Denalene Tiu
Hi, my name is Denalene Tiu, and I am Medical Student Year 2 at UCSF in SJV PRIME. For undergrad, I attended UCSD with BS in Human Biology as well as receiving a Master’s in Biology at UCSD. I joined Prine Time because it provides an opportunity to aid and inspire pre-medical students from my hometown to pursue a career in health care. My goal is to empower others by giving them the tools to be successful and achieve their goals. Throughout my journey, I've had the privilege of learning from mentors who were resourceful, honest, nonjudgmental, and enthusiastic. I want to pay that knowledge forward and emulate these qualities as a mentor. I hope to share my experiences and passion for medicine, encouraging others just like how my mentors encouraged me. In my free time, I like to sing opera, play video games, and crochet.
Seshaan Ratnam
Hi, my name is Seshaan Ratnam, and I am med student at UCSF. For undergrad, I attended Clovis Community College and transferred to UCLA, where I majored in Psychology. I am part of the mentorship and research committee for Prime Time. My inspiration for joining Prime Time was the mentorship and guidance I received as a pre med, which allowed me to become a more prepared application, and I am excited to serve this role as a mentor to guide students in their own medical school journeys. In my free time, I like surfing, hiking and playing tennis.
Citlali Lopez
Citlali was born and raised in Madera, CA with indigenous roots in the Mixtec region of Oaxaca, Mexico. She was first called to a career as a doctor through her lived experiences translating for her mom at the doctor’s office. While attending Madera South High, she volunteered at Madera Community Hospital and stepped up to translate for Spanish-speaking patients and their families.
She graduated from UCLA with a B.S. in Biology. At UCLA, she maintained close ties with the Central Valley as a mentor for high school students pursuing higher education. After graduating, Citlali returned home to Madera and worked as a scribe and translator at a family medicine FQHC. She also worked as a nutrition educator for SNAP-Ed eligible youth and adults. Both experiences reaffirmed her passion for medicine and providing care for underserved populations.
Citlali’s goal is to serve her community as a doctor and mentor for students like herself who are first-generation and come from disadvantaged backgrounds. She is very excited to be a part of SJV PRIME and cater to the specific healthcare needs of the Valley.
Lasya Gudipudi
Lasya was born and raised in Clovis, CA as a first generation Indian-American. She attended Buchanan High School and graduated from UCLA with a degree in psychobiology. Lasya’s passion for medicine was confirmed when she saw the significant impact the COVID-19 pandemic had on marginalized groups by working with the Fresno County Public Health Department and scribing in the emergency department at Community Regional Medical Center. Witnessing the challenges and lack of healthcare resources that underserved communities had to face motivated her to become a physician and give back to the community that has raised her. As part of the SJV PRIME program, Lasya is excited to advocate for health equity and promote health literacy among underserved communities. During her free time, Lasya enjoys playing tennis, trying new restaurants, and spending time with her family and friends.
Myrka Macedo
Hi, my name is Myrka Macedo, and currently MS2 at UCSF. For undergrad, I attended Fresno State B.S. Biology and B.A. Chemistry. I am part of the Research and Qualitative Analysis committee on Prime Time. As a premedical student I was a part of MiMentor, an organization offers similar mentorship opportunities. Being connected with a mentor and other students going through the same process helped me have a successful cycle. Now as a medical student, I am glad to be able to help others and provide advice about the application process. I am looking forward to continuing to work with the Prime Time team and meet new premedical students each year. A current hobby of mine is weight lifting. I have been doing it for over 2 years and it has helped stay relatively stress free during medical school.
Austin O'Callaghan Langhoff
Austin was born in northern California and frequently visited the Central Valley while growing up. After high school, he moved to attend California State University, Fresno where he majored in Biology and became the first in his family to earn a college degree. His interests outside of medicine include playing basketball, hiking, and exercising. His passion for medicine was reaffirmed during his work as a medical assistant for an interventional cardiologist and an emergency medicine scribe at Community Regional Medical Center. Additionally, he became involved in community outreach events that provided health care to local underserved communities. Through these experiences, he understood the severity of the physician shortage in the San Joaquin Valley and became motivated to give back to the community he has called home for so long.
Ajmeet Pama-Ghuman
Ajmeet is the first-born daughter of Sikh immigrants from Punjab, India, who settled in Kingsburg, CA, a small agricultural town nestled in the central portion of the San Joaquin Valley. Witnessing her family seek care while experiencing acute pain and become discouraged by limited Punjabi interpreter services exposed her to the chronic language deficits in her community. Their recovery emphasized to her the dramatic impact of compassionate physicians on the outcome of their patients and the importance of such providers to our community.
