Faculty, Staff, & Scholar Bios

Noelle Gorka
Matriculated 2023, SMS3
Noelle was born and raised in Marine on St. Croix, Minnesota, the daughter of a folk musician and a poet. Prior to medical school, she graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Michigan with undergraduate degrees in Public Policy and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology. She received University Honors in Engaged Liberal Arts for her role in coalition-led political organizing, which culminated in an executive order implementing Pregnancy Standards of Care in Michigan prisons and jails. With clinical interests in neonatal-perinatal medicine, Noelle is passionate about investigating the structural factors affecting access to and affordability of quality healthcare for children and families. Her current research focuses on quantifying the burden and distribution of the out-of-pocket cost Neonatal Intensive Care. Noelle also serves on the Policy Team of the Stanford Medicine Office of Child Health Equity, training pediatric subspecialists to engage in advocacy for state and federal policymaking. In her free time, Noelle enjoys spending time with loved ones, making soup, and being outside as much as humanly possible.
Masters Degree: Masters of Public Policy (anticipated 2026)
Preferred Name: Noelle

Maria Isabel Barros Guinle (she/her)
Matriculated 2021, SMS5

Meet Maria Isabel Barros Guinle (Bel)! From São Paulo, Brazil, Bel is a first-generation student pursuing an MD/MS in Community Health and Prevention Research (CHPR). She completed her BA in Neuroscience with a minor in Dance at Swarthmore College and spent 2 years conducting clinical neuroscience research at the Yale School of Medicine before joining Stanford. For the last 5 years, she has worked as a researcher for the Brazilian Ministry of Health and has focused her health equity work within the Neurosurgery department at Stanford. She is particularly interested in improving health literacy and access to language concordant care. Most recently, Bel has explored her passion for health literacy working as a reporter for NPR through the AAAS Mass Media Fellowship. Bel is excited to join the Health Equity Scholars Program and learn from her incredible peers who have had different life and career experiences in health equity.

Masters Degree: Community Health and Prevention Research (2024-2025)

Michael Mayer (he/him)
Matriculated 2023, SMS3
Mike is from Sarasota, Florida. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 2017 and worked briefly in adolescent psychology research, before pivoting to become a case manager for people experiencing homelessness. Here, he worked in the heart of the Boston's opioid overdose epidemic, where he helped clients navigate housing, immigration, and addiction care, while responding to immediate needs like overdoses and safety concerns. Mike later co-founded and led a housing navigation team, where he coordinated several projects aimed at improving city housing policy, providing peer-specialist support for unhoused women, and creating a pathway for incarcerated patients to access sober living. He was recently named an Albert Schweitzer Fellow, where he will be working to coordinate "pop-up" clinics for unhoused community members. Mike looks forward to a career in public service and hopes to build connections and skills through the Health Equity Scholars Program that will make him a more effective, grounded, and thoughtful advocate for change! Outside of academia, Mike loves spending time camping and hiking with friends, cooking new recipes, exploring the Bay Area, and hanging with his partner and their elderly chihuahua.
Masters Degree: MPH or MPP (anticipated 2026)
Preferred Name: Mike

Sina Sadeghzadeh
Matriculated 2021, SMS5
Sina Sadeghzadeh, from Zanjan, Iran, is pursuing the Berg Scholars Program (MD/MS) at Stanford School of Medicine. He graduated cum laude from Harvard University with a major in neuroscience and minor in economics. Sina aspires to become a physician-scientist working to develop novel treatments for complex neurocognitive and neuropsychiatric conditions. His research focuses on understanding disease-specific circuit mechanisms of cognitive control and translational electrical, genetic, and molecular approaches for restoring function. Outside of school, Sina is an avid cyclist and has biked across the United States fundraising for young adults with cancer through the Ulman Foundation. He has been named a Knight-Hennessy Scholar, John Harvard Scholar, Berg Scholar, Health Equity Scholar, Schweitzer Fellow, Graduate Public Service Fellow, Medical Scholars Fellow, and Klingenstein Fellow, and his research has been funded by various organizations including the Shurl and Kay Curci Foundation, Alpha Omega Alpha (AΩA), Neurosurgery Research & Education Foundation (NREF), American Academy of Neurology (AAN), Pars Equality Center/Hamid and Christina Moghadam (PEC/Moghadam), and the National Institute of Health (NIH T32 Award).
Masters Degree: Masters of Science in Medicine in Biomedical Investigation (2024-2025)

