CAMPUS Care

Olamide (Lammy) Sanuth, MA, MS: Lammy is a PhD student in Public Health Sciences at UC Davis and first-generation student and immigrant from Nigeria. His research interests include the intersectionality of racism and sexism in reproductive health care, the role of partners in physician-patient dynamics, and the role of graduate medical education in producing/mitigating bias in clinical decision-making. He is also a team member of the CAMPUS Care Project. He is leading focus groups on how low-income UCD students acquire and understand health insurance and healthcare information, and how they navigate these systems.

Jocelyn Urbina-Diaz: Jocelyn is a first-generation student majoring in Human Development at UC Davis. She is a team member of the CAMPUS Care Project. she is currently examining low-income UCD student access to health care and health insurance navigation, with interests particularly in students with Medi-Cal coverage and those with mental health services needs.

Nina Gregorutti: Nina is a 4th year student majoring in Political Science and French at UC Davis. She is a team member of the CAMPUS Care Project and works closely with Aggie Compass Basic Needs Center. Nina’s interests include improving health communication, education, and outreach for fellow UCD students on health care services, access, and cost.

Nimra Nazur: Nimra  (she/her) is a first-generation college student with disabilities who graduated with a degree in Global Disease Biology from UC Davis in 2024. Her research interests include examining the health, educational and social life experiences of low-income college students with disabilities, knowledge and accessibility of services. Nimra is currently a medical assistant with Planned Parenthood. She is completing a study on low-income college students’ health management, access to healthcare, and impact on student well-being, educational, and social experiences.

Community Violence Exposure and Health

Bozhidar (Bobby) Chakalov, PhD: Bobby graduated with a PhD Public Health Sciences from UC Davis in 2026. He is a first-generation immigrant from Bulgaria. Bobby’s research interests include Policy Evaluation, Health Disparities, Health Inequities, Socioeconomic Determinants of Health, and Vulnerable Population Health. Bobby is also interested in using nontraditional data (Big Data) sources for academic research. Bobby’s previous research includes examining the long-term health outcomes of the New Deal program, characterizing the discourse of #MeToo movement on Twitter through text analysis, and studying the effects of union membership on health outcomes. Bobby’s dissertation research examines spatial access to LGBTQ+ friendly providers for sexual minority immigrants in California. Bobby has been developing different demographic, health, and criminal justice system datasets to create contextual measures of exposure to community violence.

Asian Americans in Health Professions

Vallabhi Shah: Vallabhi is an MPH student with a specialization in Healthcare Administration and Policy at the University of Nevada, Reno, and an analyst for Nevada Health Workforce Research Center. She is currently conducting a systematic review of the literature on Asian American experiences in academic medicine.

Yaejin (Evelyn) Kim: Evelyn graduated from UC Davis in 2026. She is assisting with a systematic review of the literature on Asian American experiences in academic medicine.

Kevin Dinh, PhD: Kevin received a PhD Economics at UC Davis in 2025 . Kevin’s major dissertation research involves examining nursing scope of practice and Medicaid reimbursement policy on advanced practice provider supply. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the UCSF Healthforce Center. Kevin conducted analyses on Asian American diversity across the health professions, by subgroup and immigration status, and is currently examining Asian American diversity in the biomedical sciences.

Past Members:

Yasmine Lewis: Yasmine graduated with a dual degree in Psychology and African and African American Studies from UC Davis in 2026. She is interested in social needs support, access to care for unhoused populations, and racism in healthcare and research. She is currently a student in the Stanford Community Health and Prevention Master’s Science Program.

Adia Vega: Adia graduated with a degree in Psychology from UC Davis in 2026. She examined the interactive relationships between personal experiences of discrimination, exposure to community-level mass incarceration, and cognitive decline among older Black and/or African American adults.

Kevin Dinh, PhD: Kevin received a PhD Economics at UC Davis in 2025 . Kevin’s major dissertation research involves examining nursing scope of practice and Medicaid reimbursement policy on advanced practice provider supply. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the UCSF Healthforce Center. Kevin conducted analyses on Asian American diversity across the health professions, and is currently examining Asian American diversity in the biomedical sciences.

Chinomnso Okorie, MS: Chinomnso  (she/her) is a data analyst for Kaiser Division of Research. As a lifelong resident of the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood of San Francisco, her research interests include environmental justice, access and quality of care for Black communities, structural racism, bioinformatics and data science. She is currently working on data management and analysis of lifecourse exposures to community violence and racism in the criminal justice system and cognitive outcomes in later life for a cohort Black and/or African American older adults in Northern California. She is interested in applying to PhD or combined MD/PhD programs.

