A. Gene Copello Health Advocacy Fellowship

Nicole Damari recent graduate of the University of Cincinnati / Cincinnati Children’s Combined Internal Medicine and Pediatrics program. She received her undergraduate degree in biology and anthropology from Brown University in 2012, and her MS in pathobiology in 2013. Prior to medical school, she held an AmeriCorps VISTA position at the Arizona Department of Health Services in the Refugee Health Program. She attended medical school at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, where she was involved in advocacy and services initiatives aimed at eliminating health disparities for all marginalized and underserved communities, and she continued that work in residency with specific focuses on LGBTQ health and refugee health. She is committed a career as a physician-advocate, advocating for her patients both inside and outside of the healthcare setting.

Eileen de la Cruz moved here to the United States from the Philippines at the age of 5. She graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a BA in Biology and completed medical school, internal medicine residency and was Chief Resident at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. For 25 ½ years she worked as an internist at the Everett Clinic, a large multispecialty group in Snohomish County, Washington. She retired in 2021. She is passionate about advocating for women and girls, working for a universal health care system and for fixing the terrible income inequality that is harming all of us. She loves birding and bird photography, reading, writing, hiking and most of all, spending time with her family and friends.

Fabrizia Faustinella is a board-certified internist who has worked in the Texas Medical Center for over thirty years, as a trainee and as a faculty member at Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Texas Health Science Center, now John P. McGovern Medical School, in Houston, Texas. In both institutions, a constant element of her work and career has been extensive and direct patient care, patient advocacy, and an unwavering  dedication to the education of future generations of physicians.

Fabrizia’s Baylor career started in Dr. Lawrence Chan’s lab, in the Department of Cell Biology. Later, her interest in the molecular basis of genetic diseases and in gene therapy brought her to Dr. Tom Caskey’s lab in the Department of Molecular Genetics. After completing a residency program in internal medicine at Baylor, Fabrizia readdressed her career choices to reflect her commitment to patient care and medical education, bringing science and humanism together to benefit patients and  improve the health of our community.

While working in the TMC, she has made an effort to seek, develop, and foster inter-institutional collaborations in education and research between Baylor and UT. Examples are the work done as Chair of the Comprehensive Clinical Competency Exam Committee, the participation in the combined BCM-UT Master Teacher Fellowship Program and, prior to that, a collaborative study on neural injuries and liposome-mediated gene transfer of nerve growth factors in primary septo-hippocampal cell cultures.

As a Co-chair of the TXACP-HPPC (Texas Chapter of the American College of Physicians-Health and Public Policy Committee) her current refined focus is health care access, health care cost and disparities, and patient-physician relationship.

Aliya Siddiqui, MS is a medical student at the Medical College of Wisconsin. She earned her BS/MS in Mathematics and Statistics at Loyola University Chicago. Ms. Siddiqui is pursuing a
MD at Medical College of Wisconsin, and performs imaging research in an adaptive optics lab while also working towards her PhD in Bioengineering.

Ms. Siddiqui worked with refugee and immigrant populations beginning medical school and taught citizenship classes and volunteered with a refugee orphan program. This served as the impetus for her involvement with advocacy work. She has since then branched out and advocated for issues surrounding as gender equity, reproductive justice, medical education reform, and addressing healthcare disparities.

Ms. Siddiqui has been involved with the Doctors for America since 2021, and served on their FDA task force. Ms. Siddiqui has been involved in clinical trials surrounding device approvals and is interested in policy surrounding scientific innovation. She has testified before FDA advisory committees and performed research on innovation patterns of doctors. She plans to pursue a career performing translational device research and working with her physician colleagues, patients and researchers in order to bridge the knowledge that will advance medical care.

Ms. Siddiqui was born in the Detroit suburbs and grew up in Wisconsin. Her family lives in the Chicago suburbs and in Wisconsin. In her free time, Ms. Siddiqui works as a group fitness instructor, and her hobbies include Pilates, yoga, rock climbing, and painting. She is passionate about mentoring new student leaders.

Carson Hartlage (they/he) is an MD/PhD Student at the University of Cincinnati originally from Toledo, Ohio. Carson is pursuing a PhD in Biomedical Informatics to use medical geography and clinical informatics to study health equity issues. Carson’s clinical interests include family medicine, transgender health, and psychiatry. Carson is also a passionate advocate for health justice, with experience in organized medicine and state and local advocacy. His advocacy priorities include transgender and LGBTQ+ rights, environmental and climate justice, and equitable healthcare access.

Shriya Veluri is a second-year dual degree MD candidate at UT Health San Antonio and MPD candidate at the UT Health School of Public Health in Houston. Throughout her educational pursuits, Shriya has developed a passion for minority issues, including women’s health, refugee and immigrant care, and racial/ethnic disparities in care. She aims to find an area of intersection between medicine and public health and craft a career that integrates both fields. In her free time, Shriya is an avid classical dancer and enjoys long walks and experimenting with new recipes in the kitchen.

