Team Structure
The AOCI Team continues to actively build a coalition with curricular leaders, faculty, staff, students, expert consultants, and community members. This collaborative effort aims to enhance curricular content, pedagogy, and para-curricular activities, supporting the ongoing shift of all elements of the Bridges Curriculum towards an increasingly anti-racist, anti-oppressive approach.
Core Team
Denise Connor, MD
Kate Lupton, MD, FACP
Tamara Lawson, MBA
Catherine Chadwick, MPH
Denise Connor, MD, Professor of Medicine, Director, Anti-Oppression Curriculum Initiative. Dr. Connor leads the efforts of the AOCI team to apply an anti-oppressive lens to the entire four-year Bridges Curriculum and to synergize this curricular work across other key domains of medical education.
Kate Lupton, MD, FACP, Professor of Medicine, Assistant Director, Anti-Oppression Curriculum Initiative, Director, GME Health Professions Education Pathway, and Co-Director, Specialty Practice Ambulatory Sub-Internship (SPAN). Dr. Lupton supports and partners with Dr. Connor in leading the efforts of the AOCI team.
Tamara Lawson, MBA, Project Manager, Anti-Oppression Initiatives, is the project manager for the AOCI and collaborates with teams of faculty, students, staff, and workstream leaders to manage the progress of the AOCI. For general questions about the AOCI, please contact Tamara Lawson.
Catherine Chadwick, MPH, Curriculum Coordinator, Assessment, Curriculum, Evaluations (ACE), is the staff coordinator for the AOCI and collaborates with the faculty team to implement anti-oppressive changes to the curriculum. For any questions about the AOCI curriculum review and revision process, please contact Catherine Chadwick.
Curricular Liaisons
In the summer of 2021, eight faculty educators were selected to serve as Curriculum Component Liaisons (CCL). Each CCL collaborated with Bridges curricular leaders to adjust and enhance the curriculum using an anti-oppressive lens. With the transition of some of our initial Liaisons to other roles, four new AOCI Liaisons joined our team in the Fall of 2024. Below are our current AOCI Liaisons:
Bianca Argueza, MD, MPH, HS, Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
Carmen Cobb, MD, Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics
Monica Hahn, MD, MPH, MS, Associate Professor of Family and Community Medicine and OBGYN Associate Director of Inquiry and Evaluation for PRIME-US
Corina Iacopetti, MD, MA, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
Daniela Maristany, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine
Willieford (Willie) Moses, MD, Assistant Professor of Surgery
Meghan O'Brien, MD, MBE, Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine
Mia Williams, MD, MS, Assistant Professor of Medicine
AOCI-Student Collaborative
In December 2021, an AOCI-Student Collaborative was launched with 19 students. By 2024, the Collaborative had grown to include 35 students recruited from among all current medical students. Members of the Student Collaborative provide feedback on both high-level strategy and detailed aspects of the workstreams. A Student Collaborative representative also joins the Student Supergroup as a standing member to share updates and gather feedback from leaders of medical student groups on campus.
In 2024-2025, the AOCI-Student Collaborative was facilitated by AOCI Yearlong Fellow, Jessa Culver, Class of ‘26, with support from Denise Connor, MD.
Marcos Armendariz – 2024
Benjamin Jones – 2024
Sabrina Mendez-Contreras – 2024
Rachel Mernoff – 2024
Hamedullah Noorulhuda – 2024
Kelsey Ogomori – 2024
Elizabeth Picazo – 2025
Cindy Folefack – 2025
Leo Garcia – 2025
Alli Gomez – 2025
Hee Joo Ko – 2025
Jessica Ma – 2025
Helene Miles – 2025
Catherine Nicholas – 2025
Kevin Reyes – 2025
Katarina Watson – 2025
Nikki Apana – 2026
Michael Chichioco – 2026
Catherine Gao – 2026
Kai Huang – 2026
Katherine Miclau – 2026
Uwaila Omokaro – 2026
Jonah Thornton – 2026
Debbie Adam – 2027
Korena Boyd – 2027
Thang Diep – 2027
Mahika Nayak – 2027
Austine Peng – 2027
Charlie Dubach-Reinhold – 2027
Chelsea Duong – 2027
Eva Kitten – 2027
Diego Martinez Mendiola – 2027
Mandy Quan – 2027
Ivy Tran – 2027
Alythia Vo – 2027
Daniel Zager – 2027
Jay Zussman – 2028
Integrating the AOCI Across the UCSF School of Medicine
In addition to the AOCI Core Team, faculty and staff members who lead core areas across the medical school— including Student Support, Assessment, Faculty Development, Evaluation and Continuous Quality Improvement, Technology, and Communication—collaborate with the AOCI team to ensure an AO, equity-focused lens is fully integrated across our school.
Some of AOCI's key sponsors and partners include:
John Davis, PhD, MD, Associate Dean for Curriculum, Interim Associate Dean for Assessment and Professor of Medicine. Dr. Davis collaborates with the assessment staff and faculty directors to implement UCSF’s forward-thinking approach to assessment with the goal of minimizing the impact of bias in assessment, as well as consider novel approaches to assessment for curricular content focused on anti-oppression.
Arianne Teherani, PhD, Professor of Medicine, Director for Program Evaluation and Education Continuous Quality Improvement for the School of Medicine, collaborates with Kelly Kao, Office of Medical Education, Chief of Staff, to implement a continuous quality improvement program for evaluation and assessment that is integrated into the school’s existing Curriculum Governance structure, in close collaboration with the AOCI team.
Chandler Mayfield, Executive Director of Technology Enhanced Education (TEE), guides technology to improve accessibility, promote equity, and minimize the impact of bias in close collaboration with the AOCI team.
Sara Clemons, Executive Director (ACE), collaborates with Kelly Kao, Office of Medical Education, Chief of Staff, and the School of Medicine Communications team to provide change management and communications support to ensure that all partners are informed and have opportunities to participate in, contribute to, and provide feedback to the AOCI.