Lucy Rios, MPH: Lucy (she/her) received her Public Health Sciences at UC Davis in 2026. Her research interests include addressing cancer disparities, health inequities, and Latinx health. Her dissertation focused on understanding the barriers and facilitators to lung cancer screening. Under the mentorship of Dr. Moon Chen, Lucy was the project manager for the Enhancing Lung Cancer Screening through a human-centered approach (ELFE) study funded by the V-Foundation. Lucy earned a master’s degree in public health from San Francisco State University, and her undergraduate degree in anthropology from the University of California Santa Cruz. As a first-generation scholar who comes from Latin roots and was Oakland raised, Lucy is passionate about supporting, mentoring, and training the next generation of public health scholars.  

Vicky Vong, MSPH Vicky (she/her) is a first-generation student who graduated degree in Global Disease Biology and a double minor in public health and sociology from UC Davis in 2022. Her family immigrated from Vietnam, and she grew up in Garden Grove, California. Vicky is very passionate about social determinants of health and health policies, specifically Medicaid.  She has worked on breaking down complex health science by creating educational videos and presenting to underserved Vietnamese communities. She previously worked on examining experiences of low-income first generation college students in access to health care. She believes in serving her community by improving minorities experiences with healthcare through health policies. Vicky completed her MSPH at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg SPH program in Heath Policy and Management, and is currently an analyst with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid.

Sarah Iv: Sarah (she/her) is a first-generation student who graduated from UCD in 2018 with a degree in Global Disease Biology. Sarah’s family immigrated from Cambodia and she grew up in  Stockton. As an undergraduate, Sarah worked on a project describing Southeast Asian language access among Medi-Cal primary care providers in the San Joaquin Valley. She is now working on analyses describing Asian American diversity in the health professions, within the context of Asian American histories, colonialism and imperialism. Her goal is to work in health education and access to care for Southeast Asian and other underrepresented and marginalized communities. She is strongly interested in using an intersectional lens to view and analyze data and its implications. Sarah is currently a Public Health Education specialist in the UC Davis Health Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and is a first year student in the Boston University MPH program.

Ya Yang, MPH: Ya is a PhD student in Public Health Sciences at the University of California, Davis. He is a Hmong refugee from Thailand and has lived in various parts of California’s Central Valley. His research interests include substance use among marginalized communities, health equity, and disability. Ya earned his master’s degree in Global Health from Georgetown University and holds dual bachelor’s degrees in Public Health and Psychology from the University of California, Merced. In his free time, he plays badminton.

Carmen Mitchell, PhD: Carmen (she/her) graduated from the University of Louisville with a PhD in health Policy. Carmen’s interests include the intersections of the criminal justice and healthcare systems, and overall health impacts of carceral policy. Carmen earned a master’s degree in public health from the University of Louisville, and has previously worked for the UCLA Law COVID Behind Bars project, and the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy. Carmen is currently the Director for the Division of Population Health for the Louisville Metro Department of Public Health and Wellness.

Linda Sancrant Linda (she/her/they/them) is a first-generation college student majoring in Global Disease Biology and minoring in Public Health at UC Davis. Linda was drawn to UC Davis and their major because of their passions for helping humans, animals, and the environment. Once at UC Davis Linda found new passions including infectious disease (their favorite disease is rabies) and public health. Linda graduated from UCD in spring 2024, and is currently working in biostatistics and research communications at Kaiser Division of Research. Linda was in the UPHS 2023 cohort and helped completed a literature review on landscape use and wildfire with Dr. Conlon and Dr. Jones-Ngo. Outside of school Linda enjoys spending time with their partner and teaching their dogs new tricks.

Yelitza Campos: Yelitza (she/her) received her MPH from UC Davis in summer of 2022 with an emphasis in Epidemiology. She graduated with a double major in Neurobiology, Physiology, & Behavior and Chicano/a Studies from UC Davis in 2021. Her family immigrated from Mexico, and she grew up in Chicago, Illinois, and California’s Central Valley. Growing up as the daughter of a single immigrant mother in predominately low-income communities, she recognized how health inequities manifest themselves into outcomes at a young age. Her first-hand experiences ignited her interest in becoming a physician and hopes to gain an enhanced comprehension of the integrative roles that physiological mechanisms and health disparities collectively contribute to the onset of illnesses to cultivate a holistic approach to medical care and provide patients with culturally and linguistically competent evidence-based care. She is currently the experiences of underrepresented pre-health students in preparation and application to graduate programs. She was most recently a senior research coordinator at UCSF and is applying to graduate programs in computer science.

