Alyssa Fuentes

Alyssa Fuentes was born and raised in Lodi, a small agricultural town in the northernmost part of the San Joaquin Valley. She was lucky to grow surrounded by her family, including many tios, tias, cousins, and grandparents. Both sides of her family grew up working in and around the SJV for many years, and currently many continue to live and work within their SJV communities. Since she was a kid she can be found reading, writing, or in the pool. 

Alyssa went to Tokay High School where she developed a deep interest in science and writing. She went on to complete her undergraduate education at Stanford University where she graduated in 2022 with a degree in Human Biology and a concentration in Cancer Biology and Healthcare Disparities. Throughout her studies she became increasingly aware of and interested in solving the unique healthcare crises faced by medically underserved populations. 

Alyssa took a gap year after college where she worked as a Community Health Fellow in Pomona, California. Part social worker, part health advocate, and part translator, she became very interested in Community Health; in medical school she hopes to further nurture her creativity and interpersonal skills to effectively design community health measures for populations in need. Having firsthand experience of the barriers to quality care, physician shortages, and socioeconomic challenges faced by people in her home, she wants to return to her community after her medical training to help begin to solve these issues. In her wildest dreams she would be able to work as a physician where she grew up, start a mentorship program for young people from her area to explore careers in health, and even one day write a book.

Jeanine Sandra Esteban

Jeanine was born in the Philippines and emigrated to the United States at the age of 3. She was primarily raised in Fresno, California where she attended University High School. Later, she graduated from UC Irvine in 2021 with a degree in Biological Sciences. Jeanine’s initial interest in medicine began when she sustained an injury and struggled while seeking specialized care within Fresno. In high school, she had the opportunity to volunteer at a local hospital, Community Regional Medical Center, where she witnessed additional health disparities within the San Joaquin Valley after interacting with health professionals and patients. Throughout her undergraduate and gap years, Jeanine has been involved in multiple extracurricular activities such as volunteering at hospitals, performing basic science research, and scribing, all which reaffirm her passion to become a physician. In the future, she hopes to return home to mitigate these unique disparities by providing accessible healthcare to all.

Gobinder Pandher

Gobinder was born and raised in the agricultural community of Selma, California. He grew up in a joint immigrant household and is a product of Punjabi immigrants. 

Growing up in a medically underserved and rural town, he witnessed how healthcare inequities led to poorer outcomes for his own family members. He took on the role of caretaker for his ailing grandfather, who suffered from dementia. The experience motivated him to pursue medicine in hopes to bring back quality healthcare to the San Joaquin Valley. 

Gobinder attended UCLA where he graduated in 2021 with a degree in biology. While there, he spent his time pursuing preventative health clinics, homeless feeding initiatives, and other community outreach projects to help the underprivileged communities in Los Angeles. He came back during his gap years and worked as a scribe for a group of radiation oncologists at the Clovis Cancer Institute. 

While he isn’t working, Gobinder enjoys traveling, trying new foods, watching movies, and playing with his dog. He is currently interested in orthopedic surgery and pain medicine. 

Alejandro Perez

Alejandro grew up in the rural, agricultural towns of Cantua and Kerman, California. Alejandro is the son of immigrant farmworkers from La Piedad, Michoacan. Alejandro attended Kerman Highschool and graduated from UC Davis with a major in Microbiology in 2022.  

Throughout his life, Alejandro's parents always made his education their priority to ensure he could have a successful future. They also passed on their hard-working skills and grit as Alejandro started working in the fields at 14. It was through this work that Alejandro truly understood the power of his community and the barriers they face. With this region being a major producer of various food products, farmworkers of color play a direct role in feeding communities worldwide. However, they are often overlooked, demonstrated by the barriers to accessing the culturally sensitive healthcare they deserve. Alejandro strives to be a Latino physician who helps diversify the medical field and serve all patient demographics with cultural humility to hopefully prevent stories like these.  

Alejandro's interests outside of medicine include photography, puzzling, and being out in nature. 
 

Isaac Avila-Vargas

Isaac is the proud son of hardworking, formerly undocumented farmworkers from Mexico and grew up in the rural-agrarian town of Winton, CA. At an early age, he witnessed the glaring disparities in access to healthcare faced by his Spanish-speaking parents and those around him. The limited resources and availability of medical services in the Central Valley instilled a profound commitment to one day work to address these disparities. 

