eventually moving to Baltimore for undergrad. She is currently a medical student at Harvard Medical School and is interested in medical education and illustration. Outside of school, Annette is probably hiking somewhere, finding interesting music events in Boston, doodling, or snacking on dark chocolate Tim Tams.

Twitter: @annetteawang

Seymanur Yildirim