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Micromentor bios
Amanda Millstein, MD, FAAP
Dr. Amanda Millstein graduated from residency 11 years ago and in that time has worked at 3 different primary care clinics in the Bay Area, including now at an academic clinic. She took time away from clinical medicine to lead a non-profit related to climate change and health. She is happy to talk to any mentees, especially about primary care, advocacy, climate/environmental health, balancing parenting and doctoring, and more.
Amy Whittle, MD, FAAP
Dr. Amy Whittle is a general pediatrician seeing patients in primary care and urgent care at the Children's Health Center at ZSFG. She also holds educational and clinic leadership roles related to behavior & development and mental health. She is the medical director for a social need referral program called HealthAdvocates.
Colleen Kraft, MD, FAAP
Dr. Colleen Kraft co-directs the Advocacy track at CHLA and has spent most of her career working with non-profit organizations that do good work for children. She was both a chapter and National AAP President. She cares about advocacy at the Individual, Community and Legislative levels.
Erin Holsinger, MD, FAAP
Dr. Erin Holsinger is a Lecturer in the Department of Health Policy and a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics. In Health Policy, she is a co-director of the Health Services and Policy Research Scholarly Concentration in the School of Medicine and the Administrative Director of the Health Policy MS and PhD programs. In Pediatrics, she is an attending physician at the Gardner Packard Children’s Health Clinic. She is a member of Stanford’s LongSHOT (Longitudinal Study of Handgun Ownership and Transfer) team and performs research about the impact of gun ownership on the risk of death for the gun owner and those who live with them.
Gena Lewis, MD, FAAP
Dr. Gena Lewis has spent over 30 years at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland, leading the Primary Care Clinic and FQHC while building programs in immigrant health, homeless outreach, and complex care coordination through partnerships with 20+ community organizations. She has been a statewide leader in pediatric advocacy training, co-founding the California Collaborative for Pediatric Resident Advocacy Training and creating a medical-legal collaborative and mobile health van to address social inequities affecting children. She currently practices at an FQHC serving immigrant and medically complex children while directing the residency continuity clinic.
Grace Lee, MD, MPH, FAAP
Dr. Grace Lee is a pediatric ID physician with extensive work in vaccines, infection prevention, public health surveillance, and health policy. She currently serve as Chief Quality Officer for Stanford Medicine Children's Health, where she oversees safety, quality, patient experience, and health equity work for our organization.
Jyothi Marbin, MD, FAAP
Dr. Jyothi Marbin is a pediatrician at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland and Assistant Dean of the UCSF Regional Campus at UC Berkeley, where she directs the UC Berkeley–UCSF Joint Medical Program. Her work bridges medical education, medicine and immigration. She is a USCIS-designated Civil Surgeon, volunteers in the UCSF Health & Human Rights Pediatric Asylum Clinic, and supports immigration legal casework with the East Bay Community Law Center.
J. Raul Gutierrez, MD, MPH, FAAP
Dr. Gutierrez is an associate professor at UCSF with nearly 15 years of experience working with immigrant children. He is based at Zuckerberg San Francisco General, where he co-founded and co-directs the BRIDGES clinic, a multidisciplinary team committed to a holistic and community-supported approach to wellness for recently immigrated children. He is the UCSF Health and Human Rights pediatrics co-lead and co-director of the Center of Excellence for Immigrant Child Health and Wellbeing with Benioff Children’s Hospitals. He chairs the Council on Immigrant Child and Family Health with the AAP. From interpreting at a free clinic in college to working with migrant farm workers in Michigan and now advocating for asylum-seeking families in the Bay Area, he is committed to serving resilient communities that deserve to be seen. He has always found inspiration in his abuela’s journey and carries her strength as an immigrant woman with him daily.
Lena van der List, DO, FAAP
Dr. Lena van der List is a general pediatrician at UC Davis with an interest in media advocacy and improving health care communication. She completed medical school at Western University of Health Sciences and her pediatric residency at UC Davis and serves as one of the advocacy committee co-chairs for the AAP CA - chapter 1. She is the co-host and founder of the Kids Considered podcast and youtube series Little Lessons which share evidence based pediatric information directly to families. Dr. van der List works with pediatric residents on their advocacy rotations teaching legislative advocacy, media training and Op-Ed writing. Her Op-Ed workshop has been presented at conferences, published in the Journal of Hospital Medicine and has led to many successful published pieces amongst participants.
Lisa Patel, MD, FAAP
Dr. Lisa Patel practices as a pediatric community hospitalist and serves as Executive Director of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health, a network of 58 medical societies and 30 climate and health state groups advocating for local and state climate policy. Her work spans plant-forward diets, sustainable healthcare, climate-resilient schools, renewable energy transitions, and challenging the fossil fuel industry. She is passionate about coalition-building, organizational change, effective storytelling-based communication, and activating health professionals to use their trusted voice.
Mark Del Monte, JD
Mark Del Monte serves as CEO/Executive Vice President of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), where he has worked for 21 years. Prior to becoming CEO, he served as the AAP's Chief Deputy and Senior Vice President for Advocacy and External Affairs, directing the organization's communications, public relations, and advocacy activities. Before joining the AAP, he was Director of Policy and Government Affairs for the AIDS Alliance for Children, Youth & Families, a national organization advocating for children and families with HIV/AIDS. He began his career as a lawyer in his home state of California, providing direct legal services to low-income children and families affected by HIV.