Meg Quint (they/them)
Matriculated 2023, SMS3
Meg (they/them) is originally from Massachusetts and attended Hobart and William Smith Colleges in NY where they obtained a BS in biochemistry with a minor in philosophy. Meg is passionate about ensuring transgender and intersex individuals have access to affirming and justice-oriented healthcare. They plan on entering plastics and reconstructive surgery to offer full spectrum gender-affirming surgeries and complete associated equity research. They hope the Health Equity Scholars Program will provide a space to learn new health-equity techniques and offer a space to collaborate with other trainees committed to health equity. Meg is a lover of puzzles and cooking, and they have two adorable cats named Frank (in honor of Rosalind Franklin) and Adson.
Masters Degree: Epidemiology (2025-2026)

Joel Adu-Brimpong
Matriculated 2021, SMS5
Joel Adu-Brimpong, originally from Ghana and raised in southwest Michigan, holds a bachelor’s degree in Biopsychology, Cognition & Neuroscience, as well as a Master's in Health Informatics from the University of Michigan. Prior to medical school, Joel served as a biomedical research fellow at the National Institutes of Health and a digital health and healthcare administration fellow at the Cleveland Clinic. Joel is passionate about leveraging emerging technologies to help shift healthcare delivery away from hospitals to homes and communities to better enhance health outcomes, particularly for medically disadvantaged populations. In his [limited] free time, Joel enjoys socializing with friends, learning Bachata and Salsa dancing, and indulging in PBS Masterpiece Classics.
Masters Degree: MBA (2024-2026)

Jacky Chu (he/they)
Matriculated 2021, SMS5
I was born and raised in San Francisco and completed my undergraduate degree in Human Biology at Stanford. Through the Health Equity Scholars Program, I am excited to build and learn from a community that has the collective goal of contributing to health equity. I am interested in learning how to apply scholarship to advocate for equitable public health and policy efforts in LGBTQ+ and other marginalized communities. In my free time, I enjoy cooking new recipes, playing video games, learning languages, and taking care of my water plants!
Masters Degree: MPH (2025-2026)

Marzan Hamid (she/her)
Matriculated 2022, SMS4
Marzan Hamid was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and raised in Toronto, Canada. She graduated summa cum laude from McMaster University with a degree in Health Sciences. Marzan is the recipient of the National TD Scholarship in Community Leadership for her work reducing health disparities in low-income, immigrant-concentrated neighborhoods in Toronto. The core of Marzan’s academic philosophy is the idea that adequate healthcare is incomplete without meeting people’s social needs. She has been a part of projects that address food insecurity, public washroom availability, and COVID-19 vaccine rollout disparities at the neighborhood level. She also spent time working at one of Canada’s eminent think tanks to work on economic inclusion policy, and was recently named a Haas Graduate Public Service Fellow. Her current research focuses on interventions to address the opioid epidemic in Santa Clara County. Marzan looks forward to a career rooted in public service, and hopes that she will be a champion for public health and health equity as a practicing physician. She hopes the Health Equity Scholars Program will foster a community that can help her grow as an advocate. Outside of her academic interests, she loves solo travelling, reading, cooking for her friends and family.
Masters Degree: MBA (2025-2027)
Preferred Name: Marzan

Kelly Hyles (she/her)
Matriculated 2021, SMS5
I am from New York City, by way of Guyana. I earned my B.A. in Human Developmental and Regenerative Biology from Harvard College. After graduating, I worked with the Ministry of Health and a private dialysis center in Guyana, focusing on enhancing access to dialysis services for remote communities. I am interested in Cardiothoracic surgery and health equity research. As a Health Equity Scholar, I am eager to share my knowledge, engage in interdisciplinary discussions, and collaborate with fellow scholars to develop innovative approaches to address health disparities. In the future, I hope to have the economic acuity to solve challenging accessibility issues for underserved communities. Beyond my studies, I find joy in creating vlogs.
Masters Degree: MBA (2024-2026)

