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meet the team (2020)
SONIA IYENGAR (SHE/HER/HERS) | CONFERENCE FOUNDER
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Sonia is a second-year medical student at Michigan Medicine and a dual-degree MD/MPP candidate. With prior experiences organizing in the community and in politics, she hopes to center the needs of patients most marginalized by our systems and work toward developing innovative models of care to serve them. She is passionate about providing medical care to urban underserved communities, health economics, and building justice into health systems. Sonia aims to unite these interests with a career in public service. She is a proud APIDA womxn, a low-income student, and a Los Angeles native. You can find her venting (among other things) about soaring coffee prices and unnecessarily aggressive drivers.
KILEY ADAMS (SHE/HER/HERS)
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Kiley is a second-year medical student at the University of Michigan excited to be pursuing medicine to better advocate for and with people with disabilities.
COLBY FOSTER (SHE/HER/HERS)
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Colby is excited to partner with her fellow medical students to create a space where health equity and primary care are center stage. Uplifting patients and colleagues who are often unheard and marginalized is life-long work that she plans to engage and grow in as a medical student and future provider. She believes in the power of preventive medicine and is passionate about incorporating lifestyle medicine practices in her career, regardless of specialty. She cares about amplifying the field of primary care and showcasing its importance in caring for the whole patient and communities longitudinally. She loves to cook, do yoga, and FaceTime her sisters, and right now, her most favorite things are taking long walks and listening to podcasts!
AMALIA ELVIRA GOMEZ-REXRODE (SHE/HER/HERS/ELLA)
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Amalia is a second-year medical student at the University of Michigan Medical School. Inspired by her mother’s work at a Federally Qualified Health Center in her hometown of DC, she seeks to remove barriers to care for marginalized people and include them in the creation of new systems that uplift us all. Amalia is working to dismantle the oppressive systems of medicine through various avenues including research, the humanities, and human interaction.
ASEEL HAIDAR (SHE/HER/HERS)
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Aseel is a second-year medical student who is super excited to start her rotations this year and begin to learn medicine directly from patients! As future physicians, she believes it is our duty to understand how one’s racial and ethnic backgrounds may influence the challenges they face and impact the quality of medical care they receive. Her experiences working with members of the Arab and immigrant community largely shape her drive to become an advocate for vulnerable populations as a primary care physician, providing culturally-competent, compassionate care to members of her community and others are often underserved by the current system in our country. She is passionate about mentorship, loves the outdoors, and can probably be found at a coffee shop or petting a cat. 

AURIANNA LAJAUNIE (SHE/HER/HERS)
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Aurianna is passionate about providing family and psychiatric medicine to urban underserved communities. After growing up in NYC and seeing stark differences in wealth and health outcomes in neighboring zip codes, she is dedicated to addressing the underlying causes of disease by focusing on social determinants of health and lifestyle medicine. She also hopes to practice integrative medicine to make holistic care accessible, affordable, and inclusive. Aurianna loves all forms of movement, including dance and yoga, reading a good book, and being in nature.
GENEVIEVE MULLIGAN (SHE/HER/HERS)
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Genevieve is a second-year medical student at the University of Michigan Medical School who is passionate about undoing systems that were built to, and have continued to, marginalize non-white populations. She believes that capitalism and white supremacy culture have tricked us into constant productivity and that we must rest and reimagine success in order to transform systems that oppress. Genevieve loves being outside, reading, and doing nothing as often as possible.
GRECIA QUIROGA (SHE/HER/HERS)
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Grecia is a rising second-year medical student at the University of Michigan who is dedicated and committed to uplifting those voices that are often overlooked and marginalized in our society. After seeing the unequal burden of disease and inequitable care that individuals from her Hispanic/Latinx community faced, she became motivated to seek justice for her community and provide care to underserved communities like her own. She is passionate about providing culturally-informed and linguistically competent, holistic care for patients as well as creating mentorship opportunities for students from backgrounds that are underrepresented in medicine to increase workforce diversity. Grecia is from Jackson, MI and loves to run, read, and spend time with her family and friends.
KYRA SAGAL (SHE/HER/HERS)
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Kyra hopes to better understand how society contributes to systemic disease, how we can mitigate such factors, and how we can prioritize equity in doing so, both in the medical field and beyond. She is passionate about learning more in the public health and public policy fields and aims to uplift the groups most underserved by the medical system. Kyra is originally from New Jersey but lived in Philadelphia after graduating college. She loves tea or coffee in the morning, running outside, and all styles of dance.
MAYA SMITH (SHE/HER/HERS)
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Maya is a second-year medical student at Michigan Medicine who is passionate about using her voice to uplift communities similar to her own that are historically marginalized in medicine. She aspires to become a pediatrician in an underserved area as an advocate for the community she will serve. Originally from Southfield, MI she spends free time (all 2 hours) cooking and zooming her friends.
RUIQI TANG (SHE/HER/HERS)
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Ruiqi is a second-year medical student at University of Michigan Medical School who discovered her passion for community mental health while working in FQHCs and street outreach teams in Oakland, CA. She is excited to pursue a career serving marginalized communities and advocating for accessible, integrated models of primary care. She enjoys spending time outdoors and going on walks with her leash-trained cats.
AURELIE TRAN (SHE/HER/HERS)
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Aurelie is working towards developing more robust community-based care models in under-resourced areas to empower marginalized communities and subvert healthcare and medical research practices to prioritize, honor, and structure itself in alignment with the expertise of those being served. Struggling with her own experiences in housing instability and supporting individuals experiencing homelessness in the Bay Area, CA, she hopes to focus particularly on stronger integration and improvement of street medicine and community health networks within the greater healthcare system. She is a proud cat mom and coffee/food enthusiast
KINSEY VEAR (SHE/HER/HERS)
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Kinsey is an second-year medical student at the University of Michigan Medical School who is passionate about the power of cultural diversity and how it necessitates understanding, acknowledging, and engaging human beings from all walks of life on an interpersonal level. Growing up in a small town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, she is empowered by the value of community and understanding each one’s unique and diverse needs. She believes in meeting people where they’re at and providing a supportive environment to uplift the voices of those most marginalized within the healthcare system and beyond. More broadly, she values working with communities to advocate for more structural change to dismantle oppressive systems. She loves movement and nature in all their forms—including yoga, climbing, running, biking, hiking, swimming, and more!
DAVID WANG (HE/HIM/HIS | THEY/THEM/THEIRS)
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David believes that anti-Blackness is the fulcrum of White supremacy and aims to fight anti-Blackness in themselves and the world around them. He dreams of being a family physician at a community clinic while utilizing his linguistics training to do some language revitalization work. He grew up in Richland, WA, and loves cats, buffets, and deals.