Ndidi Unaka, MD, MEd, FAAP
Dr. Ndidi Unaka is Chief Health Equity Officer (CHEO) for Stanford Medicine Children’s Health (SMCH) and a Clinical Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine. She completed pediatric residency and chief residency at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and was faculty in the Division of Hospital Medicine at Cincinnati Children’s from 2011 – June 2024. In addition to her clinical role as a pediatric hospitalist, she served as the Associate Program Director of the Pediatric Residency Program at Cincinnati Children’s from 2011 – January 2022. Prior to her transition to SMCH in July 2024, she worked on institution-level community health initiatives at Cincinnati Children’s within the Fisher Child Health Equity Center and the Office of Population Health.
Neel Patel, MD, FAAP
Dr. Neel Patel has been an active AAP member since completing training at Children's Oakland in 2004. At AAP-CA1 he has served in roles such as Young Physicians Committee co-chair, San Mateo Area Director, President , and First 5 San Mateo Physician Champion focused on Help Me Grow. As President, he is committed to advocating for children, families, and pediatricians while promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion, chapter philanthropy, and CME opportunities. He is inspired by his chapter's network of dedicated pediatricians and aims to strengthen those bonds while connecting Chapter 1 with other California chapters.
Nicole Webb, MD, FAAP
Dr. Nikki Webb is a pediatric hospitalist, residency program director at Kaiser Oakland, immediate past president of AAP CA-1 and current executive board member of AAP CA. She is passionate about advocacy and medical education, and leveraging all of the tools in our toolbox to improve outcomes for kids and communities. She also oversees the AAP resolution process for CA, which is a powerful mechanism for individual members to make their voices heard by national AAP on child health issues they are passionate about.
Nora Pfaff, MD, FAAP
Dr. Nora Pfaff is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and pediatric hospitalist at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital. She has been actively involved in pediatric advocacy for more than six years through the American Academy of Pediatrics, serving as a Chapter 1 State Government Affairs representative and helping lead local and statewide advocacy initiatives. Her advocacy interests include child health policy, healthcare access, and physician engagement in advocacy. She is passionate about mentoring trainees and early-career physicians in developing advocacy skills and integrating advocacy into their careers.
René Bravo, MD, FAAP
Dr. René Bravo is a primary care pediatrician on California's Central Coast and current President of the California Medical Association (CMA), where he's held leadership roles including District V Trustee, TAC chair positions, and House of Delegates Reference Committee Chair. As founder and managing partner of Bravo Pediatrics, a five-physician group practice, he brings decades of hands-on clinical leadership alongside deep experience in medical governance, health policy, and physician wellness advocacy (having chaired his county medical society's Wellness Committee for 10 years). A UCSF Medical School graduate with a Stanford pediatric residency, his mentorship perspective is shaped by both practice-building expertise and system-level health policy work spanning Medi-Cal, USP, and children's health insurance access initiatives.
Serena Yang, MD, MPH, FAAP
Dr. Serena Yang is a Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at UC Davis Health, completed her pediatric residency and fellowship in Academic General Pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine/Texas Children’s Hospital. During her fellowship, she attained an MPH in International and Family Health at UT Houston School of Public Health. Dr. Yang’s academic interests focus on community health/advocacy training and establishing innovative and sustainable community-clinical partnerships that improve networks of care, community linkages, and systems that advance health equity for all children and families.
Stephanie Y. Fong Gomez, MD, MS, FAAP
Stephanie Y. Fong Gomez, MD, MS is a Bay Area native who has spent over a decade serving its youth and families through schools, nonprofit spaces, collaborative research efforts, advocacy, and clinical care. A child advocate at the intersection of pediatrics and health equity, she is invested in upstream solutions to address a broad range of child health issues, including racial justice, immigration, education, and health care access. She earned her medical and master’s degrees through the UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program, completed residency at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland, and worked in several places including clinics focused on serving immigrant families before joining Kaiser Oakland, where she now practices general pediatrics and teaches advocacy and community engagement in the pediatric residency program. Outside of medicine, she enjoys spending time with family and friends, growing flowers and veggies in her garden, cooking and baking, staying active, traveling, and rooting for Bay Area sports teams.
Yasuko Fukuda, FAAP
Dr. Yasuko Fukuda, a San Francisco native and second-generation Japanese American, has practiced pediatrics locally for more than 32 years after training at UC Berkeley, Mayo Medical School, and Children's Hospital Oakland; she is on staff at CPMC and clinical faculty at UCSF. Active in the Japanese community and fluent in the language, she has studied pediatric health care in Japan. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and served as AAP California District IX Chairperson and liaison to the Japan Pediatric Society. She is also a board member of the California Immunization Coalition, advocating for immunizations, work-life balance in pediatrics, and healthcare access for all.
Zea Malawa, MD, FAAP
Dr. Zea Malawa is a pediatrician and public health professional who is convinced health inequities are a structural issue and require structural solutions. To that end, her career has become focused on systems change, and she can teach from her experience of a) drafting and passing the law that made doula care a covered Medi-Cal benefit (CA Momnibus Act-2021), b) starting a statewide non-profit, c) chairing San Francisco's First 5 commission, and d) fundraising millions of dollars to implement radical patient support services. She has published articles about anti-racism in the academic and popular press. She has been to the edge of burnout and found her way back to joy. She is happy to share about her experiences with mentees!