Grace Jin (she/they/ta)
Matriculated 2022, SMS4
Jin is an artist and medical student born in Ohio but raised by her grandparents in rural Zhejiang, China. Grace received a BA in Global Affairs from Yale University, where she studied politics and pathologies of imperialism, racism and patriarchy that enact violence upon marginalized bodies. She has conducted research and fieldwork to expand access to care in Nicaragua, South Africa, China, with organizations including UNICEF in Angola, Fulbright in Taiwan, Covax and the WHO in Geneva. Grace’s practice in art, just as in medicine, is a quest to bear witness to suffering in the hopes of transforming it. Using oil painting, Chinese calligraphy, installation and performance, she creates altars for healing in the Sino-diaspora, drawing wisdom from traditional Chinese medicine, Taoist spirituality, decolonial and intersectional feminist theory. Through the Stanford Medicine MD/Masters Program in Health Equity scholarship, Grace will be pursuing a Master in Fine Arts (MFA) at California College of the Arts. She aims to use social practice art to radically reimagine the body as a site for revolution, build disruptive coalitions for health justice, and open portals toward collective liberation.
Masters Degree: MFA – California College of the Arts (2024-2026)

Nathan Makarewicz (he/they)
Matriculated 2020, SMS6
I grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah and attended Princeton University for undergrad, where I studied Visual Arts, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and competed as a varsity athlete. After Princeton, I completed a graduate Public Health program at the University of Utah and continued competing as a varsity athlete. Since graduating, I have spent much of my time doing both basic science and clinical research. As a Health Equity Scholar, I hope to use my passion for research to improve health outcomes in the LGBTQ+ and disability communities. Outside of my academic obligations, I work as a visual artist and mentor students interested in pursuing a career in medicine.
Masters Degree: MS, Epidemiology and Clinical Research (2024-2025)
Preferred Name: Nathan

Megha Patel
Matriculated 2021, SMS5
My name is Megha Patel and I was born and raised in Denver, Colorado. I completed my undergraduate degree in Public Policy at The University of Chicago and spent some time teaching 5th grade, then being a full-time foster parent before moving out to California to attend Stanford. While all dimensions of health equity are important to me, I take a special interest in health equity for vulnerable youth, Asian-Americans, and the LGBTQ community. Outside of school, I am an avid cook and love binging medical dramas.
Masters Degree: Masters Sociology (2024-2025)

Dina Sheira (she/her/hers)
Matriculated 2021, SMS5
Dina Sheira, from Morris Plains, NJ, is a first-generation Egyptian-American who is pursuing a dual MD/MBA degree. Dina earned a bachelor of arts in biology and concentration in sociology from Columbia University. She aspires to be a clinician and hospital manager to advocate for underserved patients in all facets of the hospital system. She is currently working with Dr. Stephen Richmond to investigate hospital policies that limit publicly-insured patients receiving care and plans to propose policy change to expand care for underserved populations. Dina is hoping to more deeply understand systemic discrimination in healthcare through the Health Equity Scholars Program. Dina grew up playing soccer competitively and was on the NJ Olympic Development Team and the Columbia University Women’s D1 soccer team.
Masters Degree: MD/MBA (2024-2026)
Preferred Name: Dina

Overbeck Christian Takou Mbah (he/him/his)
Matriculated 2021, SMS5
My name is Christian. I grew up in Cameroon and was born in Senegal. I went to school at the University of Massachusetts Boston where I studied Biology. I am an international medical student planning to pursue a Master’s in Epidemiology and Clinical Research. As a future population health expert, I want to focus on preventative approaches to improve the social determinants of health in resource-limited communities. From this program, I hope to gain a diverse community of peers and mentors who will help me shape and scale my objectives. In my free time, I like to draw, write, and play board and video games.
Masters Degree: MS, Epidemiology and Clinical Research (2024-2025)
Preferred Name: Christian

Apoorva Rangan
Matriculated 2021, SMS5
Apoorva Rangan, from Los Altos, California, is pursuing an MD at Stanford School of Medicine. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College with a bachelor’s degree in Human Developmental and Regenerative Biology and Philosophy. Apoorva aspires to a career working with researchers, community organizations, and older and seriously ill patients to improve quality and equity in geriatric and palliative care. She is involved with UCSF’s AMEND and the Medical Justice Alliance, contributing to medical-legal partnerships that petitioned for the early release or re-sentencing of older incarcerated adults. She is also involved with the Stanford Center on Longevity, where she studies ageism and curricular representation of geriatrics and palliative care. She has lived and worked in an intergenerational nursing home in the Netherlands. She is a Knight-Hennessy Scholar.
Masters Degree: MS, Epidemiology and Clinical Research (2024-2025)