About Me

Undergraduate Experience

I grew up in San Jose, CA with my parents and older sister.  After high school, I attended Pitzer College in Claremont, CA and graduated magna cum laude in 2013 with a double major in molecular biology (honors) & theatre arts and a minor in mathematics.  In addition to my studies, I spent much of my time conducting research in Dr. Emily Wiley's epigenetics laboratory, dancing with the Claremont Colleges Ballroom Dance Company, volunteering at Pomona Valley Hospital, and constructing theatrical sets in the Pomona College Scene Shop.  I also received the 2012 NSF Summer Research Fellowship ($4,000) to support my research on the epigenetic effects of histone deacetylases, the findings of which comprised a great part of my senior thesis.

Genomics research at the Max Planck Institute

Shortly after graduation, I flew to Tübingen, Germany to start my first job as a Research Technician in Dr. Felicity Jones' genomics laboratory at the Friedrich Miescher Laboratory of the Max Planck Society.  This position helped me build a strong foundation in genetics by investigating the connection between DNA recombination and speciation, while also offering a global outlook on scientific and technological innovation.

Tutoring Business

Upon returning to the United States I started a tutoring business in Irvine, CA that focused on educating students in mathematics and science.  As the son of an entrepreneur, I wanted to gain early exposure to the skills and steps needed to start a business and use my skill set to provide a positive impact on the lives of others.  This endeavor gave me a first-hand education of the legal, financial, technical, and marketing skills needed to build a successful business de novo, and has provided me with a more nuanced understanding of business operations and strategy.

Cardiac Research at Stanford

Having a significant impact on my students' academic pursuits was extremely rewarding, but I recognized that teaching did not provide me with the same level of satisfaction as a hospital volunteer or scientific researcher.  This realization caused me to close my tutoring business to pursue a Life Science Research Professional position in Dr. Joseph Woo's laboratory at the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Stanford University.  As a member of the Woo lab, I contributed to a broad range of research projects to better understand of cardiac diseases. These projects included the analysis of gene expression in several cardiac disease states, utilizing cyanobacteria to re-oxygenate ischemic tissue, ex vivo heart pump measurement of pressures and flow rates pre and post cardiac operations, development of synthetic blood vessels, and protein therapy via sheer-thinning hydrogel treatments of cardiac tissue in a sheep myocardial infarction model, among several others.  On a daily basis, I worked with world-class physicians who helped me better understand their role in a hospital and to their patients.  This experience helped me recognize aspects of medical care that extend beyond diagnosis and treatment.

Master's in Medical Humanities & Street Outreach

Although I found the research incredibly interesting, over time I recognized that my position was not exposing me to the broader aspects of medicine; therefore, I decided to pursue a master’s degree in medical humanities at the University of Rochester.  The University of Rochester awarded me a $16,000 scholarship as a part of my acceptance.  This program gave me insight into the patient experience by considering countless medical narratives, applying bioethical principles to case scenarios, exploring philosophical frameworks for contextualizing medical care, and recognizing historical impacts on the state of contemporary medicine.  The curriculum integrated the biopsychosocial model, which helped me recognize how factors beyond individual patients can contribute to healthcare.  Additionally, my master's degree led to my service within the homeless community.

As a master's student I completed a capstone project, which aimed to determine how social and physical environments affect conceptions of home.  Due to this project, I began volunteering as a part of the medical school's Street Outreach student organization to supply basic provisions and health services to the homeless.  Serving homeless individuals has provided first-hand experience of how housing instability exacerbates health outcomes and opportunity gaps and has caused me to recognize housing as a form of preventative medicine that not only improves societal health, but reduces the financial burden on hospitals and individual costs associated with health insurance.  As such, I believe housing security is not a zero-sum game, but rather a rising tide capable of lifting all boats.

Homeless volunteering & Infection Biomarker Research

In the summer of 2020 I moved to Washington, DC.  Since receiving my master's degree (2021), I volunteered at Street Sense Media (a non-profit dedicated to combatting homelessness) and joined Dr. Tim McCaffrey's laboratory at George Washington University.  As a member of the McCaffrey laboratory, I helped create the CyBIS device to rapidly detect infection from a fingerstick sample, analyzed RNA sequencing data to determine possible biomarkers of coronary artery disease, and measured RNA transcripts using digital PCR for the early detection of appendicitis as part of the MADAIR project. 

Medical School

During the fall of 2022, I matriculated as a medical student in George Washington University’s School of Medicine and Health Sciences class of 2026.  While in medical school I was awarded the Adopt-A-Doc Scholarship ($20,000) and the W.T. Gill Summer Fellowship ($4,000). The Gill Fellowship allowed me to pursue transcriptomics research on myocardial ischemia with no obstructive coronary arteries (INOCA) as a member of the McCaffrey laboratory, the results of which I presented at the GW Cardiology Grand Rounds on 11/15/2023.   In addition to my research pursuits, I was appointed as president of the GW Cardiology Interest Group (CIG) and have used that role to help my peers learn more about the field of cardiology and connect with cardiologists that are willing to serve as mentors.  

Thus far, I've attended both ACC.24 and the ACC legislative conference. In October of 2023 I attended the ACC legislative conference and met with staffers to lobby for bills aiming to improve heart health nationally.  These bills included:

• Strengthening Medicare for Patients and Providers Act (H.R. 2474)

• Increasing Access to Quality Cardiac Rehabilitation Care Act (H.R. 2583)

• Getting Over Lengthy Delays in Care As Required by Doctors (GOLD Card) Act (H.R. 4968)

• Access to AEDs Act (H.R. 2370, S. 1024)

• Amputation Reduction and Compassion (ARC) Act (H.R. 4261)

• More information about these bills here

In April of 2024, I was invited to give a moderated poster session at ACC.24 in Atlanta to present my research project on the genomics of INOCA, and expect this project to be published in Frontiers in Medicine by the end of 2024.