2009-2010
2009-2010 Coordinating Committee |
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Aria Ilyad Ahmad, University of Toronto Aria is defending his Masters in international pharmaceutical policy at the University of Toronto, where he will commence his PhD next term. As a self-proclaimed invaluable member of the Laboratory for Collaborative Diagnostics as well as the Initiative for Drug Equity and Access, his research interests include drug quality evaluation in poorly regulated pharmaceutical supply chains and brooding over the scourge of counterfeit medicines. He will also be traveling to India this winter as the inaugural UAEM-MSF fellow. When not pondering pill policies or sailing in diluted existential angst, Aria can be found exercising his soccer hooliganism, inventing asanas, air-saxophoning to loud, gritty jazz or running quarter marathons. Though mostly for the free shirts and because he gets to wear a fuel-belt, which makes him, feel like Batman. |
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Jane Andrews, Johns Hopkins University Currently in schools of medicine and public health, undergraduate degree in political science. Fulbright grant in Tanzania researching barriers to rural antiretroviral access. Previous research: microfinance for HIV-affected women, geriatrics. Favorites include blueberries, environmentalism and UAEM. Jane is excited this year about advocating for better national pharmaceutical and licensing policies—go Policy team! |
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Connie Chen, University of California at San Francisco Connie is a second-year medical student at the University of California at San Francisco. She graduated recently from Harvard College where she helped to build the UAEM chapter into a coalition of students across the Harvard schools. This is her 4th year serving on the UAEM coordinating committee, and she has worked closely on a number of key projects such as the drafting and launch of the Philadelphia Consensus Statement as well as UAEM’s chapter support and institutional development. At Harvard in addition to her involvement with UAEM, Connie served as the Vice President for Advocacy of the Harvard AIDS Coalition and senior international editor of the Harvard Health Policy Review. Over the summers she interned at the Chilean Ministry of Health and the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative’s Cambodia office. Connie also co-led a prisoner education program, helped to establish a Harvard tutoring program for female offenders transitioning back into their communities and oversaw the day-to-day running of 73 service and advocacy programs as co-programming chair of the Phillips Brooks House Association. |
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Pratik Chhetri, Central Michigan University A Nepali national, Pratik, is currently an undergraduate (senior) at Central Michigan University, majoring in Biomedical Sciences, Biochemistry and Mathematics. Pratik has been involved with UAEM for more than two years, and this is his second year in the UAEM CC. Currently, he serves as UAEM's International Chapter Outreach Coordinator under 'Empowerment Working Group'- he is in charge of guiding existing chapters and helping to start new chapters in developing countries. He is also a member of UAEM's newly established 'International Working Group' and 'Global Health Financing Crisis Working Group'. |
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Louis Fazen, Yale University Louis (Bucky) is currently in his fourth year in the MD/PhD program at Yale University where he is pursuing a PhD at the School of Public Health in the Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases. Bucky has been active with UAEM since 2006, and has been on the CC for the past two years. During this time, he has primarily been focused on the composition of a new set of metrics for the evaluation of success in technology transfer and the development of UAEM’s Access Metrics Initiative. |
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Taylor Gilliland, University of California San Diego Taylor is a fourth year graduate student in the Biomedical Sciences Ph.D. program at the University of California San Diego and was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. He is now in his third year as a member of the UAEM Coordinating Committee as part of the Chapter Outreach and Empowerment teams as well as head of the UAEM chapter at UCSD. He formerly served as the Grassroots Outreach Coordinator for the Steering Committee of the Student Global AIDS Campaign while at the University of Florida. |
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Andrew Gray, University of British Columbia 3rd-year medical student, intent on specializing in public health. Undergraduate degree was in mathematics and computer science; achieved Erdős #4. Oversaw UAEM's UBC chapter from 2007 to 2009. Enjoys bikes, beaches, books, food, farming, and philosophizing. And making web sites. |
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Mike Gretes, University of British Columbia Mike completed his PhD in Biochemistry at UBC in 2009; he is now a first-year medical student at UBC. His love of science, details, and acronyms have made UAEM dear to his heart, and so he does all he can to think hard about thorny questions facing us in our mission as physicians/lawyers/researchers/activists to bring cheap and plentiful and useful drugs to people everywhere, especially who need them most. He also likes to send enthusiastic emails, make local chapter meetings feel like work-parties, and the giving and receiving of hugs. |
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Kevin Hooi, University of British Columbia Kevin is a recent graduate of the University of British Columbia (UBC), holding an Arts degree in Political Science. But after working for Médecins sans Frontières – Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in 2008, he realized that he wanted to spend the rest of his life serving the greatest in need as a physician and hastily returned to the classroom to start his pre-medical requisites. He is also a working group member of the Neglected Global Diseases Initiative (NGDI) at UBC, devoted to producing effective, affordable therapeutics for neglected diseases. Inspired by his fellow UAEM peers for the past two years at UBC, Kevin felt he was ready to confront the larger challenges in delivering medicines and joined the CC this year. However, not entirely abandoning his artistic upbringing for the technical sciences, Kevin remains an avid jazz pianist and aspiring fashion photographer—that is, when he is not writing and dreaming about reforming compulsory licensing laws in Canada. |
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Michael Le Huynh, McGill University Mike is an M.Sc. graduate from the University of Toronto, Dept. of Medical and Molecular Genetics and a law student at McGill in his final year. When he’s not going around Montreal talking equitable licensing, he’s exploring the nexus of health research, ethics, and law. Recently he’s written a paper on the international laws pertaining to stem cell research and trade. He’s currently the editor-in-chief of the McGill Journal of Law & Health and a coordinator of McGill-UAEM. The UAEM mandate of promoting equal access to research entices Mike for numerous reasons, not the least of which is its re-examination of IP regimes and how we measure the value of research. Mike is a tennis coach and avid canoe-camper. He secretly believes that Vancouver is the best place in the world, and plans to move back to his hometown when rent is less than an arm and a leg – perhaps just one arm … and it’d have to be my left. |