Dr. Jones-Vanderleest is an attending physician in Public Health-Seattle & King County Jail Health Services where she provides comprehensive medical care. She also leads a jail health elective for family medicine residents and co-directs the HIV telemedicine program. In 2022, this program won the Cesar Augusto Caceres Award for Technology Use in HIV Practice from the Institute for Technology in Health Care. Currently she is a Clinical Associate Professor of Health Systems and Population Health at the University of Washington and faculty in the Northwest Public Health and Primary Care Leadership Institute.

Prior to moving to Seattle, Dr. Jones-Vanderleest was the Chief Resident in Family and Community Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco-San Francisco General Hospital where she won the Chancellor’s Award for Community Service for her work with sex workers.  As a member of the National Health Service Corps, she worked in a FQHC based Health Care for the Homeless program, and then served as the Medical Director of HIV/STD Services for the Tucson-Pima County Health Department and was a professor in the University of Arizona College of Medicine.

Dr. Temitope Olasehinde attended Michigan State University College of Human Medicine (MSU CHM) for medical school and is now a current PGY-3 Internal Medicine Resident at University Hospitals/Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH. During her time in university, she served as the Ethnocultural Support Services Coordinator of her university, as well as on the City’s Diversity Inclusion and Anti-Oppression Committee. In these roles she advocated on behalf of underrepresented community groups, such as refugees and immigrants, and made recommendations to the City Council on matters related to discrimination, inclusivity and equity. In medical school, she served as the Chapter Vice-President of the Student National Medical Association where she developed various programming to advocate on behalf of underrepresented medical students, physicians, and youth in the community. She is ultimately interested in pursuing gastroenterology in the future and is passionate about health-disparities research. She eventually wants to expand her career into national health policy and international health to affect change on a larger-scale and advocate for those living in third-world countries. She enjoys biking, traveling, and learning new languages in her free time.

Raj Reddy is DFA’s new Vice Chair of Access to Affordable Care and sits on DFA’s FDA Task Force. He completed MS3 at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, where he holds the Edgar King Scholarship. He is now jointly enrolled at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the London School of Economics for an MS in Health Policy, Planning, & Financing. Raj was born and raised in a bordertown in the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas, where learning about his local FQHC led him to study health and social policy. Raj was a McDermott Scholar at UT Dallas, a Bill Archer Fellow at the National Academy of Medicine in DC, and a Health Policy Fellow at the Joint Commission. His focuses include public coverage (eligibility, benefits, and prices), safety net programs, and decarceration. He is also the national Medical Student Section Delegate for the American Medical Association, where he directs all student advocacy. Raj aspires to be a neurologist, with interests in stroke, dementia, chronic pain, and end-of-life care.

Dominique Rehl is a third-year medical student at the Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine. Originally from Colorado, she completed her Bachelors of Science in Health Sciences at The Ohio State University. During the COVID-19 pandemic and her gap year, she became a certified Basic EMT. She aims to be a primary care provider with interest in reproductive health, LGBTQ+ care, and abortion care. She is also interested in reducing stigma surrounding opioid use disorder, and completed research using virtual reality to reduce stigma in medical trainees during her second year of medical school. She is a passionate advocate for high quality abortion education in medical school, and served as vice president of her school’s Medical Students for Choice chapter. She also served on her school’s student government as Director of Wellness, and remains dedicated to applying osteopathic principles to promote wellness in patient care. Dominique has a love for nature and the outdoors, and enjoys hiking, indoor and outdoor cycling, and spending time with family.

Anand Singh is a medical student at Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, TX. He is passionate about healthcare policy, community health, and mentorship. He is currently a member on the American Medical Association Foundation Board of Directors where he oversees initiatives to improve our nation’s health. He is actively involved in organized medicine at local and national levels, holding several leadership positions with the goal of promoting health equity through advocacy and policy-making. Additionally, he conducts research through the John Peter Smith Health Network Center for Epidemiology and Healthcare Delivery Research to improve access and quality of care for minority and low-income populations, focusing on cancer and chronic disease. In his free time, he enjoys running, trying new cuisines, and learning and teaching various dance styles, ranging from Bollywood to Hip-hop. He aspires to be a physician-advocate who not only positively impacts his patients’ lives but also creates systemic solutions to improve population health.

Dr. Polly Wiltz (she/her) is second year resident physician in Emergency Medicine at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center in Cleveland, OH. She received her medical degree from Pacific Northwest University College of Medicine in Yakima, WA.  Her professional interests include immigrant health, advocacy, gun violence prevention and reduction, and increasing reproductive health access for marginalized communities in the emergency department. Her career goals include expanding into health policy and population health to create and influence legislation that protect health and human rights for people living in the United States. Her hobbies outside of medicine include kayaking, hiking, theatre, reading, exploring with her family and pets, and naps.