Isaac attended UC Berkeley where he studied Public Health and became fascinated by the interplay of the social determinants of health as they relate to macro and micro health outcomes. After graduation, Isaac attended a 1-year postbaccalaureate program at CSU Eastbay and took time to explore his interests. During his enrichment years, Isaac volunteered as a Court Appointed Special Advocate for LGBTQ+ foster youth in Merced County and worked as a Clinical Research Coordinator at UCSF and Sutter Health-Modesto. These experiences further informed Isaac of the systemic inequities in place that continue to bar his communities from thriving. 

Isaac's pursuit of medicine goes beyond the four walls of a clinic. For him, it’s a commitment to his roots and a dedication to uplifting those who have been overlooked and underserved for far too long. He envisions a future where every individual, regardless of their background, has equitable access to quality healthcare and the opportunity to live a healthy and fulfilling life. 

In his free time, Isaac enjoys training for his annual 545-mile bike ride from SF to LA in support of AIDS/LifeCycle, exploring what it means to have a “good work-life balance” and spending quality time with friends and family.
 

Tou Bee Thao

Tou Bee Thao is an incoming medical student of Hmong descent. He is the 8th of 10 children from Cher Yia Theng Thao and Chong Vang. Tou Bee was born in Napho Refugee Camp, Thailand, and later immigrated to the United States in 1996, where his family resided in Fresno. Growing up as a Hmong immigrant in America, he lived through the cultural, social, and health disparities that impact the Hmong and other underserved communities. These experiences empowered Tou Bee to pursue medicine, with plans to help bridge the gaps between underserved communities and Western medicine. His younger brother Neng Thao’s quote: “Txaus Siab Yog Hmoob,” enlightened Tou Bee to use the unique wisdom of the Hmong community to care for his patients and the community.

Tou Bee is an Edison High School and Fresno State alumni. As a first-generation student, he was fortunate to have many mentors and a supporting family who helped him persevere and grow throughout his academic and healthcare journey.
 

Aditya (Adi) Dwivedi

Aditya (Adi) was born in Mumbai, India, and raised in Fresno. While his father tackled environmental health matters, Adi took after his mother who had been a physician in India. Unable to practice in the US due to family and financial barriers, she instead improved healthcare through quality improvement (QI) and clinical research. Growing up, Adi frequented her clinic in Dinuba which often saw farm working families in the region and made him cognizant of the inaccessibility of quality care and prevalence of diseases like diabetes.

Facing cardiometabolic disease himself, Adi was started on statins at age 11 through a research study at UCSF. An option not feasible for many in the SJV, he became motivated to advance such biomedical interventions in the SJV and would go on to study Metabolism at UC Berkeley.

Upon graduating amidst the pandemic, Adi simultaneously scribed in the Community Regional ED and conducted QI work with the Central Valley Health Network to increase colorectal cancer screening and childhood immunizations. Seeing COVID-19 disproportionately impact communities in the SJV, he became an Infectious Disease research coordinator at UCSF, helping enroll immunocompromised transplant patients, including many from the SJV, in studies to boost COVID-19 immunity or support Mpox and fungal treatments.

Through the SJV PRIME Program, Adi hopes to become a physician leader who uses QI-driven advocacy, innovative clinical trials, and community partnerships to increase accessible quality care in the region. Moreso, he is excited to do so alongside amazing peers, faculty, and community members.
 

Rhiannon Olivarez-Kidwell

Rhiannon Olivarez-Kidwell was raised in Merced, CA in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley. She loved the outdoors and spent much of her childhood outside playing with her brother and her many cousins. Rhiannon comes from a large family with a legacy of community service dating back nearly 100 years to when her great-grandparents immigrated from Mexico and founded Merced’s first mixed-race service club. Club Mercedes is still in operation today! Community service has always been a big part of Rhiannon’s life; she frequently spent her weekends volunteering with her family for local initiatives to advance education, health policy, and opportunities for Valley students. In school, Rhiannon discovered a love for science that led her to pursue dual degrees in Molecular & Cellular Biology and Neuroscience & Cognitive Science at the University of Arizona. When the COVID-19 pandemic brought Rhiannon back to the Valley for a year, she shifted her volunteer work toward health education and vaccine access. Through her work in the community and her own personal experience living with a rare disease, she witnessed the magnitude of the health disparities facing her community and committed herself to returning to serve the Valley as a physician. Rhiannon is honored to be a part of the SJV PRIME program and looks forward to becoming a physician in order to serve her community and her family in the San Joaquin Valley. 

