AMSA 2008 Global Health Scholars

BINNY CHOKSHI

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Binny Chokshi is a first year medical student at The Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. She graduated from Brown University in 2006 with a degree in Community Health.

Binny's past activities have been focused on the understanding of medicine and health in a societal context. As an intern for Sakhi for South Asian Women in NYC she addressed issues of oppression resulting from class, immigration status, religion, and sexual orientation. With Dr. Jennifer Clarke at the Rhode Island Department of Corrections, she aided in the formation of an intervention to address the sexual and emotional health needs of female inmates. During her semester in the Dominican Republic, she researched the community pressures that inhibited participation in the National Program to Reduce Vertical Transmission of HIV/AIDS. She has also worked for a year with the NYU School of Medicine's Center for Immigrant Health, where she helped immigrant cancer patients to navigate the health care system and worked to improve the quality and availability of the Bellevue hospital's interpreting services.

Her decision to become a physician stemmed directly from her interest in global health and her desire to making lasting changes in the field of health and human rights.

Mentor: SAIRA ALIMOHAMED

KEVIN MESSACAR

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Kevin is a fourth year medical student at the University of Michigan pursuing a career in pediatrics. He received his undergraduate degree in biochemistry from the University of Michigan. During this time, he traveled to the Philippines as part of a relief effort which sparked his interest in global health. He became a volunteer for the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital International Outreach Program, working throughout medical school with partner sites in Guatemala and Central America. Through this effort, he helped to establish the Pediatric Oncology Networked Database (www.pond4kids.com), an online clinical research tool for resource-poor pediatric oncology sites.

Between his third and fourth years of medical school, he spent a year of detached study between Kenya and Guatemala. In Kenya, he worked with the International Medical Corps on the fishing islands of Lake Victoria, a population devastated by HIV and diseases of poverty. In Guatemala, he continued his work with La Unidad Nacional de Oncologia Pediatrica, studying the psychosocial factors contributing to abandonment of medical treatment for pediatric cancers. His particular interests include child global health, specifically the effects of poverty on child health.

Mentor: ALEXANDER TSAI

WAN-JU WU

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Wan-Ju Wu is a first year medical student at Robert Wood Johnson in NJ. She received her BA in International Relations from Brown University and her MPH from Boston University, with a concentration in International Health. During her MPH program she completed a research project looking at public sector antiretroviral therapy (ART) rollout in a district in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. She also worked in southwestern China on a study focused on ART and adherence predominantly among intravenous drug users. Most recently, she spent a year in Kenya conducting an independent research project on community-based programming and developing safe spaces for adolescent girls. As Project Manager for Kisumu Medical and Educational Trust's (a local NGO) Sisterhood for Change Program, she assisted in developing and implementing a participatory photography project, sexual and reproductive health trainings, and a vocational training program.

While her focus in international health is still evolving, broadly speaking, she is currently interested in women's health issues including topics such as the intersection of gender-based violence and HIV/AIDS as well economic and social disparities that place women at increased health risks. She is also interested in practical applications of social medicine and medical anthropology in public health programming.

Mentor: LAURA JANNECK

PREETI KAUR RAJPAL

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Preeti Kaur Rajpal studies medicine at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. She completed her undergraduate studies at the University of California at Berkeley, studying molecular biology and ethnic studies.

Afterwards she taught poetry to undergrad and high school students with June Jordan's Poetry for the People in Berkeley. She also spent a year with AmeriCorps tutoring middle school children in Oakland, California.

As a medical student, she was a founding member of her campus Physicians for Human Rights chapter and took part in organizing global HIV advocacy efforts. She also worked with homeless youth as a medical assistant for two years at Youthlink's Health and Wellness Clinic in Minneapolis. She is an editor of The Global Pulse, AMSA's medical-student run international health journal. As a recipient of the Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellowship she traveled to Punjab, India and conducted a survey on health care worker bias against People Living with HIV as an intern with the NGO SAATHII (Solidarity and Action Against The HIV Infection in India.) She spent this past summer in Geneva, Switzerland as a Global Health Fellow with the Duke Program on Global Policy and Governance at the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS working with the Human Rights and Gender Unit.

Preeti hopes to navigate her medical career towards becoming an advocate for health and human rights and delivering medicine to marginalized populations in our increasingly globalized world.

