Born and raised in Colombia. She completed her medical school training at Universidad CES Escuela de Medicina in Medellin, Colombia. Upon graduation she moved to the United States and worked in hematology clinical trials at USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer center for two years. She then matched into internal medicine residency at Mayo Clinic, Florida campus. During residency her research focused on analyzing the barriers for clinical trial recruitment in minority patients. Additional areas of interest include elucidating the clinicopathologic characteristics, risk factors, response to treatment and prognosis of rare lymphomas, including Hepatosplenic T-cell Lymphoma. Leyla is looking forward to starting her fellowship at Stanford. She hopes to continue her training in clinical trial development with a focus on improving overall clinical trial accrual, and overcoming the barriers that prevent clinical trial participation among minority patients.