Meet the class of 2026!
Zulema Iboa Garcia, the proud daughter of immigrants, grew up in Eugene, OR before moving to Los Angeles, CA to attend Occidental College where she double majored in Spanish & Sociology. Her interests in public health and medicine range from a project in Uganda on treatment adherence in patients living with HIV, to being a policy fellow at amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research in Washington, D.C., to some work on Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease at the University of Chicago, Pritzker School of Medicine. She is active in community organizing and previously worked as an immunization coordinator for the Coalition of Community Health Clinics.
Naseeha Islam has been passionate about the intersection between health and community for years, and graduated with a degree in public health from UC Berkeley. Her prior work has included field research and community health interventions in rural Nepal, community health education, and working as a patient advocate and healthcare navigator in her hometown of Sacramento, California. Aside from studying, she is active in the M1 student council as a Student Wellness and Professionalism representative, and is an incoming fellow for the Multnomah Immigration and Refugee Outreach program.
Nikita Farhaj grew up in Portland, Oregon and then attended college at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, studying biology and Spanish. She had a transformative experience engaging in public health work at a rural hospital in Kansas that serves a large Somali refugee community. It excited her about the possibilities of medicine and public health, partnered with communities, especially in rural areas. She has also engaged in research examining systemic intervention programs to address barriers to breastfeeding among minority groups, as well as prevention of gestational diabetes.
Allison Connor grew up in a small and medically underserved community in rural Virginia. She moved to Southern California to attend the University of California, Los Angeles, where she obtained her baccalaureate in Psychobiology. She served as a clinical volunteer in downtown Los Angeles where she developed a profound interest in the broader structural context through which health resources are accessed and distributed. Following her undergraduate years, Allison worked as a research associate in immuno-oncology drug discovery before moving to Portland and working as a medical assistant for a pain management physician. Her public health interests center on healthcare access inequities and improving health service delivery in rural areas.
Hannah Mahjoub grew up in southern California and attended the University of California, Berkeley. She majored in public health, with a particular interest in infectious disease. Her interest in helping others through medicine came from experiences with her grandfather in Iran and was further developed in the Berkeley Free Clinic. She was awarded a competitive CDC fellowship and worked for a Seattle area public health department on food security for the past two years.
Zulfiqar (Ali) Lokhandwala grew up in Central California, in the city of Visalia, before moving to Los Angeles to complete his undergraduate degree in biology and global health at UCLA. In undergrad, he co-founded the Building Heroes Project, an initiative aimed at providing health education to Los Angeles’ residents utilizing free clinics and transitional living centers. During his time at UCLA he was involved in research with the Department of Digestive Diseases and the UCLA Cardiac Arrhythmia Center. At OHSU he has been committed to working with Portland's underserved communities as a coordinator for the Bridges Collaborative Care Clinic's vaccine clinic and a lead for the annual Health Care Equity Fair.
Victoria (Vee) Vanderpoel grew up just outside of Denver, Colorado before moving to Pomona College in California to study neuroscience as an undergraduate. She became interested in medicine through her own healthcare experiences and in public health from interests in research and health promotion. She recently worked at UCSF in the Chronic Illness Center doing patient-centered research, and as a clinical research coordinator for a variety of research studies in pediatric hematology. She was an All American level swimmer and has been committed to teaching and coaching swimming across ages and levels, including swimming in the SF Bay during the pandemic.
Ava Mandelbaum grew up in Los Angeles, CA and attended the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests include maternal and pediatric health, food insecurity, global health, and cost-effectiveness analysis. Her clinical interests include women’s health, pediatrics, and family medicine.
Jack Lazar grew up in Portland and received his degree in global health from Whitman College in southeastern Washington. His early exposure to medicine and healing were via his mom’s veterinary clinic and then through supporting close family through devastating illnesses. He took the long route to medical school, and has significant work experience as a medical scribe, in translational research, and as a practice facilitator at the Oregon Rural Practice-Based Research Network. He has strong interests in medical ethics and humanities, addressing medical disablism, eliminating social and structural inequity in health systems, and building our collective capacity to imagine and accomplish a better world. At OHSU, Jack is a student adviser to the Outreach, Advising Support and Identity formation for Students (OASIS) Program, a student adviser to the Equity & Justice Subcommittee, co-president of the OHSU Future Doctors in Politics chapter, and is currently collaborating with other students on a disability elective course.
James (Alex) Clark grew up in Dayton, Ohio and attended The Ohio State University. His clinical interests are psychiatry, psychotherapy and adolescent health. His research interests include environmental risk factors of psychiatric conditions and improving early screening tools. Previous experience includes COVID-19 contact tracing, a healthcare policy internship, sexual health nonprofit work, and crisis hotline volunteering. At OHSU, he is a student leader of Growth Factor.
Tamana Ebrat decided to pursue an M.D./M.P.H. to gain the tools to become a physician advocate and combat structural violence/structural causes of disease. Prior to medical school, Tamana led a houseless outreach group, worked as a health coach for low-resource communities, researched for a project focused on HIV/health outcomes in the transgender community, and led the investigation and mitigation of Carbapenem-Resistant Acinetobacter baumannii in acute and long-term care facilities for Stanislaus County Department of Public Health. Currently, Tamana is on the student council as a student wellness representative and as the logistical head for the Health Equity Fair.