Mentor: RISHI RATTAN

LEEANNE STRATTON

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Leeanne grew up in southwest Michigan and attended Kalamazoo College, where she studied health sciences and spent her junior year abroad in Beijing, learning (only to forget later) Mandarin. Study abroad being very little studying with much abroad, she developed her growing interest in the historical antecedents of current US foreign diplomacy (spent a lot of time reading) and returned in her senior year with a strong interest in the fields of political economy and human rights. After graduating, Leeanne moved to England for three months and worked in the bowels of the John Radcliffe Hospital, where she encountered the often problematized but relatively equitable National Health Service. Upon returning home, and following a string of odd jobs and sustained community activism, she enrolled in a master's program at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, where she studied health behavior and education and environmental health sciences, while concentrating in global health. She completed her fieldwork with Centro Mujeres, a women's health and human rights nonprofit in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur.

Leeanne is currently a first-year medical student at Weill Cornell Medical College, in Manhattan. She and her colleagues at Michigan are working on a paper investigating the fundamental determinants of the global distribution of malaria risk. Leeanne is honored and excited to be part of this year's Global Health Scholars program.

Mentor: Tanyaporn Wansom

ADAM LEWKOWITZ

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Born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona, Adam received the Psi Upsilon Prize when he graduated from Amherst College in 2006 summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. As an undergraduate, he double majored in sociology and Spanish and presented his thesis research on how socially constructed identities in Mexican-American communities affect their assimilation in the United States in conferences throughout North America. He was able to focus on these academic passions because of his acceptance into Mount Sinai School of Medicine's Humanities and Medicine Program sophomore year. He was also the captain of the Varsity Men's Swimming and Diving Team and member of both the All-NESCAC and the NESCAC All-Academic teams. Adam deferred his acceptance to Sinai to conduct research as a Fulbright Fellow at Tijuana's El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, Mexico's premier institute of border studies last year. While he researched how Mexican perceptions of Mexican Americans affect their assimilation in the US, he also volunteered weekly at a children's hospital and a center for repatriated teenagers. His experiences living abroad have incited his desire to diminish the disparities in healthcare options in Latin America and to supply universal care to children marginalized by their family's socioeconomic status. He is currently a first-year medical student.

Mentor: LAURA FRYE

TIFFANY WILLIAMS

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Originally from Baltimore, MD, Tiffany is a 5th year MD/PhD student at Baylor College of Medicine obtaining her Ph.D. in translational biology and molecular medicine. Her research interest in vaccine development stems from a desire to leverage the biomedical research power of the US to address globally-relevant diseases through the translation of basic science discoveries into clinical practice. Her graduate thesis work focuses on the rational design of vaccines using microbial genomes. Tiffany has been active in many global health initiatives focusing on vaccines, HIV/AIDS, and health disparities. She is currently the Co-Chair of the International Affairs Committee of the Student National Medical Association and spends time every week at Thomas Street Health Center, a freestanding HIV/AIDS treatment facility providing medical and psychological services to residents of Harris County. Tiffany's passion for global health stems in part from her travels to visit family in Trinidad and Tobago and trips throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Prior to matriculation at Baylor, Tiffany earned a B.S. in Exercise Science from The George Washington University, where she excelled in both academics and athletics as a member of the Varsity Women's Soccer. During her undergraduate training, she worked as the HIV/AIDS outreach worker/intern and AIDS Infoline Coordinator at the Whitman Walker Clinic. Tiffany's immediate goals upon completion of her dual-degree program include residency/fellowship training in pediatric infectious diseases. She firmly believes that the commitment of a few can change the world.

Mentor: NATHAN TRAYNER

MEGHANA GADGIL

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Meghana Gadgil joins the Global Health Scholars as a second year medical student at the University at Buffalo. Originally a Californian, she completed dual undergraduate degrees in Biochemistry and Conservation Resource Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She conducted Honors research for both majors. In writing her thesis on the indigenous Jumma tribes of Bangladesh, Meghana developed a passion for working on health disparities as influenced by environmental problems and international development institutions. Following graduation, Meghana spent eight months working in a remote clinic in central India serving indigenous populations. In working with patients in the women's clinic, Meghana became particularly interested the overlap of health, gender, regional disparities and the overarching development models that reinforce these discriminatory patterns. In response to some key local health problems, Meghana developed and conducted two research projects: one on malaria biocontrol and the other on garlic as an affordable treatment for the vaginal yeast infections that plagued many of her patients.

Last summer, Meghana was awarded a fellowship by the American Pediatric Society to research the relationships between Chlamydia, HPV and cervical cancer in Quito, Ecuador. Meghana is also an accomplished Bharatnatyam dancer, and enjoys singing and backpacking in her spare time. In her career, she aspires to blend clinical work, research and advocacy to effect change for the most marginalized and vulnerable populations.

Mentor: JAMES HUDSPETH