Student Profiles: Sixth Class 2006 - 2007
Maya Aravind graduated cum laude from Princeton University in 2004, with an A.B. in Art History. During her time at Princeton, she studied both art and architectural history and sang in Princeton's oldest all female a cappella group, the Tigerlilies. After spending the spring semester of 2003 studying in Florence, she wrote a junior paper entitled, Michelangelo's New Sacristy: an Educational Tool for Artists of the late Renaissance period in Florence . Upon returning from her semester abroad, she spent the summer interning in the conservation department at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. This experience directly inspired her senior thesis, entitled, Beyond the Limits: the Sculpture of Eva Hesse and the Problems in Conserving Contemporary Art. After graduation, Maya worked for a year at Hirschl & Adler, an art gallery on New York's Upper East Side. She began the master's program in Modern Art: Critical Studies at Columbia University in September 2005. Having since chosen to pursue a career in medicine, she took a leave of absence from the master's program to begin the post-bac program at Johns Hopkins. Still, she will return to New York during the glide year to write her master's thesis, earning her Columbia degree, and in the meantime, apply to medical school.
Benjamin Azan graduated with great distinction and on the deans honour list from McGill University in 05. He received BSc. in Computer Science with a minor in Music Technology. As an undergraduate Benjamin was a volunteer at the McGill International Student Network where he organizing trips and events. He also volunteered with McGill Outdoor Club teaching rock climbing and outdoor safety. Senior year, he became a staff member of the school newspaper and came in first place at the Computer Science Undergraduate Research Symposium for his work in programming languages. After graduation, Benjamin went to France, the place of his birth, for a year. There he ate good food, traveled, and volunteered with the Red Cross. He was a member of their ambulance service and helped teach first aid to the French population at large. As a Post-bac, Benjamin is continuing his involvement with Red Cross by training to be a CPR/First aid instructor in the US.
Xuejing (Jing) Chen graduated with honors from Caltech with majors in Electrical and Computer Engineering. She was supported by the Caltech Axline Merit Scholarship that covered tuition for 4 years. She then went to graduate school in Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and was a member of the Center for Neural Basis of Cognition. There, she was supported by the Lucent Graduate Student Fellowship. While at Caltech, Jing was a weekly tutor at the Hillsides Home for Abused and Neglected Children for two years and led several student service organizations such as Building Bridges for Children, Society of Women Engineers and Tau Beta Pi. She also served as the Microsoft student consultant for the university. While at CMU, Jing was active in Women@SCS where she was involved in outreach programs that support girls in computer science, as well as networking programs for women in the CMU community. For her outreach work, she gave presentations at several universities and conferences around the country. She was also active in various campus organizations targeted towards improving graduate student life. Additionally, Jing volunteered at the Hospital Elder Life Program where she was a patient advocate for the elderly. Her long-term interests in education and youth are channeled into her role as director of Public Relations and Education in the Rural China Education Foundation ( www.ruralchina.org ), an international volunteer organization that provides quality education for rural Chinese children. She also has held internships at the Jet Propulsion Lab, Microsoft and Bell Labs and been a teaching assistant for graduate computer science courses both as an undergraduate and as a graduate student. Her research interests focus on bridging basic and clinical science with computation. She is especially interested in the human visual system, computational neuroscience, mental retardation in children, efficient coding, information theory, and machine learning.
Jana Freeman graduated from Yale University in 2005 with academic distinction in History of Science/History of Medicine. The summer after her freshman year, she traveled to Belize as part of the University of San Francisco's College of Extended Learning Program to study Tropical Ecology and Cultural Anthropology while conducting research on birth control and sex education in Belize. Jana then spent the summer of 2004 as a research intern at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama City, Panama. She received an Environmental Studies Fellowship to fund her research in the history of the International Cooperative Biodiversity Group (ICBG), an innovative natural products drug discovery program. She also pursued her interests in tropical sanitation and disease control during the construction of the Panama Canal in writing her senior thesis. As captain of the varsity volleyball team, Jana helped lead her team to Yale's first Ivy League Championship since 1978 and the first NCAA victory in Ivy League history. She also received All-Academic, All-Northeast Region First Team honors as well as All-Ivy, All-Academic Honors her senior year. Awarded Yale's Parker Huang Travel Fellowship upon graduation, she spent this past year in Buenos Aires, Argentina working in the Prevention and Epidemiology Department of a local non-governmental HIV/AIDS organization, Fundación Huésped.