She began her academic journey at Kingsburg High School, spearheading multiple community/campus initiatives and conducting environmental research under NASA GLOBE to tend to the needs of her small town and school. Motivated to invoke positive change in healthcare accessibility, she was selected by the prestigious Smittcamp Family Honors College at Fresno State, where she completed her B.S. in Biology with honors. While there, she dedicated her time to research under Dr. Karine Gousset to develop a technique relying upon laser dissection to isolate tunneling nanotubes. This structure is implicated in the spread of viruses, cancers, and other pathologies, making delineating its structural blueprint essential to reveal potential drug targets. Outside of rigorous academia, she invested her time into her community by serving as a community health worker during the pandemic under Jakara Movement, as part of the COVID-19 Equity Project, to improve accessibility to COVID-19 testing/vaccines and interpreter services for the Punjabi community. She pursued the position of an ED scribe at Community Regional Medical Center, where she grasped the ripple effect of limited resources on long-term health in rural and urban settings. She continues to remain connected with Kingsburg by serving as a mentor for students interested in medicine.
Through these experiences, she has become dedicated to weaving community outreach into her medical practice and developed a passion for health education, policy, and preventative medicine. Via UCSF SJV PRIME, she is excited to equip herself with the skills and knowledge needed to best serve the community, which has driven her toward becoming a physician.
Nickie Yang
Nickie Yang was born and raised in Southeast Fresno, California to a Hmong refugee family. She is the second of four children to her parents Chue Yang and Xe Vang, both who were born in refugee camps in Thailand before immigrating to the United States in the 1990s. Although her parents were not able to pursue higher education, they always encouraged Nickie and her siblings to embrace the educational opportunities given to them. Growing up, Nickie enjoyed dancing, playing badminton, and going to museums.
After graduating from Sunnyside High School in 2018, she attended the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). During her undergraduate years, she was involved in statistical and population dynamics research. She graduated in 2022 with a Bachelor of Science in Psychobiology.
During her enrichment years, she volunteered in Fresno where she played with patients at Valley Children’s Hospital, prepared meals for the unhoused community at Poverello House, and worked on advancing health literacy projects at the Fresno Interdenominational Refugee Ministries (FIRM). It was also during this time that Nickie saw the lack of medical research on the Hmong community. As a future physician, Nickie hopes to spread awareness of the health issues of the Hmong community in the San Joaquin Valley by focusing on the cultural, social, and environmental challenges of the Hmong community.
Through the SJV PRIME program, Nickie looks forward to learning more about how to become a great physician to serve the underserved communities in the San Joaquin Valley via community engagement and research.
Manreet Dosanjh
Manreet was raised on the rural outskirts of Fresno, CA and is the daughter of Punjabi-Sikh immigrants. Manreet’s interest in medicine developed at a young age when her family member was diagnosed with a life-threatening illness and struggled to receive equitable healthcare in the Valley. She attended Sunnyside High School and graduated from UCLA with a B.S. in Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics. During the pandemic, Manreet worked as a community health worker to bring equitable COVID-19 services to vulnerable populations and utilized a neighborhood approach to address the unique needs of individual communities in Fresno County. Through public health research, Manreet highlighted the local health inequities and utilized the data to inform her advocacy with city leaders and assemblymembers.
Through SJV-PRIME, Manreet hopes to become a physician leader and bring high-quality compassionate care to Fresno. She is determined to close the life expectancy gap between residents in rural and underserved areas compared to better-resourced communities by advocating for policy change, challenging the status quo, and dismantling structural barriers to equitable healthcare. Manreet’s interests outside of school include spending time with her golden retriever and loved ones, trying new foods, traveling, and weightlifting.
Rojina Nekooman
Rojina Nekoonam was born and raised in Iran before relocating to the United States with her father when she was 16 years old. Beginning her new life in Fresno, California, an ethnically diverse and medically underserved area, she realized the critical need for affordable healthcare and culturally competent physicians. As an immigrant, she encountered comparable obstacles to many others in the San Joaquin Valley, such as limited access to healthcare and language barriers. Seeing many people in her community suffer as a result of mismanaged chronic diseases further reaffirmed her commitment to caring for the vulnerable. Rojina attended Clovis West High School before receiving a merit-based scholarship to Fresno State, where she majored in biology. During her undergraduate studies, she became involved in community-based organizations and worked as an interpreter and assistant at low-cost medical clinics that targeted migrant health issues. She intends to use the training provided by the SJV program as a framework to eliminate the societal causes of health inequities and deliver resources to those in greatest need.
