Anna Fiskin
I grew up in Gomel, Belarus during Perestroika and moved the United States as a teenager. I went to college at University of Cincinnati, but I returned to Belarus to work with a Buryat shaman for my senior college thesis on traditional uses of medicinal plants, where I was confronted with a worldview based on concepts of health, illness and personhood that were quite different from those I learned as an undergraduate biology/pre-med student. This experience inspired me to pursue graduate studies in anthropology along with medical training. During medical school, as I worked as a Health Justice intern with Native Health Initiative, volunteered with a student-run health screening clinic Community Health Initiative, and spent two months at a field school in rural Ecuador working with local birth attendants, curanderas and public health providers. These experiences along with clinical work during my third year nourished a passion for social justice and community health, both in the United States and abroad. After my third year, I completed a Master’s in Medical Anthropology at Oxford University where I had the opportunity to explore both my interests in healing across cultures and global public health. I am currently a 4th year medical student and applying for residency in Psychiatry. My goal is to continue working with Native American communities in the United States as well as refugees at home and internationally. I also plan to do applied research in cross-cultural psychiatry that can aid local communities.
Keith Hemmert
Keith is currently a first year medical student at the New York University School of Medicine. Prior to starting medical school, Keith worked as the Deputy Director for Operations at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative/Love a Child Field Hospital and Disaster Recovery Center in Fond Parisien, Haiti. There he ran the non-medical operations of the hospital, which treated over 2,000 patients in the aftermath of the January 2010 earthquake. Keith studied philosophy at Harvard University, where he specialized in contemporary moral philosophy and the assessment of personal responsibility. Since graduating he has worked at the Harvard-Partners Center for Genetics and Genomics, and in the Emergency Department of the Cambridge Hospital. Keith’s global health interests lie in expanding access to essential surgical care in low- and middle-income countries via partnerships with academic hospitals in the US, and building electronic medical record capabilities in developing healthcare systems.
Kashmira Chawla
I am a first year medical student at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and I am from Urbandale, Iowa. I attended Drake University for my undergraduate education, majoring in Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology. In addition, I obtained a Certificate in Business Management – International Non-profits and participated in the Global Ambassadors Program. I have volunteered and implemented health education projects in India and Honduras. During my undergraduate years, I also conducted public health research in India with organizations such as Unite For Sight. I was an Oxfam America CHANGE Initiative Leader and involved in leading the Amnesty International chapter on campus. At Mayo, I am a member of AMSA, an AMA Delegate, and Co-Chair of the Mayo chapter of Physicians for Human Rights. I am specifically interested in the issues of women’s health, child nutrition, health systems and policy in developing countries. In my free time, I enjoy reading, traveling, and bhangra.
Bhavika Kaul
Bhavika is currently a second year medical student at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX and part of the “Care for the Underserved” and “Global Health” tracks at her school. Originally from California, Bhavika graduated with a B.S. in Biochemistry and Cell Biology from Rice University where she interned with the James A. Baker Institute for Public Policy conducting research on science and technology policy and helping organize conferences on topic ranging from science education to global health. She has volunteered abroad extensively, working with refugees in India and most recently, with disadvantaged children in Cordoba, Argentina as a Loewenstern Fellow. While an undergrad at Rice, Bhavika served as an AMSA Global Health intern and helped organize the National Medical Student Lobby Day on the African Health Capacity Investment Act and SCHIP. Last year, as an Albert Schweitzer Fellow, Bhavika set up a partnership between Texas Children’s Hospital and Catholic Charities to develop a rotating mobile clinic program that would help bring healthcare to Burmese refugees in Houston. She looks forward to continuing to serve the needs of underserved populations both at home and abroad. In her free time, Bhavika enjoys practicing yoga, trying new cuisines and traveling.
Casey Rebholz
A Jersey girl at heart, Casey ventured south in 2008 for a new perspective on healthcare and life. She is currently a third year medical student at Tulane School of Medicine and a second year graduate student at Tulane School of Public Health & Tropical Medicine, working on her PhD in epidemiology. She completed her undergraduate degree in Spanish and Biology at Tufts University, and then completed her MPH degree in International Health and Epidemiology at Boston University School of Public Health. During graduate school, she conducted research in Nicaragua, including a community-wide, household-based, general health survey; an evaluation of a hand-hygiene behavior modification program for the prevention of diarrhea and upper respiratory infections in children; and an assessment of the potential causes of a renal disease epidemic. Casey is committed to improving healthcare for underserved communities, and recently opened a free student-run health clinic for the homeless in New Orleans. Her main research interests are disparities in access to healthcare, health behavior change, and chronic disease epidemiology. Casey enjoys traveling, experimenting in the kitchen, reading fiction, and long-distance running.
Nancy Ringel
Nancy Ringel is a first-year medical student at Harvard Medical School, pursuing an MD and a Masters in Sustainable Development. After graduating from Boston University in 2007 with a degree in Biology with a Specialization in Neuroscience and a minor in Art History, Nancy served in the US Peace Corps in Kawambwa, Zambia as an HIV rural health worker. After completing her two years of service in 2009, she worked with UNICEF Innovation on the mobile-health project “Project Mwana,” which utilized cell phones to improve health care services by delivering infant HIV-test results to clinic workers' phones in Malawi and Zambia. She also spent time working on an organic rice farm in Kahang, Malaysia. Nancy hopes to pursue a career as a physician and leader in the Global Health community, focusing on the importance of integrated interventions to minimize health disparities. She is very excited to be a part of AMSA’s Global Health Scholars Program, and is looking forward to expanding her knowledge base about Global Health.