Issac Kim

Isaac is a Bakersfield native and the son of two immigrants from Malaysia and Korea. During his time in high school, he developed a passion for medicine as he volunteered in nursing homes and met the medical missionary that had delivered his mother. He later attended Brown University, where he studied cognitive science and entrepreneurship and conducted aging research. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Isaac combined his interests in medicine and technology to make medicine more accessible to people in the Central Valley through telemedicine. He also created virtual communities in his university to address social isolation. Isaac is passionate about using technology to address disparities in healthcare, and hopes to return to the Central Valley as a physician and innovator. In his spare time, he enjoys photography/cinematography, playing his violin, coding, and designing websites.

Manreet Dosanjh

Manreet was raised on the rural outskirts of Fresno, CA and is the daughter of Punjabi-Sikh immigrants. Manreet’s interest in medicine developed at a young age when her family member was diagnosed with a life-threatening illness and struggled to receive equitable healthcare in the Valley. She attended Sunnyside High School and graduated from UCLA with a B.S. in Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics. During the pandemic, Manreet worked as a community health worker to bring equitable COVID-19 services to vulnerable populations and utilized a neighborhood approach to address the unique needs of individual communities in Fresno County. Through public health research, Manreet highlighted the local health inequities and utilized the data to inform her advocacy with city leaders and assemblymembers.

Through SJV-PRIME, Manreet hopes to become a physician leader and bring high-quality compassionate care to Fresno. She is determined to close the life expectancy gap between residents in rural and underserved areas compared to better-resourced communities by advocating for policy change, challenging the status quo, and dismantling structural barriers to equitable healthcare. Manreet’s interests outside of school include spending time with her golden retriever and loved ones, trying new foods, traveling, and weightlifting.

Lasya Gudipudi

Lasya was born and raised in Clovis, CA as a first generation Indian-American. She attended Buchanan High School and graduated from UCLA with a degree in psychobiology. Lasya’s passion for medicine was confirmed when she saw the significant impact the COVID-19 pandemic had on marginalized groups by working with the Fresno County Public Health Department and scribing in the emergency department at Community Regional Medical Center. Witnessing the challenges and lack of healthcare resources that underserved communities had to face motivated her to become a physician and give back to the community that has raised her. As part of the SJV PRIME program, Lasya is excited to advocate for health equity and promote health literacy among underserved communities. During her free time, Lasya enjoys playing tennis, trying new restaurants, and spending time with her family and friends. 

Maram Kiran

Maram Kiran, the third of six children in a Yemeni immigrant family, was born and raised in Fresno, California. Growing up in the Valley as a young Yemeni American, Maram personally experienced how socioeconomic, cultural, and language barriers limited her family’s access to quality health care. During visits to Sana’a, Yemen, where her family is from, Maram witnessed the generational effects of minimal healthcare infrastructure and access and was inspired to pursue medicine. 

At California State University, Fresno, Maram pursued her Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry through the Smittcamp Family Honors College. At Fresno State, Maram founded the Doctors Without Borders Chapter, where she learned more about emergency medical access programs and global health from humanitarian workers and providers. With the student chapter, she collaborated with community organizations to provide COVID-19 vaccination and food access to the Fresno community. Maram also conducted physical chemistry research through the Chemistry Honors and Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation programs and volunteered at multiple clinical settings in Fresno, including an adult oncology clinic, a free health clinic, and an impacted emergency room during the pandemic. After graduating, Maram worked as a clinical research coordinator in pediatric oncology at Valley Children’s Hospital, where she repeatedly saw the need for equitable access for patients to participate in research and for physicians who understood and incorporated their patients’ culture in their medical care. 

Maram’s goal is to provide culturally competent health care to the underserved communities of the San Joaquin Valley and advocate for her patients in any and every way. She is excited for the opportunity to pursue her medical education as part of the UCSF SJV PRIME program. In her free time, Maram enjoys spending time with her family, especially her younger sister and niece, and cooking and baking new recipes. As a coffee enthusiast, she also likes to visit new coffee shops with her husband and take home different espresso beans to try.