Matt Glasser graduated summa cum laude from Emory University with a BS in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology. While at Emory, Matt did research using a new brain imaging technique that maps the connections in the living brain for the Laboratory for Darwinian Neuroscience. Focusing on the language pathways, his findings led to the proposal of a new model of the human language network. Matt is doing further research using the model as the basis to look for differences between the brains of humans and non-human primates, and to the brains of patients who have language deficits. Matt is partner in Ma-tea.com, an online seller of Yerba Mate, the traditional tea from Argentina. After Post-Bac Matt hopes to be accepted into an MD/PhD program, specialize in Neurology, and both see patients and conduct research.
In June 2006, Teddy Holzer graduated with a B.Sc (Honors First Class) from the University of St. Andrews in the United Kingdom. He was awarded the Senior Honors Medal in Biomedical Sciences, given at most once a year to the student with the highest achievement in this subject area. In his senior year, he worked in a lab examining the induction of chromosome aberrations in human leukemia cells. He will soon co-author a paper with his supervisor describing the results of these experiments. In addition to academic pursuits, Teddy enjoyed writing opinion articles for the University's student newspaper, as well as organizing a soccer team that competed in a local Scottish league. During the summer of 2005, he worked as an intern for Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and completed an in-house research project analyzing the potential application of new technologies to the diagnosis of TB in resource-poor settings. Teddy also takes great pleasure in travel, and volunteered in Ghana, India, and Mongolia during a 'gap year' between High School and College.
Ian May graduated magna cum laude honors from Washington College in 2003 with a BA in International Studies and Hispanic Studies. Upon graduation he received the Louis Goldstein Award, given to the one graduating student who shows the most promise in the field of public affairs, International Studies Award to the graduating major showing the most promise in the field of international affairs, and the Henry Salloch Prize to the graduating student who shows the highest appreciation for a multilingual and multicultural education. Since graduation Ian worked both with the U.S. Agency for International Development in Washington, DC and the U.S. State Department at their Consulate General in Calgary, Alberta. From those two positions he served two and a half years in the Peace Corps where he worked in Costa Rica on the border with Nicaragua. There he initiated a number of rural health projects to complete community and organization building activities specified by his program. He also organized and developed two youth baseball teams in Costa Rica, which went on to play in the national championships. Ian is currently doing a ride-along with the Maryland State Police Medivac unit and hopes to work in either trauma or infectious disease as a doctor.
Peter Peloquin graduated from Tulane University in New Orleans with a B.A. in Psychology in 2003. After traveling throughout Europe the following year, Peter returned to Tulane University to complete a Masters of Neuroscience and write his Master's Thesis on the behavioral and cognitive differences between dominant and subordinate male rats. Money earned from working as a pizza cook during his graduate studies funded a summer trip to Chile, Argentina, and Brazil. Fresh from South American adventures, he then traveled to Madrid, Spain, to work in a biochemical research institute under a year-long Fulbright Grant. At the end of May 2006, enthusiastic and jet-lagged, Peter began taking post-bac classes 38 hours after arriving from Madrid. Although plans for the future are uncertain, Peter hopes to practice medicine in Europe or possibly a third-world country, following in the footsteps of his long-time role-model Albert Schweitzer.
