I grew up in Bergen County, New Jersey and went to Williams College, where I majored in Biology and Economics. I knew early on that I had a passion for teaching, which led me to join the Mississippi Teacher Corps after graduation. In total, I spent three years as a high school math/science teacher and coach at Meridian High School (Go Wildcats!) and also earned a Master's degree in Curriculum and Instruction.
I began my medical training at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, where I had the honor of working with the New Brunswick, NJ community through several important health initiatives. I was proud to co-found and implement EMPOWER, a one-on-one mentorship initiative for HIV-positive adolescents in the RWJ AIDS Program, and this work allowed me to graduate with a Distinction in Service to Community award. Through all four years of medical school, I directed clinic operations for the Promise Clinic, an initiative of the Rutgers RWJMS Homeless and Indigent Population Health Outreach Project (HIPHOP). The entirely student-run clinic partners with a local fixture, Elijah's Promise Soup Kitchen, and aims to provide free healthcare to uninsured and underinsured people in the greater New Brunswick area. I also co-led the design and implementation of TeamSTEPPS (Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety) at the Promise Clinic and RWJMS. TeamSTEPPS has since been incorporated into the medical school curriculum and the hospital's patient safety protocol. For these works, I was awarded the Rutgers RWJMS Class of 2019 Community Service Award.
I have long believed that both education and health are upstream mediators of children's success, and this was a key driver to pursue a career in pediatrics. I completed pediatrics residency in the Boston Combined Residency Program at Boston Medical Center and Boston Children's Hospital. As a member of the Leadership in Equity and Advocacy track, I co-developed and led ten Department of Pediatrics Health Equity Rounds.
As a Pediatric Critical Care Medicine fellow at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, I have aimed to combine my dual goals of providing excellent clinical care and using education to meaningfully work towards health equity. Through my research, I am developing graphical tools to facilitate better conversations and understanding between providers, patients, and families. I have also led the initiative to design and implement the Columbia Department of Pediatrics' own Health Equity Rounds series, a trainee-led, case-based conference series examining how bias and racism impact patient care and outcomes to drive individual-, institutional-, and system-level change.
My CV is available here.