Our Leadership

The Program in Medical Education for the Urban Underserved (PRIME-US) is overseen by a committed group of clinician-educators with years of experience and expertise in delivering care in urban underserved communities. These staff and faculty members have worked to promote health equity in urban underserved communities and educate future physician-leaders who share their vision.

Heather Hervey-Jumper, MD
Director, PRIME-US;
UCSF Clinical Professor of Medicine

Heather Hervey-Jumper is an adult anesthesiologist with a practice focused in adult cancer care and obstetric anesthesia care in the UCSF Department of Anesthesiology and Peri-operative Medicine. She has roots in the midwest, hailing from Michigan, where she spent the majority of her formative years. She attended Oakwood University, a historically black college, for her undergraduate education and received her medical school training at The Ohio State University School of Medicine. She has many years of service in the Veteran’s Affair Hospitals of Ann Arbor, MI. She joined Faculty at UCSF in 2017 and assists trainees with mentorship, career counseling, and teaching. She has served in medical school admissions for two top universities including UCSF. She has served as a SOM Bridges coach since 2020. She mentors in multiple pipeline programs for Oakland, CA youth. She is deeply committed to training excellent physicians and seeing them through to their goals. Her hobbies include hiking, kayaking the bay with baby otters and playing with her pygmy goats.

 

Leanna W. Lewis, MSW, LCSW
Administrative Program Director, JMP PRIME-US

Leanna W. Lewis is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and for more than 18 years, she has worked with a culturally and socioeconomically diverse population in schools, community agencies, and healthcare settings. Leanna is an experienced lecturer, trainer, and consultant in the areas of diversity and inclusion, cultural humility, culturally responsive and trauma-informed practice, and social determinants of health. Leanna joined the UCSF Program in Medical Education for the Urban Underserved (PRIME-US) in 2015. She is the Administrative Program Director for the PRIME-US site at the UC Berkeley Joint Medical Program. Leanna also holds the position of Manager of Cultural Humility Initiatives for the Department for Community Health and Engagement at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland. Previously, Leanna spent more than a decade as a mental health clinician at the Center for the Vulnerable Child (CVC) department at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland, providing home-based clinical mental health services and support services to foster youth and their families through a National Health Care for the Homeless program.
 

Monica U. Hahn, MD, MS, MPH
Faculty Director, PRIME-US @ JMP
UCSF Assistant Clinical Professor, Family & Community Medicine

Dr. Hahn is a family physician and Assistant Clinical Professor in the UCSF Department of Family and Community Medicine. She currently specializes in providing family-centered HIV primary care to women, children, and families, with a focus on the sexual and reproductive wellness of women living with HIV. She co-directs a family-oriented HIV primary care clinic, the Family HIV Clinic at SF General Hospital’s Family Health Center and also co-directs an HIV specialty concentration training program for UCSF Family Medicine residents. She also sees patients at HIVE clinic, a perinatal clinic for women affected by HIV, and at UCSF Women’s Health Primary Care. Dr. Hahn completed her MPH in Maternal and Child Health with an emphasis on global health at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. After completing medical school at UCSF, she completed her residency in Family and Community Medicine at UCSF. Dr. Hahn is a graduate of the very first UCSF Medical School PRIME-US class, which strengthened her passion for advocating for underserved communities and pursuing research in social determinants of health.

 

Edward Cruz, MD, MPH
Director of Admissions;
Faculty Lead, Mentorship, PRIME-US;
UCSF Professor of Pediatrics

Dr. Eddie Cruz-Romero is a Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco. He is the son of Salvadoran immigrants and was born and raised in San Francisco. He attended the University of California at Berkeley and he was the first in his family to graduate from college. He received his MD at the University of California at Davis. He completed General Pediatrics residency training at Children’s Hospital of Oakland. He completed a Health Services Research Fellowship and a Master’s in Public Health at UC Davis. He practices ambulatory pediatrics (primary care, urgent care, asthma clinic) at Zuckerberg San Francisco General. He is a physician consultant for child sex abuse for SF County. He was a School of Medicine’s Dean’s Diversity Leader for UCSF’s Differences Matter initiative. He is a student coach for the SOM’s Bridges Curriculum. He has developed a mentorship curriculum for PRIME-US. He mentors several medical students and residents especially across differences. He is also a member of the Academy of Medical Educators (AME). His interests include racial/ethnic health care disparities, DEIA, medical education, social determinants of health, and workforce diversity.