Ben Seligman
Ben Seligman is an MD/MS student at Stanford University. He was previously an undergraduate at Cornell University, where he served on the student advisory committee that helped establish its global health program, and a Fulbright Fellow at Osaka University in Japan, where he did research on homelessness and on HIV prevention.
M<st of his current research is focused on demography and the epidemiologic transition ongoing in developing countries, particularly around estimating mortality at older ages. He additionally does translational medicine related to neglected tropical diseases through Stanford's SPARK Center. Beyond research, he is currently working to organize a grass-roots advocacy campaign for chronic diseases as a global health issue and is the Public Health Coordinator for Choson Exchange, which develops academic exchanges between North Korea and the rest of the world aimed at students and young professionals. He speaks English, Spanish, Japanese, and is working on Mandarin. In his spare time he enjoys hiking, is a fan of Salman Rushdie, and likes to pretend he is a troublemaker.
Alison Smith
Alison A. Smith is a fourth year MD/PhD student at Tulane University School of Medicine. She graduated from Virginia Tech in 2007 with dual Bachelor of Science degrees in Biological Sciences and Chemistry. She received awards at Virginia Tech, including Outstanding Senior in the College of Science, honorable mention as a Barry Goldwater scholar, and Woman of the Year.
Smith served as past vice-president of Tulane’s chapter of the American Medical Student Association and past co-president of Tulane’s chapter of Doctors for Global Health. She was selected to be part of the US delegation to the International Federation of Medical Students Association in Macedonia in 2009 and won first place in the Project Fair. Smith works with the homeless in New Orleans to create a street medicine program.
Smith has been involved in clinical work in Haiti since 2007 and led 3 medical relief teams to the Central Plateau to treat over 2,500 patients since 2009. She was also involved in the first wave of medical relief efforts at the General Hospital in Port au Prince following the 7.0 magnitude earthquake in January 2010. Her relief work was recognized with daily blog postings on MTV News and a published article in The New Physician.
Smith has numerous international experiences, including volunteer work in Australia, Honduras, and Mexico. Smith also completed two USDA-funded research projects in Mali and Ecuador. She has organized three medical trips to the Dominican Republic to treat over 2,000 Haitian refugees from 2008-2010. She traveled to Cambodia and Laos in October 2010 to assist with basic life support, first aid, and trauma assessment classes for local professionals and lay people.
Jonathon Strong
Jon Strong grew up amidst the dairy cows and cheeseheads of central Wisconsin. Before graduating from the University of Minnesota in 2009, Jon spent a year in Kenya taking classes and working on a safe drinking water project. After his first year of medical school at the University of Wisconsin, he interned in Geneva, Switzerland for an organization that finances vaccines. He now fills his free time with training for marathons and sipping drinks in coffee shops.
Lara Vogel
Born in the Middle East, Lara Vogel grew up in Boston. As an undergraduate at Stanford University, Lara studied Human Biology, with a concentration in International Public Health. After college, Lara worked as a freelance travel writer, jumping across four continents while focusing primarily on clinical health work in the developing world. Eventually, she ended up in Kenya, where she began the non-profit organization Hope Runs (www.HopeRuns.org).
Hope Runs uses running programs as a community builder in orphanages before expanding into vocational and educational support with an ultimate goal of helping the graduates of the orphanage enter easily into gainful employment and productive citizenship within their communities. After an extended stay of eight months in the orphanage in Nyeri, Kenya that was Hope Runs’ pilot site, Lara returned to school in preparation for a medical degree.
Lara deferred medical school to pursue an MBA at Oxford before beginning at Stanford Medical School to further pursue her interests in Global Public Health. Intent on designing methods for improving health systems in developing nations, Lara notes that most public health work fails not because of a lack of medical understanding but because of a limitation of business resources and management. This seems to be particularly true in Sub-Saharan Africa and the cities of India, where Lara intends to focus her public health career. Now in medical school, Lara is eager to begin exploring the more medical aspects of the public health challenges facing disadvantaged populations.
Kristin Walsh
Kristin Walsh is a 4th year medical student at Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia. She studied human nutrition as an undergraduate at the University of Florida. After college, she traveled to Swaziland where she worked with a not-for-profit organization promoting HIV testing, connecting those who were found to be positive into care, providing hospice care, and working at a home for abandoned babies.
While at Temple University School of Medicine, she has participated in research projects focusing on various aspects along the HIV continuum – from prevention to treatment - including rapid HIV testing during labor and delivery, HIV testing in primary care settings, and HIV treatment adherence. She is applying to a residency in preventive medicine so she can continue to promote HIV prevention at a city, state, national, and international level. It is her hope that someday HIV will no longer be a global health issue. Her hobbies include making pottery, finding (and baking!) yummy cupcake recipes, and getting enough sleep.
David Wang
David Wang is a second-year medical student at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. At UMass, David facilitates an elective on health policy reform, coordinates a free clinic startup, and serves as student body president. Prior to medical school, his experiences spanned both the private and public sectors. David worked as a management consultant in the San Francisco office of ZS Associates, focusing on marketing strategy for large cap biotech companies. He also collaborated with the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative, contributing to Global Fund proposals and program management. Most recently, David completed an internship with the World Health Organization in China. His experience focused on HIV/AIDS prevention, vaccine delivery optimization, and smoking cessation. His long-term interests include international health systems development, with emphasis on mental health disparities in East Asian countries. David graduated with a degree in Economics from Harvard University.