Alanis Colon
Born and raised in Stockton, California, Alanis Colon has developed a strong passion for finding ways to combine health, research, and advocacy to serve and uplift her community. These interests began through two high school internships with Stanford Institute of Medical Research and Health Career Connections, in which she became further aware of the social and health challenges in California’s Central Valley. It was then that Alanis committed to exploring interdisciplinary approaches to improving population health among communities in the Central Valley.
Alanis attended high school at Stockton Collegiate International Schools and earned her International Baccalaureate diploma in 2018. She graduated from UCLA in 2022 where she studied biochemistry and minored in Community Engagement and Social Change. During this time, she worked as a research assistant at UCLA Semel Institute’s Aftercare Program, an outpatient research clinic that provides treatment and conducts research with first-episode schizophrenia patients. She also explored community-engaged research and educational advocacy through her Stockton Urban Revitalization Fellowship. Although the uncertainty and challenges that came with the COVID-19 pandemic led to her return home to continue her coursework, Alanis continued to serve as a Health Care Provider through San Joaquin County’s In-Home Supportive Services program to provide care for Stockton residents who were elderly and/or living with a disability. Upon completing her undergraduate career, Alanis worked as a research associate for the Department of Health Systems Science at Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine in Pasadena, CA.
Through SJV PRME, Alanis hopes to develop the experiences and skills required to implement programs that encourage California’s Central Valley students to serve under-resourced communities through multi-faceted approaches. These programs would guide students through community-engaged, clinical, or health systems research that seek to address the barriers of accessing preventive health services in marginalized communities. She is excited to grow and learn among peers and faculty who hold a similar passion towards building a brighter future for California’s Central Valley.
Jagjot Dosanjh
Hi, my name is Jagjot Dosanjh, and I am MS2 at UCSF in SVJ PRIME. For undergrad, I attended UCLA and majored in psychology. I am a part of the mentorship committee. I was inspired to join the mentorship team due to my personal experiences without mentorship. As a first-generation pre-med student, it was difficult to navigate the medical school application and prepare for interviews. At the time, I had wished for guidance and resources to ease the stress and uncertainty. As a member of Prime Time, I hope to connect students with resources, guidance, and a voice of reassurance.
I look forward to seeing the impact of Prime Time. I know Prime Time will aid many first-generation and underrepresented students in their journey to medicine. I am excited to see mentees get accepted to their dream medical schools and eventually bring change to the Central Valley. I am currently interested in cardiology, gastroenterology, and orthopedics. I love playing basketball, hiking, and traveling.
Neytali Kanwar
Neytali grew up in West Fresno as the daughter of immigrant Truck Driver father and Sales Associate mother. Instilled with values of hard work and perseverance by her parents, she attended Central High School East before becoming first generation Fresno State graduate.
Attaining education locally, Neytali has seen Fresno grow with increasingly diverse population. Unfortunately, the social barriers and disparities have increased proportionally, rendering her hometown with poor access to healthcare. These barriers and her community-based experiences have shaped her path towards medicine. Working at a rural town of Hanford as an Emergency Medicine scribe, she translated for local Punjabi speaking farmers. Using her love for art, she connected with bed bound hospital patients by sending them hand crafted greeting cards. At local hospice, she sold water colored art to visitors to raise donations for individuals with low socioeconomic background.
She is humbled to be part of SJV PRIME that will keep her grounded to her roots. She believes SJV PRIME education will provide her with tools and knowledge to help alleviate these disparities. Neytali is looking forward to train at her hometown as a medical student and foster a long-term relationship with the people she wants to serve as a physician.
Gobinder Pandher
Gobinder was born and raised in the agricultural community of Selma, California. He grew up in a joint immigrant household and is a product of Punjabi immigrants.
Growing up in a medically underserved and rural town, he witnessed how healthcare inequities led to poorer outcomes for his own family members. He took on the role of caretaker for his ailing grandfather, who suffered from dementia. The experience motivated him to pursue medicine in hopes to bring back quality healthcare to the San Joaquin Valley.
Gobinder attended UCLA where he graduated in 2021 with a degree in biology. While there, he spent his time pursuing preventative health clinics, homeless feeding initiatives, and other community outreach projects to help the underprivileged communities in Los Angeles. He came back during his gap years and worked as a scribe for a group of radiation oncologists at the Clovis Cancer Institute.
While he isn’t working, Gobinder enjoys traveling, trying new foods, watching movies, and playing with his dog. He is currently interested in orthopedic surgery and pain medicine.