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Alex Lankowski, Boston University Currently a 2nd-year medical student at Boston University. Graduated from Dartmouth College in 2004 with degree in Biochemistry. Studied in Siena, Italy during the spring of 2002. Worked on HIV vaccine research at Massachusetts General Hospital from 2004-06. Received MA in Medical Sciences from Boston University in 2007. Worked as Research Associate at Cequent Pharmaceuticals (development of bacteria-based RNAi therapeutics of GI disorders and malignancies) from 2007-08. Spent summer of 2009 studying Chagas disease immunopathogenesis in Lima, Peru. Originally from Maine. Other interests: cooking, brewing, concert-going, travel, hiking, tennis, rugby, surfing, skiing, pretty much anything else involving snow or the sea. |
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Sooji Lee, Johns Hopkins University Sooji is an undergraduate junior at the Johns Hopkins University double-majoring in Neuroscience and Public Health. She is an active member of the CC's Policy working group. |
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Michael Lin, University of California at San Francisco Michael is a second-year medical student at UCSF. As an undergraduate at Stanford, he became interested in global health while working in a free pediatric clinic in Honduras, but never really found a good niche there. He was excited to discover a community of talented students in UAEM a year ago and has loved working with and learning from them. He currently does research with the Malaria Elimination Group at UCSF while trying to pass his classes, and is passionate about rallying peers around issues of global health and domestic health access. He has a myriad of extracurricular interests, including guitar, running, tennis, frisbee, squash, basketball, skateboarding, and karaoke, but is too attention-deficient to be particularly good at any of them. |
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Timothy Minh, University of California at Irvine
Timothy is currently a fourth year MD/PhD student at the University of California, Irvine. His thesis project is to develop non-invasive methods to measure blood sugar, insulin, and cholesterol through the human breath. He founded the UAEM chapter at UC Irvine in 2006 after helping build the UC Berkeley chapter as an chemistry undergrad. He enjoys reading his Bible, photography, cycling, and spending time with his wife and newborn son.
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Andreas Pilarinos, Simon Fraser University
Andreas is a third year undergraduate student at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C., Canada. He is working towards a B.Sc. Infectious Diseases, and is extremely interested in the field of Neglected Diseases. He is currently volunteering in a Malaria, Chagas, and Dengue research lab, where he studies the effects of trypsin levels in Aedes aegypti on Dengue viral loads. He has been involved with UAEM for two years, and is co-leading the Neglected Disease Working Group. Andreas is also leading the UAEM chapter at Simon Fraser University. Andreas foresees a productive year for UAEM, and hopes to have global access licensing adopted both at his university as well as by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. In his spare time, Andreas can be found in the local mountains of Vancouver enjoying the beautiful Canadian wilderness.
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Krishna Prabhu, Harvard University Krishna is a junior at Harvard College pursuing a major in Social Studies while also completing pre-medical requirements. He is currently focusing his studies on the history of health systems, the political economy of trade, and economic development. This is his second year participating in UAEM. Krishna is also a member of the Harvard College Global Health and AIDS Coalition, a student group directed at advocacy for an expansion of health services in developing countries. He enjoys biking to and from class. |
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Emma Preston, Oxford University |
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Kavita Radhakrishnan, Yale University |
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Shaan Sheth, Rice University Shaan is a Junior at Rice University. Although he is working towards a major in Psychology, he tends to get side-tracked by interesting courses in biology and health policy. This is his third year participating in UAEM. He is establishing UAEM at Rice University and hopes to establish chapters throughout the University of Texas system in the coming years. His previous research includes an analysis of pediatric transitional care policies at hospitals in North America and Europe. When he's not sleeping, he is usually eating, working out, or reading and writing. |
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Sarah Sorscher, Harvard University Sarah is currently earning a JD and Masters of Public Health at Harvard Law School and Harvard School of Public Health. Before coming to Harvard, Sarah spent eight months volunteering as an intern at EIPR, an Egyptian non-profit, where she produced a report on the interaction between international trade, intellectual property law and drug pricing in Egypt. Sarah has also worked as a health advocate for the Urban Justice Center, a public interest law firm in New York City. She graduated from Amherst College in 2006 with a degree in anthropology. |
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Gloria Tavera, National Institute of Health Gloria is currently conducting malaria research as an intramural training fellow atthe National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. In 2009, she graduated from the University of Florida with degrees in neurobiology, political science and public health. She co-founded a chapter of UAEM at the University of Florida and has been a member of the Coordinating Committee since 2006. She spent last year in Mexico as a Fulbright scholar researching the pathology of dengue hemorrhagic fever. This year, she looks forward to empowering UAEM chapters to accomplish their goals! |
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David Watkins, Duke University Currently a 4th year medical student at Duke University, David joined UAEM in the fall of 2006 and helped to develop the chapter at Duke. His background is in biochemistry, and he does research on the molecular genetics and epidemiology of "neglected" cardiovascular diseases, such as rheumatic heart disease and endemic cardiomyopathies. This year he is also participating in UAEM's neglected diseases working group. When he's not doing sciency stuff, he enjoys cooking, music, yoga, salsa dance, and anything outdoors. |
