With an early interest in healthcare, Taylor pursued training as an EMT after high school, and he worked in the emergency department before and during his undergraduate years studying Biomedical Sciences at Quinnipiac University. Taylor then worked in the emergency department at Yale University for 6 years (doing more than 7,000 hours of direct patient care!), before deciding to pursue medical school. He matriculated at Cornell Medical College, from where he earned his Global Health Certificate. Taylor’s primary interest is in non-communicable diseases: in addition to participating in clinical service in Ecuador for 1 month and in Tanzania for 2 months, he spent two years studying the impact of HIV on cardiovascular outcomes and cytokine responses to IGRAs. During residency, Taylor hopes to further develop his evolving interests in cardiovascular medicine, particularly as the prevalence of non-communicable diseases continues to rise in low- and middle-income countries.

Vicky spent her undergraduate years at Penn State, where she was a member of the Penn State Global Medical Brigades, through which she worked in Panama, Ghana and Nicaragua. She then pursued her MD/PhD training through Emory University School of Medicine and the NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars Program, where she received her DPhil in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Oxford and the Rocky Mountain Laboratories (NIH). Vicky is fascinated by emerging pathogens, especially viruses. Initially, her research focused on characterizing the antibody response to Nipah virus, but during the pandemic, she quickly shifted to focus on serology responses to COVID-19 vaccines and studied samples from immunocompromised patients persistently infected with SARS-CoV-2. As a medical student at Emory, she spent 1 month studying neonatal sepsis practices and outcomes in Ethiopia as an ASTMH Benjamin Kean Fellow, and she also spent 2 months participating in the Epidemiology Elective Program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Vicky hopes to continue to study emerging viruses and antibody responses, and to perhaps focus on the development of low-cost diagnostics to facilitate detection and characterization of these pathogens. Given her experience and passion for research, Vicky also matched into our Infectious Diseases fellowship as part of the TIP Program, where she will continue her residency research during her Infectious Diseases fellowship.

Marilyn Ndukwe received her undergraduate degree from Xavier University in New Orleans and her medical degree from Dartmouth. She has been recognized for humanism and leadership, being elected to the Gold Humanism Honor Society and serving as Student Body President at Dartmouth, representing over 400 students and overseeing 70 student government members. Prior to pursuing medical school, Marilyn spent ~2 years working at Gilead, developing an agent targeting Interleukin-1 receptor-associated kinase-4 (IRAK4). IRAK4 plays a role in the pathophysiology of IBD, RA, SLE, and lymphoma; this agent is currently in Phase 1 clinical trials. As a medical student, she has done research in non-invasive colorectal cancer screening and has studied differences in heart failure treatment in urban versus rural areas. Marilyn aspires to continue to study NCDs, aiming to improve NCD care in low-resource settings, specifically in her native country, Nigeria.

Candice Hwang received her undergraduate degree from Yale and graduated from Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine. Prior to medical school, she spent 2 years working at the nonprofit Results for Development in Washington, D.C., for which she tracked nutrition spending in Ethiopia and provided recommendations for how their Ministry of Health can budget to improve nutrition programs. While at Northwestern, Candice completed a research year as a Fogarty Fellow in South Africa. During that year, she studied uptake and retention in HIV care among pregnant women living with HIV under different policy eras of antiretroviral therapy access. Candice is currently interested in hospital medicine, clinical informatics, and health systems/policy, with a focus on her home country of China.

Nick Zehner studied Philosophy at Anderson University and joined the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic. Following his Peace Corps stint, he worked as a regional leader for the Peace Corps before matriculating at Stanford School of Medicine. Nick pursued a Master’s in Epidemiology and Clinical Research, and he has used his skills in his research focusing on studying the natural history of malaria in the first year of life in Uganda, and studying malnutrition prevention / evaluating training of community health providers in in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Nick also led an investigation of a COVID-19 outbreak at a Bay Area biotech company, finding that most of the infections were in the assembly workers, thereby highlighting healthcare disparities in our local population. Nick plans to pursue a fellowship in Infectious Diseases.