Kerry Phillips graduated cum laude from the University of Notre Dame in 2003 with a BS in Electrical Engineering. She was vice president of the Society of Women Engineers during her junior year and has been active in the society ever since. Also during fall her junior year, she was one of twenty engineers to study abroad in London, England. She was part of the Women's Club Boxing team and was one of the first female boxers to fight in a public arena and was awarded Most Improved Boxer her senior year. While doing physics research at the Stanford Linear Accelerator, she attended a lecture on MRIs. Particularly fascinated with medical imaging, Kerry did a biomedical engineering summer internship researching an optical imaging design to create a 3-D image of a tooth to detect early caries. She continued research in imaging by participating in an undergraduate project involving 2D filtering of tomographic images before reconstruction. This led her to attend graduate school in bioengineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. In December 2004, she completed her MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering focusing in bioengineering. As a part of Georgia chapter of Team in Training, she trained for a marathon and rose over $5000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. At Georgia Tech, she captained the Women's Club Soccer Team, joined the Eta Kappa Nu Electrical Engineering Honor Society, and taught a microelectronics laboratory course. During the spring of 2005, Kerry traveled to South America to work on her surfing and Spanish and volunteer with a Habitat for Humanity Global Village trip in Encarnacion, Paraguay. After traveling throughout indigenous communities of South America, Kerry began working as an engineer for Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems in Linthicum, Maryland in their Professional Development Program. Meanwhile, she taught a math course at Baltimore City Community College. She joins the post-baccalaureate premedical program with high hopes of continuing medical imaging research in a clinical setting as she prepares for medical school.
Anthony Portanova graduated magna cum laude from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 2003 with a B.S. in Economics and dual concentrations in finance and accounting. After graduation, Anthony worked for three years at Wellington Management Company LLC as a global equity research analyst covering the telecom sector. While working in finance, Anthony discovered his true calling while volunteering in the Massachusetts General Hospital Emergency Department. For his tutorials, he worked with Dr. Wasserman in Neuroradiology and Dr. Kebaish in Orthopedic Surgery.
Hannah Reed graduated with honors from Washington University in St. Louis in May 2006. She majored in Psychology and minored in Philosophy, Neuroscience and Psychology. As an undergraduate, Hannah's research and clinical experiences have focused on the genetics and treatment of autism. She has worked with autism specialists in the Department of Child Psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine, in Vanderbilt's Department of Neurology, and contributed to two papers under review for publication. She received the Hyman Meltzer Memorial Award for her research and academic performance in college. Hannah was also a behavioral therapist for children with autism. Motivated by her experiences, she developed the Night Off program which provides free babysitting to parents with autistic children. The program currently has more than 100 student members and serves over 60 families. In addition, Hannah has been very active in Habitat for Humanity and was the External Fundraising chair for Wash U's chapter.
Morgan Sellers graduated cum laude from Columbia University in 2006 with a BA in Anthropology. While at Columbia , she devoted her time to journalism, serving as the news editor to the daily student newspaper, working as a student producer of the radio show Newsweek On Air , and writing her senior thesis about the dynamics of reporters' relationships with their sources. During the summer before her senior year, she worked full time at the daily paper in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She also pursued coursework in economics and environmental biology, and interned at the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation at the American Museum of Natural History.
Janis Sethness graduated magna cum laude from Brown University in 2006 with a B.A. in Community Health and International Relations. She was selected for membership in Phi Beta Kappa and also received the Gatson Scholarship for Academic Achievement. While at Brown, Janis became a certified EMT and spent two years volunteering for Brown's Emergency Medical Services. She also coordinated the Project HEALTH Family Help Desk at the Hasbro Children's Hospital, a resource and referral program that assists low-income families in accessing social services and public benefits. Janis spent a semester studying public health in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, where she began her research for her senior honors thesis: "An Investigation of Adherence Issues with Antiretroviral Therapy in a Home-based Care Program in Soweto-on-Sea, South Africa." The summer after graduation, Janis worked in La Romana, Dominican Republic for the International Family AIDS Program. There she spent her time shadowing doctors at various clinics and hospitals and helped launch a program to support caregivers of HIV-infected children through training, home-based care, and interest-free micro-loans.