Caitlin Jade Esparza, MD Caitlin (she/they; her/theirs) is a first-generation Chicanx student from the Inland Empire (California), who graduated from the UC Davis School of Medicine in May 2023. They were the inaugural UC Davis Vice Chancellor’s Racial Justice/Health Equity Research Scholar and their work focused on investigating the structure, scope, and impact of diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in medical education. Their research interests are informed by a desire to radically reimagine and rebuild the field of medicine around the well-being of those who have been – and continue to be – excluded from and oppressed by traditional power structures. Intimately woven with their research interests, Caitlin is also a student and community organizer with advocacy experience at the institutional, local, and state level. This includes serving as a student leader for UC Davis chapters of Medical Students for Choice (MSFC) and White Coats for Black Lives (WC4BL), co-authoring UC Davis School of Medicine’s first ever Racial Justice Report Card, and ongoing collaboration with UCDSOM on issues of health equity curricula and grading inequity. Caitlin is in their PGY-2 year in Obstetrics and Gynecology at UCSF.

Catelyn Hope Edwards, MSHPM Catelyn graduated from UC Davis with a degree in Biological Sciences and a minor in Public Health in Spring 2022. Her mother immigrated from the Philippines and her dad came from the South, but they now reside in Santa Clarita, CA. Catelyn completed two literature reviews: (1) incarceration and community health in the Black communities; (2) access to health care for rural Black communities. Catelyn graduated with a Master’s of Science in Health Policy and Management from the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health.  She is currently a Geriatric Program coordinator at NYU Langone Health. In her free time, Catelyn enjoys reading and going to museums.

Elsie Ngugi: Elsie is a UCD undergraduate whose family immigrated from Kenya and she grew up in Stockon. Elsie worked as a summer research assistant on two literature reviews: (1) Impacts of policing on Black communities, particularly health and well-being of Black adolsecents; (2) Diversity of physician assistants, and PA training on race and racism in healthcare. Elsie graduated in Spring 2023 and is applying to physician assistant programs.

Maribel Ortega: Maribel is a first-generation Chicanx student who graduated from UCD in 2020 with a degree in Global Disease Biology. Her family immigrated from Mexico and she grew up in Oxnard.  For her GDB practicum, she conducted a survey study of members of historically and structurally groups in the health professions, who aspire  health profession graduate programs. She aims to obtain a better grasp of minorities’ experiences in an effort to holistically aid their success, to diversify the healthcare workforce and provide care to underserved communities much like their own. She believes uplifting minorities within the health professions will allow for the uplifting of minority communities at large.  She is currently working as a donations operations supervisor at the San Diego Blood Blank.

Sonam Kumari, MD, MS: Sonam is a first-generation student who graduated from UCD in 2018 with dual degrees in Neurobiology, Physiology, and Behavior and Education.  Sonam’s family immigrated from India and prior to coming to UCD, Sonam went to high school in Pittsburg. Sonam examined how primary care providers address poverty-related issues for their patient populations. Sonam received a  Master’s in Global Health from UC Davis, her MD from the UCD SOM ACE-PC program in 2026 and is currently a PGY-1 in Family Medicine at UCSF.

Earl Morales: Earl is a first-generation student who graduated from UCD in 2020. Earl’s family immigrated from the Philippines and he grew up in Pittsburg. Earl assisted with cleaning and compiling data on Medi-Cal primary care providers. His goal is to gain more experience in statistical applications in public health and apply to PhD programs in either biostatistics or epidemiology. Earl completed a health information technology internship working for Covered California, then worked for CalPERS, and returned to UC Davis to enter the Master’s program in Environmental Policy and Management.

Yemi Lawrence, MD: Yemi graduated from UCD with a degree in Global Disease Biology in 2019. Yemi’s family immigrated from Nigeria and Yemi grew up in Sacramento. Yemi examined quality of care and online reviews of community health centers. Her goal is to work in healthcare and health policy in Nigeria. Yemi received her MD from UCSF in 2026 and is currently a PGY-1 in General Surgery at San Joaquin Hospital.

Armin Dorri, PhD: Armin graduated from UCD in 2018, received a PhD in Human Development and Family Studies at UT Austin in 2024 and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pittsburgh.  Armin identifies as a gay cis-male of Armenian heritage. Armin examined minority primary care providers’ experiences of bias, harassment and discrimination. His research interests include the impacts of stigma on the mental health of sexual orientation and gender identity minorities, including how the role of stigma in shaping healthcare encounters.