Cesar Raudel Padilla, MD

Faculty Fellow

Dr. Padilla is a Clinical Assistant Professor, Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine. He is also a first-generation Mexican American from the San Francisco Bay Area. His parents emigrated from the Mexican state of Jalisco, settling in the Bay Area (Union City) in the 1970s. He would spend his summers in Mexico, where Cesar's inspiration for becoming a doctor was ignited. Dr. Padilla is double fellowship trained from Harvard in surgical critical care and obstetric anesthesiology, with additional training in critical care echocardiography. His research interests include critical care in obstetrics and addressing inequities in maternal care.

Dr. Padilla also serves as the Chief Medical Education Advisor for Alliance in Mentorship/MiMentor, a non-profit organization with a mission of mentoring underrepresented students interested in medicine. Dr. Padilla hopes to connect with, teach and inspire the next generation of students pursuing medicine.  Dr. Padilla attended the University of Rochester School of Medicine and did his residency at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Anesthesiology.

Lucia Rivera Lara, MD, MPH

Faculty Fellow

Dr. Rivera Lara is a Clinical Associate Professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences at Stanford Hospital and Clinics. Her research focuses on developing tools to target the optimal cerebral blood flow in patients with acute brain injury and coma.  She studies cerebral autoregulation and brain multimodality monitoring to prevent secondary injury which might improve outcome of patients with acute brain injury. She is also passionate about diversity, equity and inclusion of minorities, she is helping develop an advocacy curriculum to help residents and fellows overcome inequality in medicine.

After completing her fellowship training in Neurosciences Critical Care, Dr. Lucia Rivera Lara joined the faculty of Johns Hopkins University in October of 2014. There she worked as an instructor and later as an Assistant Professor in the neurocritical care unit and Neurology inpatient and consult service. Dr. Rivera Lara graduated medical school cum laude from the University of San Luis Potosi, Mexico, in 2006. She did her residency in Neurology at the University of Massachusetts from 2009 through 2012 and then completed a fellowship in Neurosciences Critical Care at Johns Hopkins in 2014. Dr. Rivera Lara received a Research award from the American Academy of Neurology/American Brain Foundation in 2014. She earned her Master’s in Public Health in 2017 at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Valerie Peicher, MD

Postdoctoral Fellow

Dr. Peicher is an Academic General Pediatrics Fellow at Stanford. She is interested in creating policy level changes to improve the health of children in mixed-status Latino families. Valerie is the proud daughter and granddaughter of immigrants. She grew up in South Florida, studied biological sciences and Hispanic studies at Rice University, taught high school biology in South Florida, attended medical school at Baylor College of Medicine, and completed her pediatrics residency at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital. While at Stanford, Valerie will participate in LEAD and obtain a Masters in the Science of Health Policy to help create a more inclusive future.

Moises Gallegos, MD

Faculty Fellow

Dr. Gallegos’ focuses his academic endeavors on the social determinants of health with a key perspective as an Emergency Medicine faculty member at Stanford.  Dr. Gallegos is also the clerkship director for Emergency Medicine and, in this key academic leadership role, oversees medical student teaching, curriculum development, and education.  Dr. Gallegos is also the course director for the Ethnicity and Medicine class for Stanford University undergraduates and medical students.

Felipe de Jesus Perez, MD

Faculty Fellow

Dr. Perez’s academic research has focused on health disparities in pediatric anesthesia clinical care.   Dr. Perez’s impactful efforts in health policy at the California state level has brought together his commitment to patient advocacy, patient safety, resident trainee education, and community outreach.