Sagar Shah graduated Phi Beta Kappa and cum laude from Northwestern University in 2006 with a BA in History and Religion and a minor in Creative Writing. He was a recipient of the Asian and Middle Eastern Studies award in 2004. Sagar was awarded an undergraduate research grant in 2005 to study tsunami rehabilitation programs in South India, and he presented his findings at a symposium in 2006. After riding alongside mobile health clinics that served in tsunami-affected areas, he became interested in combining community development and international medicine. Before he worked with refugees in South India, Sagar volunteered with refugee communities in Atlanta and Chicago. During his year at Johns Hopkins, he plans on participating in the refugee youth project in Baltimore and compiling research for a children's book on child refugee experiences. Upon receiving his medical degree, he hopes to continue his work with refugees within the United States and abroad through organizations such as the UN and Doctors Without Borders.
Aly Shogan graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in Economics in 2006. She spent a semester in her Junior year at the University of Sydney in Australia . While at Yale she was involved in a number of community service activities and was a cabinet member of Dwight Hall, the community service oversight committee. Aly was especially involved in "Grandparents for Yalies," a group that visited residents at an assisted living facility. Aly was coordinator of the group her senior year. Aly first gained interest in the medical profession because of this program. Her interest was also furthered by various Economics of Healthcare classes she took during her senior year at Yale.
Sandy Soin graduated magna cum laude from Boston University's Sargent College with a Bachelor's of Science in Athletic Training and an Exercise Physiology minor. In April of 2006 he passed the BOC exam for athletic training and currently holds national certification. While at Boston University he worked in many different clinical settings through the athletic training program including Boston College Sports Medicine (with Boston College Football and Men's Ice Hockey Teams), the Reggie Lewis Track Center (with inner city high school athletes), and Harvard Sports Medicine (with Harvard's Men's Basketball Team and Crew Teams). He also participated in clinical rotations in Emergency Medicine, Family Medicine, and Orthopaedic Surgery at Boston Medical Center . He served as a peer mentor for incoming freshman at BU and a peer tutor in Human Physiology, Exercise Physiology, and Gross Human Anatomy. In the summer of 2005 he began a Doctorate of Physical Therapy program at Boston University but after 2 semesters he realized that he wants to pursue a career in medicine.
Paul Sonenthal graduated from Williams College in the class of 2005 with a degree in Physics and Philosophy. He was awarded departmental honors in Philosophy. He was first exposed to medicine in 2003, when working in India on a Gates Foundation project aimed at preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS among truckers and sex workers. Following graduation, he received a grant from Williams to pursue a year-long independent project studying the social aspects of HIV/AIDS treatment in Senegal, Botswana and South Africa. At Hopkins he will be taking classes at the school of public health and participating in laboratory research on tuberculosis vaccines.
Rebecca Stein graduated cum laude from Amherst College in 2005 with Departmental Distinction in Anthropology. During her college years, Rebecca immersed herself in a variety of endeavors. As an 11-time All-American Div. III swimmer, Rebecca still found time to volunteer for an under-privileged girls after-school enrichment program, serve as a MCAS tutor at the local area high school, and study classical piano with the Amherst College Music Department. In addition to her extra-curricular activities, Rebecca was a two time Hitchcock Fellow, awarded for her commitment to public service, was the Amherst College Beavens Scholar, a research grant awarded to a senior with an innovative thesis proposal, and received the Donald S. Pitkin Award, awarded annually to the preeminent senior thesis project in the Anthropology and Sociology Departments. Her interest in health began to blossom after moving to Ecuador shortly upon graduating. While in Ecuador, Rebecca worked as an upper-level English teacher at a public university in Quito, and volunteered with a type-1 youth diabetes organization, Fundación de diabetes Juveníl del Ecuador (affiliated with AYUDA, INC, a type-1 youth organization based in Washington, DC). In the future, Rebecca hopes to pursue a medical career that will allow her to build upon her commitment to youth and education.
