The Students
Inaugural class: 2009
- Satasuk Joy Bhosai
- Kallista Bley
- Michelle Chu
- Molly Fyfe
- Kimmi Hoang
- Mara Horwitz
- Yue Liang
- Evan Masanuga
- Diana Nemirovsky
- Sarah Nunn
- Teja Patil
- Lin Zhao
Satasuk Joy Bhosai
Joy Bhosai completed a year-long Fulbright Scholarship at the Thai National Cancer Institute (NCI) where she worked on improving patient-delays for cancer treatments. She then pursued a Masters degree, focusing on international health management from Yale School of Public Health. Her current interests include working in health systems development and access-to-care issue for underserved populations. Her previous public health work has included policy and project management with the Yale-Clinton foundation initiatives in Ethiopia, the Thai NCI/Ministry of Public Health, public-private partnership work in Mexico, and collaborations with various county officials to address health access issues for the uninsured in California. She hopes to pursue work in sustainable healthcare partnerships in global settings.
Michelle Chu
Michelle Chu is currently a first year student pharmacist at UCSF. She is actively involved in serving underprivileged communities through projects such as the Medicare Part D Outreach, and she plans to expand her efforts internationally through the Global Health Framework Program. She studied abroad in Hong Kong in 2006 and has traveled throughout Asia. Her future plans include pursuing a Masters in Public Health or Global Health Sciences and continuing to work abroad.
Molly Fyfe
UC Berkeley School of Public Health
Molly is currently working towards an MPH in Health and Social Behavior at UC Berkeley. She is interested in urban health issues, especially the health concerns facing the rapidly growing population of people living in urban slums. Participation in health research has focused her interest on what motivates people to participate in health interventions and how to promote sustainable behavior change.
Kimmi Hoang
Kimmi Hoang is a 2nd year pharmacy student at UCSF. Kimmi is interested in improving global health especially in developing countries that are in need of better health care. She has little experience in the global health field, however, is currently working to gather basic medical supplies for a few medical clinics in rural parts of Iraq that are in dire need of first aid supplies. Concurrently, she is also trying to find a way to gather chemotherapy agents for a pediatric cancer clinic in Mosul, Iraq. Kimmi intends to do a pharmacy residency after she graduates in 2011 and plans to use her knowledge to improve global health.
Mara Horwitz
Mara is a first-year medical student at UCSF. Her global health interests include program evaluations, nutrition education, and health care infrastructure development. Last year she worked as a global health research fellow at the University of Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, where she analyzed the effects of altitude on life expectancy. As a student at the University of Pennsylvania, she conducted malaria research at the University of Yaoundé, Cameroon for four months, helped organize the Multilateral Initiative on Malaria conference in Cameroon, and studied the effects of infant nutrition on malaria outcomes during a summer in Kisumu, Kenya. In her free time, Mara enjoys cooking, punny jokes, and the natural beauty of her new West Coast environment.
Yue Liang
Yue is currently a first year student at UCSF School of Pharmacy. Her interest in global health mainly lies in learning the social determinants of a health system. Growing up in China, she witnessed health disparities and realized the importance of supporting an entire system within a particular country. Her volunteer experience during the SARS outbreak made her believe that the economic, political, and social realities were inseparable from global health. In the future, she hopes to learn about health systems in different cultures and expand the role of pharmacists worldwide.
Evan Masanuga
Evan-Yutaka Masunaga is a Doctor of Dental Surgery Candidate at the University of California at San Francisco. Prior to attending UCSF, he was a graduate research fellow at the University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Medicine where he completed his studies in International Community Health. Prior to this, he conducted field work in Social Development and Welfare at the University of Cape Town where he explored the Sub-Saharan Africa region and studied the isiXhosa language. Evan intends to pursue a career in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery and work abroad in areas where a human resource crisis exists. His hobbies include triathlons, surfing, ballet and yoga.
Diana Nemirovsky
After completing her undergraduate studies in international relations at Tufts University in 2005, Diana helped devise a partnership between her university, Friends of Orphans, and the United Movement to End Child Soldiering. The goal was to develop a broad range of sustainable projects to serve Acholi resettlement communities in Jinja, Uganda, who were displaced by the war in the northern part of the country. In 2007, Diana worked at La Casa Materna, a center in Matagalpa, Nicaragua seeking to reduce maternal and infant death in the region by providing perinatal care for mothers in rural areas and leadership programs for young adults. Diana is currently pursuing a Master’s in Nursing with an Advanced Degree in Nurse Midwifery and Women’s Health at the UCSF School of Nursing.
Sarah Nunn
Sarah Nunn is currently completing an MS in Nursing through UCSF, with a specialty in Advanced Community Health and International Nursing. Sarah’s first study abroad experience in Oaxaca, Mexico inspired her to travel the world, to learn from the people and places and to have a positive impact on the lives of others. As an undergraduate, she volunteered as a Spanish medical interpreter and clinical assistant at Walker's Point Clinic in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and worked with Milwaukee's Hmong, African American and Latino communities in various community nursing centers through the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee - College of Nursing. She designed and facilitated an interactive Spanish conversation table for nursing students and helped organize cultural programming within the College of Nursing. Sarah has also had the opportunity to be a spokesperson and presenter at a city-wide Health Fair for the Latino community of Racine, Wisconsin.
Teja Patil
Teja was born in Pune, India and moved to the silicon valley at the age of five. She received a BS in Biochemistry and Cell Biology from the University of California, San Diego. During this time she also obtained her minor in political science from the American University in Paris where she first became interested in global health. Teja went on to receive an MPH in Epidemiology, International Health with a concentration in Public Health Genetics from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She conducted field work on the genetics of open-angle glaucoma in Lima, Peru. She has also conducted epidemiological research on spinal cord tumors in the US as well as the genetics of coronary artery calcification in the Old Order Amish. Teja is looking forward to learning more about international public health work through the Global Health Frameworks Program.
Lin Zhao
Lin is a citizen of mainland China but her professional and academic experience spans three countries. Her experience includes HIV nursing clinical and program management work in China with Clinton Foundation, clinical nursing experience and degrees in Australia, and doctoral studies in the U.S. Lin is passionate about global health issues related to HIV/AIDS and providing healthcare to underserved populations. Lin’s long term career goal is to continue research, policy, and capacity-building work in the infectious disease field and community care system, to improve the quality of life of underserved populations and communities in an inter-professional working environment.