Trainees

Caitlin Collins, MD MPH
Caitlin Collins is a general surgery resident at the University of California, San Francisco. In 2019, she completed a master's in Public Health at the University of California,Berkeley with a focus on Interdisciplinary Studies and Global Health. Her research has focused on alternative payment models, health equity, and quality improvement within surgical populations. Under the guidance and mentorship of Dr. Catherine Juillard and Dr. Alain Chichom Mefire, she has worked on the implementation of quality improvement initiatives for trauma care in Cameroon.

Lauren Eyler, MD
Lauren is a General Surgery resident at UCSF and is completing a PhD in Biostatistics at UC Berkeley during her residency research years. She is interested in developing novel machine learning algorithms to help guide surgical systems development and improve health equity in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). She is currently working on a statistical algorithm to define population-targeted breast cancer risk prediction models for ethnic groups with limited data. She is funded by the NIH-UC Berkeley Biomedical Big Data Fellowship.

Obieze Nwanna -Nzewunwa, MBBS MSc
Obieze graduated from the University of Nigeria College of Medicine,  practiced medicine for 5 years in Africa and Asia and then acquired a masters degree in global health sciences from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) in 2015. Thereafter, he was a global surgery fellow at UCSF until 2018 when he commenced surgery residency at Maine Medical Center, Portland, ME.

His expertise and interests include improving global surgical access, surgical health systems  research, health economics and policy research, medical innovation, trauma, and prehospital care. He is currently conducting a cost effectiveness analysis of current femur fracture treatment relative to other surgical conditions at a rural government hospital in Northeastern Uganda.

Lauren Agoubi, MD MA
Lauren Agoubi is a second-year resident in General Surgery at the University of  Washington. She received a B.A. in Chemistry at Williams College with minors in Africana Studies and French Language. Following this, she completed a combined research year and master's degree in Ireland, studying the relationship between advocacy, policy-making, and women's health outcomes. Lauren attended the University of Michigan Medical School, and before her final year, conducted a stakeholder analysis to assess the political priority for surgery,obstetrics, and anesthesia in Cameroon. Her current interests include systems-based improvements in health policy and population health.

Madeline Tiee, MD
Maddy is a second year orthopaedic surgery resident at the Loyola University Medical Center. From 2010-2012, she served in Peace Corps Senegal as an environmental health volunteer where she developed an interest in health disparities and barriers to healthcare access. She attended medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, and has since been involved in analyzing population-level data on limb injuries in Cameroon. Her research interests include trauma health systems and capacity building for low- and middle-income countries.

Dennis Zheng, MD
Dennis is a third-year resident in General Surgery at the University of California, Los Angeles. He graduated cum laude with a bachelor's degree in History of Art and Architecture from Harvard University in 2012. He then spent a year in Johannesburg, South Africa, founding the African Sports & Scholastic Initiative for Students in Townships, a non-profit tutoring organization for local youth. He went on to attend medical school at the University of California, San Francisco. In 2016 he was awarded a Doris Duke International Clinical Research Fellowship to spend a year in Soroti, Uganda, focused on the development and implementation of a trauma registry at the local government hospital. Beginning in 2021 he will begin work in Cameroon on trauma quality improvement with the support of a GloCal Health Fellowship. Interested in global health, health systems, and medical education, he hopes to pursue a career in trauma and acute care surgery.

Kevin Blair, MD
Kevin is a PGY4 general surgery resident who attended medical school at Northwestern's Feinberg School of Medicine, and undergrad at Vanderbilt University. Clinically, he is most interested in Trauma & Critical Care, and he has prior research experience in trauma system development in LMICs. For his current research work, Kevin is partially funded through the H&H Lee Surgical Research Scholars Program for his work evaluating the implementation of a hospital based violence intervention program in San Salvador, El Salvador. Additionally, he is a research fellow through the NIH-funded South American Program in HIV Prevention Research Program (SAPHIR) through which he is studying anal cancer screening among HIV-infected MSM in Bogotá, Colombia.