Ivan Villasenor
Ivan was born and raised in Modesto, California. He is a first-generation Mexican-American and the son of immigrant farm and cannery workers. Ivan grew up surrounded by his Spanish-speaking parents, older sister, uncles and aunts, and many cousins. During his childhood, he worked with and learned about computers alongside his older cousins and participated in baile folklorico.
Many in Ivan's family, including his father, have worked in the San Joaquin Valley's fields for decades and continue to do so. This upbringing allowed Ivan to witness firsthand the vital role of their work in feeding the nation and the globe. It also exposed him to the significant health disparities faced by underserved communities. Ivan's determination to address these disparities was shaped early on when his parents' concerns about his health were repeatedly overlooked by doctors for years, despite obvious risk factors, delaying proper treatment.
After attending Central Valley High School, Ivan pursued his education at UCLA, earning a B.S. in Biology. He gained valuable experience as a Critical Care Technician in the ICU at Memorial Medical Center in Modesto and as a Clinical Research Coordinator at Stanford School of Medicine. These roles deepened his understanding of systemic inequities, such as reduced access to clinical research trials due to information gaps, transportation barriers, and eligibility awareness.
Driven by these experiences, Ivan is committed to becoming a physician who listens attentively to patients, provides culturally sensitive and language-concordant care, and empowers his communities to thrive, especially in matters concerning health.
In his free time, Ivan enjoys hiking, playing and watching soccer, and spending quality time with loved ones.
Avneet Mandair
I was born and raised in the rural parts of Punjab, India. My family and I immigrated to Fresno, California, when I was 15. I attended Clovis High School and later graduated from UC Merced with a Bachelor’s in Biological Sciences. As a first-generation immigrant, I saw my family struggling to get proper healthcare due to the language and cultural barrier. As a result, my sister and I often acted as interpreters to facilitate communication between my family and their healthcare team.
Growing up in an underserved area and seeing my family struggle to access medical care motivated my interest in becoming a physician. While working as a scribe in the emergency department at Community Regional Medical Center and volunteering in hospice care, I witnessed the impact of physician shortage on the patient population of Central Valley and the healthcare barriers many minorities face, reaffirming my decision to pursue medicine. As a part of SJV Prime, I hope to enhance the health literacy of our underserved communities and train to provide culturally competent and sensitive care to our diverse patient populations.
During my free time, I enjoy reading books, spending time with my friends and family, and trying new recipes.
Farhad Ghazali
Farhad was raised in Modesto, CA as the son of two hard-working immigrant parents from Pakistan. He attended Modesto High School and completed his undergraduate education at the University of California, Merced where he graduated with a degree in Human Biology.
During his childhood, he experienced the physician shortage in the San Joaquin Valley. It was challenging to find quality care, something he wishes was easier to access at that time. After his grandmother passed away from uncontrolled diabetes, Farhad sought to learn more not only about diabetes but about the field of medicine.
He worked as a medical assistant and scribe at Valley Diabetes & Obesity, a practice dedicated to providing his underserved community with quality care. Here, Farhad learned more about the numerous complications of diabetes, the fundamentals of clinical practice, preventative medicine, and the significance of meaningful care. His passion for medicine was reaffirmed during his work and he was inspired to return to the San Joaquin Valley to alleviate the healthcare disparities that plague his community.
Farhad believes ‘Quality Healthcare is not a privilege, but a right everyone deserves’. He is driven by the Islamic principles of compassion, social justice, and service to humanity. Farhad looks forward to becoming a physician leader to serve humankind, alleviate suffering, and advocate for those who have no voice in healthcare.
Outside of medicine, Farhad enjoys bodybuilding, building Legos, and spending time with loved ones.
Jeanine Esteban
Jeanine was born in the Philippines and emigrated to the United States at the age of 3. She was primarily raised in Fresno, California where she attended University High School. Later, she graduated from UC Irvine in 2021 with a degree in Biological Sciences. Jeanine’s initial interest in medicine began when she sustained an injury and struggled while seeking specialized care within Fresno. In high school, she had the opportunity to volunteer at a local hospital, Community Regional Medical Center, where she witnessed additional health disparities within the San Joaquin Valley after interacting with health professionals and patients. Throughout her undergraduate and gap years, Jeanine has been involved in multiple extracurricular activities such as volunteering at hospitals, performing basic science research, and scribing, all which reaffirm her passion to become a physician. In the future, she hopes to return home to mitigate these unique disparities by providing accessible healthcare to all.