Matthew St. Peter graduated from Brown University with a degree in Geology/Biology. His interest in medicine came about through his work with a non-profit organization founded by him and his brother in high school. The organization, Angel Planes Inc ., provides air transportation for medically needy children and their families to hospitals and treatment centers worldwide. To date, the Providence, Rhode Island organization has helped families from the U.S., India, Iraq, and Haiti. Angel Planes and its founders have been recognized nationally with the Jefferson Award from the American Institute for Public Service, the Presidential Citation from the Points of Light Foundation and the Corporation for National Service, and with the Legion of Honor Award from the Chapel of Four Chaplains. Matt studied the Spanish language and literature in Spain and Cuba and was afforded the opportunity to travel to El Salvador in March of 2006 to volunteer translating and building a wall in a town devastated by rainfall and erosion. Matt also enjoys skiing, rock climbing and hiking whenever and wherever he can get the chance.
Julie Taylor graduated from Northwestern University in 2004 with a B.A. in Economics and Political Science. While at Northwestern, she played on the women's club volleyball team, worked with student-run philanthropies to raise money for pediatric cancer and autism, and volunteered in the Emergency Room and Pediatric Department of Mt. Sinai Hospital. She spent six months of her junior year abroad, studying international finance at University College London. After graduation, Julie worked as a research analyst for Analysis Group, an economic consulting firm in Washington, DC. During this time she continued to pursue her interest in medicine through a volunteer position in the Cardiovascular Center at George Washington University Hospital. In the spring of 2006, she worked with Citta, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing assistance to marginalized or indigenous communities, investigating HIV/AIDS awareness and developing a prevention program in the rural state of Orissa, India.
Deena Yousef graduated with honors from Macalester College in 2006, majoring in Neuroscience with an emphasis in Psychology and minor in Biology. Junior year, she spent time in Australia studying animal behavior. Throughout college she conducted pain research in the neuroscience lab at Macalester. From this work, she co-authored a paper entitled, " Central and Systemic Administrations of Scopolamine-Hydrobromide and Scopolamine-Methylbromide Exert Bidirectional Effects in Rodent Models of Nociception: Implications for Traditional Medicine", which was submitted for publication to the American Pain Society. During the summer of 2005, she interned at Roche pharmaceutical company researching depression and anxiety disorders, and validating new animal models for testing drugs. Her most rewarding experience at college was designing projects and helping organize Minnesota's Annual Neuroscience Kid Judge Fair for three years, which helps interest underprivileged inner-city children in science. Besides school, Deena enjoys equestrian, tennis, step aerobics, and traveling. She is very proud of her Egyptian heritage and loves learning about other cultures. Her favorite motivating words come from a physician friend of the family who said to her, "you don't have to be a genius to be a great doctor, just a hard worker."
Shira Yun graduated from Cornell University in 2006 with a BA in Government and Near Eastern Studies. While at Cornell, she worked as an EMT on Cornell's Emergency Medical Squad, danced and performed with the South Asian dance troupe Sitara, and developed and co-taught a dance and yoga class for girls at a local juvenile detention center. During her junior year, she studied abroad in Egypt at the American University of Cairo, studying Arabic and Middle Eastern politics as well as teaching an English class for Sudanese refugees at a local Church. She has traveled throughout Asia and the Middle East volunteering at Mother Teresa's clinics in Calcutta and a maternity hospital in Cairo. She is particularly interested in international health and health issues in developing countries.
Erin Zolnick graduated cum laude from Middlebury College in 2006 with a bachelor of liberal arts degree in Political Science. Erin was actively involved on campus as a counselor for a freshman hall during her sophomore year, volunteering for Operation Smile (a non-profit which performs surgery on children with facial deformities in poor countries), and co-chairing the senior class gift among other things. During her sophomore year, she traveled to Malawi, Africa where she developed and taught a curriculum about HIV/AIDS to students at rural schools designed to empower children with knowledge about the disease. While there, she worked closely with the children's street shelter in the capital city, Lilongwe, helping to match children with HIV treatment. In her junior year, Erin studied abroad at the London School of Economics and traveled through Europe. Soon after, she shifted her focus to medicine seeking to help underserved populations. During her senior year, Erin interned with Cardiology Consultants assisting with rounds and patient care and learning to interpret catheterization and angioplasty information. She is currently working with Dr. Shubin at an inner-city pediatrics office.