Mark Yost, MD
Mark is a Resident Physician in General Surgery at UCLA. He is from San Jose, CA and completed his medical degree at Harvard Medical School. Mark has over a decade of experience working in primary medical and dental care in the Dominican Republic. His past research includes implementing an insulin delivery system using community health workers to provide comprehensive diabetic care for patients with insulin-dependent diabetes. For his dedicated research years, Mark plans to travel to Cameroon to study the cultural impact of a mobile phone based follow up tool in trauma patients. Mark also plans to study for his Master in Public Health during his research years and apply this knowledge to the improvement of surgical systems.

Kent Garber, MD
Kent is a fifth-year general surgery resident at UCLA. Before medical school he worked as a journalist. He is interested in improving the effectiveness and increasing the accountability of large-scale health interventions in fragile and conflict-affected countries.

Amanda Labora, MD
Amanda (she/her/hers) is a resident physician in General Surgery at UCLA. She was born and raised in Miami, FL and is a proud dual-citizen of the United States and Mexico. Her academic interests include health equity, global surgery, implementation science, surgical simulation, and point-of-care ultrasound. Her interest in global surgery is guided by the knowledge that no community has a monopoly on talent and rooted in the desire to build ethical, mutual partnerships across cultures. She has helped implement an ATLS-based trauma course in Nicaragua and completed a Fulbright research fellowship on obstetric violence in Mexico. While in medical school, she co-founded a 501(c)(3) non-profit called EqualRx that seeks to promote racial justice in medicine through anti-racist curricula for healthcare students and workers. She holds an MD from the University of Pennsylvania and a BA from Brown University.

Razmik Ghukasyan MD, MBA
Razmik  is  a fourth-year general surgery resident at UCLA. He is interested in surgical oncology, and currently works on multiple basic science and clinical projects that focus on pancreatic cancer. Razmik also works under Dr. Shant Shekherdimian's mentorship on several public health projects in Armenia. The main one focuses on exploring the attitudes and beliefs about breast cancer and its screening among women residing in Armenia.

Rivfka Shenoy
Born in Portland, Oregon, Rivfka Shenoy completed her BA at Washington University in St. Louis and then graduated with an MD from New York University School of Medicine before starting general surgery residency at UCLA. Her research focuses on using large databases to understand healthcare disparities, specifically in the fields of gallbladder disease and postoperative opioid prescribing and whether standardization of surgical treatment processes can prevent such inequities. She recently completed her Masters in Health Policy and Management at UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and is a research fellow with the UCLA National Clinical Scholars Program.

Ariane Christie, MD
S. Ariane Christie, M.D. is a fellow with clinical interests in trauma and acute care surgery. She graduated summa cum laude from Hendrix College with a B.A. in philosophy and was the recipient of a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship in 2007. She received an M.D. with AOA distinction from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and went on to pursue general surgical residency training at the University of California, San Francisco. In 2016, Ariane was presented with the AAS/AASF Global Surgery Research Fellowship Award which she used to implement a community-based survey of injury in the Southwest region of Cameroon, under the guidance of Dr. Juilliard and Dr. Dicker. Her research interests focus on the validation of methods for implementing sustainable surgical and trauma systems to strengthen care in diverse and low-income settings.

Fonje Mouansie Ahmed Nour, MD
Ahmed is a Cameroonian-trained physician who graduated from the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Buea. He is currently working as a medical officer and occupational health physician at the Daniel Muna Memorial Clinic in Douala. Ahmed is interested in clinical research in surgery, and aims to further specialize in orthopedic surgery. In 2017, he was involved in a large-scale community-based survey of the Southwest region of Cameroon where he collected data on the prevalence and care-seeking behaviors of persons with limb injuries.

Emerson Wepngong, MD
Emerson received his medical degree from the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Buea, Cameroon. He is currently working as a site manager, physician and regional focal person for the Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV (PMTCT) with the PEPFAR/CDC funded HIV Free Projects in Cameroon. Emerson is passionate about public health research and was previously involved in a  community-based survey of injury in the Southwest region of Cameroon. He is currently working on a research manuscript investigating the incidence and factors associated with torso injury in this region of Cameroon.

William Chendjou, MD
William is a Cameroonian physician who received his medical degree from the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Buea.  He is currently working as a general practitioner and HIV coordinator for the Mount Mary Hospital in Buea. His research interests include surgical oncology and causes of limb amputations in conflict areas.