 

Lurit Bepo, MD, MPH
Faculty Lead, Outreach and Leadership Curriculum, PRIME-US
UCSF Assistant Professor of Medicine

Dr. Bepo is a general internist and clinician-educator who cares for patients in the inpatient and outpatient settings at San Francisco General Hospital. Her personal, academic, and professional missions center around caring for underserved populations, developing and nurturing a diverse healthcare workforce, and promoting health equity. In her clinical roles as an assistant professor in the Divisions of Hospital Medicine and General Internal Medicine, she provides direct patient care as well as supervises and teaches trainees in the safety net setting. In her medical education roles, she leads the procedure clinic curriculum for the Richard Fine People's Clinic, directs the UCSF San Francisco General Hospital Primary Care (SFPC) Internal Medicine Residency journal club, and serves as the faculty lead for leadership curriculum and outreach for the UCSF Program in Medical Education for the Urban Underserved (PRIME-US). Dr. Bepo completed her MD and MPH in health policy at Emory University, residency in the UCSF SFPC Internal Medicine program, inpatient chief residency at SFGH, and health policy research fellowship in the National Clinician Scholars Program at UCSF. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her family, hiking, playing board games, and traveling.

 

Jenny Espinoza, MD
 

Dr. Jenny Espinoza serves as executive director of Back to the Start, an advocacy and storytelling non-profit aimed at dismantling root causes of the cradle-to-prison pipeline.  She started her career 20 years ago as a clinician educator at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), where she attended medical school and completed residency in the SFGH Primary Care Internal Medicine Program.  She held a number of teaching roles including as an inaugural member of the PRIME-US program and as outpatient site director for the UCSF Internal Medicine Residency Program at San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center (SFVAMC). She also served Medical Director of SFVAMC Downtown Homeless Clinic.  In 2009, she accepted a position at California Correctional Health Care Services, where she served as a primary care provider at San Quentin State Prison and subsequently as a statewide Chief Physician and Surgeon.  In her Chief Physician role, she developed a statewide program to educate health care professionals on care for incarcerated patient populations. This included building out 18 clinical training sites at prisons throughout the state and developing partnerships with dozens of academic partners. During this time, Dr. Espinoza also completed a fellowship in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Culture of Health Leadership Program.  In 2023, she transitioned from her role with the state to focus on policy and systems change to improve health and other outcomes in communities impacted by incarceration. Additionally, she has returned to her teaching roots at UCSF/UC-Berkeley, serving as the Joint Medical Program (JMP) PRIME-US Faculty Lead in addition to teaching JMP students in the Problem Based Learning curriculum.

 

Zohra Saiyed, BS
Program Administrator, PRIME-US

Zohra Saiyed started her career at the age of 15 as an intern in the San Francisco Mayor’s Youth Works program, an organization dedicated to empowering high school students for future careers in the city and county of San Francisco. She received her B.S. in Physiology with a minor in Chemistry from San Francisco State University. While there, she represented the science and engineering students on the student government, advocating for their needs in the face of campus-wide budget cuts. During this time, she was an Exploratorium educator for elementary school students in San Francisco’s after-school programs. After graduating college, Zohra joined the San Francisco General Hospital Communications Department, writing for the Hospital Newsletter and Annual Report. Before joining PRIME-US, Zohra worked with the Family and Community Medicine Department Administrative team, supporting the department’s mission for four years. Zohra’s dedication to outreach, education and serving the underserved is one that she holds close to her heart.
 

Elisabeth Wilson, MD, MPH
Director, PRIME-US 2006-2014

 

Alma Martinez, MD, MPH
Founding Executive Director,
Director of Admissions and Outreach, PRIME-US 2014-2021

 

Leigh Kimberg, MD
Faculty, PRIME-US;
Director 2014-2022, PRIME-US;
UCSF Clinical Professor of Medicine

 

Aisha Queen-Johnson, MSW
Administrative Director, PRIME-US 2006-2024