Eunice Bessem Cole Oben, MD
Eunice is a Cameroonian-trained physician who received her medical degree from the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Buea. She is currently practicing at the hemodialysis unit of the Buea Regional Hospital Annex in Buea, Cameroon. Eunice previously worked as a research assistant on a community-based study of injury in the Southwest region of Cameroon. She has prepared a manuscript on the patterns, care-seeking behaviors, and impact of home injury in the Southwest region. Eunice’s other research interests include environmental and occupational health.

Susana N. Mbeboh, MD
Susana is a medical doctor who received her degree from the University of Buea, Cameroon in 2017. Susana’s prior research experience includes a community-based survey assessing the prevalence, care-seeking practices, and economic impact of visual impairment in the Southwest region of Cameroon. She aspires to become an ophthalmologist and has an interest in clinical research. Susana is currently working her path to securing residency in her dream specialty.

Andrea Araujo
Andrea graduated from the University of California, Davis with a B.S in cell biology from the University Honors Program. She  is currently a medical student at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Andrea’s interests lie in pioneering health disparities research affecting vulnerable communities using human centered design and quality improvement methods to create a meaningful impact. Andrea is passionate about teaching and advocating for equal access to higher education among disadvantaged youth.

Christopher Yoon
Christopher Yoon is a 3rd year medical student at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Prior to medical school, he worked in emergency services at various academic hospitals in Southern California. As a member of the Global Health Pathway, he most recently spent 6 weeks in Soroti, Uganda working with Ugandan physicians to develop trauma audit filters, a key component of quality improvement programs for trauma hospitals. He is currently working under Drs. Rochelle Dicker and Obieze Nwanna Nzewunwa on the health economics of injury in Uganda. Other research interests include assessment of value-based care in medical systems.

Nikhil Bellamkonda
Nikhil Bellamkonda is a fourth year medical student at UCLA. He graduated magna cum laude from UC Davis with a B.S in Neurobiology and Physiology. Early in medical school he conducted and published cost effectiveness analyses of general surgical procedures at the Soroti Regional Referral Hospital in Soroti, Uganda. He also has been involved in work exploring the epidemiology of TBI in Cameroon. Nikhil will be pursuing residency training in Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery.

Kevin Ding
Kevin Ding is a medical student at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. His academic interests include global health, surgery, and neuroscience. Kevin's research interests in global surgery began in medical school while participating in PASE's quality improvement projects in Cameroon. While in Cameroon, Kevin looked at the current status of patient safety culture and its importance in the success of QI initiatives. In the future, he hopes to investigate the barriers to and development of effective traumatic brain injury management in LMICs.

Nicole Nguyen
Nicole is a medical student at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA class of  2022. She has been actively engaged with global health since she was an undergraduate at UCLA, where she was a prime associate in the Social Assistance Program for Vietnam, an entirely volunteer-run, nonprofit organization based in Garden Grove, CA that provides and helps develop sustainable services in healthcare, education, and social welfare. Her work abroad in Vietnam and locally in Orange County earned her the Vietnamese Physician Association's Humanitarian Award in 2017. In the summer of 2019, she traveled to Douala, Cameroon through the Global Health Program's Global Short-Term Training Program (GSTTP), under the mentorship of UCLA trauma surgeon, Dr. Catherine Juillard. There, she evaluated the efficacy of a pilot quality improvement training course and the safety culture of hospitals within the region. With a passion for global health equity, Nicole continues to be an active member of the Global Health Pathway at UCLA.

Patrick Sur
Patrick Sur, MPH, is a third-year MD candidate at the University of California Riverside School of Medicine, currently exploring patterns of traumatic injury within a regional referral hospital in Eastern Uganda. Prior to medical school, Patrick worked as a research fellow at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) on the Global Burden of Disease Study. Upon graduation, Patrick plans to pursue a career as both a trauma surgeon and researcher that continually works toward a more equitable provision of surgical resources worldwide.

Joey Wertz
Joseph Wertz is a current medical student at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He graduated from Harvard University with a degree in applied mathematics. Prior to medical school, Joseph was a research assistant studying firearm ownership and firearm-related violence at the Harvard Injury Control Research Center at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He has combined his interests in statistics, public health, and medicine to co-author papers on various topics including the movement into and out of gun ownership and, most recently, fatal police shootings. His current research interests include fatal school violence and firearm-safety counseling in the clinical setting.