Micromentor bios
Ayanna Bennett, MD, MS, FAAP | Dr. Bennett is one of three Incident Commanders at the San Francisco COVID Command Center, the Emergency Operations Center for the city. Dr. Bennett leads the efforts from the Health Department, alongside the Departments of Human Services and Emergency Management. In the Pre-COVID world, Dr. Bennett is the Director of the Office of Health Equity, developing and monitoring programming that improves the health outcomes of groups with long-standing health disparities, improving the welcome and mobility of staff of color, and implementing strategies that remove systemic barriers to equity within DPH policies and structures. Dr. Bennett has been working with DPH as a part-time clinician since 2001, while maintaining a private pediatric practice in the East Bay. In 2005 Dr Bennett partnered with residents of San Francisco to found the 3rd St Youth Center & Clinic in Bayview, a non-profit youth center, beginning her public service career
Nelson Branco, MD| Dr. Branco is originally from Massachusetts and since completing pediatric residency at Childrens Hospital Oakland. He is currently managing partner of Tamalpais Pediatrics in Marin County. Prior to this, he has worked for the Indian Health Service on the Navajo Nation and at an FQHC called Marin Marin Community Clinics. He is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at UCSF and helps the direct the outpatient experience for the Marin UCSF Pediatrics Clerkship. Dr. Branco has been an active member of AAP CA1 for many years and is currently the VP. Dr. Nelson and his wife, Nell, have three children and when not working, he spends time with his family cycling, traveling and reading.
Diane Dooley MD, MHS, FAAP | Dr. Dooley is a pediatrician and chairperson of the AAP Chapter 1 Mental Health Committee. As a co-founder and chair of this committee, she has led the group to advocate for enhanced mental health access for children and teens, develop a survey of child and teen mental health access, and train pediatricians in providing mental health care in their practices. She recently retired from Contra Costa Health Services after a 38-year career as a pediatrician with leadership positions in clinical services, public health and Contra Costa Health Plan. Her leadership experience also extends to serving for 10 years on the Benicia Unified School District Board of Trustees, and serving as a Board member for the CHCF Health Care Leadership Program. She is presently an Associate Clinical Professor of Family and Community Medicine at UCSF and a co-leader of the Chapter 1 ACEs Aware Communications grant.
Archna Eniasivam MD | Dr. Eniasivam is Med-Peds hospitalist dedicated to health equity and justice in medical education and health systems. She is a course director for Health & The Individual and Health & Society, two three- week courses for first year medical students focused on health systems science and social justice. Additionally, she co-founded and serves as the Director of Social Medicine in the Division of Hospital Medicine, aimed at developing a group of faculty and staff to engage in research, dialogue and design solutions around issues of equity, advocacy, diversity and inclusion. She is also an affiliated faculty member in the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies, a member of the School of Medicine's Differences Matter Group on Education and is a Faculty Lead for the Social Justice Discussion Club as part of the HEAR Justice GME pathway.
Kim Newell Green, MD | Dr. Newell Green is a pediatrician in San Francisco, Assistant Clinical Professor at UCSF, and the most recent Past-President of the San Francisco Marin Medical Society. She is the former Chief of Healthcare Innovation and Chief of Physician Health and Wellness at Kaiser Permanente in San Francisco where she worked as a general pediatrician for over a decade. She is working to transform healthcare by advocating for public health issues and leading and supporting innovations in digital technology while keeping humanity at the center of health and healing. As a current California Champion Provider Fellow, she is working in conjunction with SFDPH and UCSF towards obesity prevention strategies, and is a member of a coalition advocating for Medically Supportive Food strategies. She also chairs and moderates a monthly COVID-19 Virtual Grand Rounds produced by California Health and Human Services and the California Medical Association.
Marsha Griffin, MD | Dr. Griffin is Professor of Pediatrics and Director of Community for Children program at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley School of Medicine (UTRGV). She is a member of the Executive Committee of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Council on Immigrant Child and Family Health, co-authored the AAP Policy Statement “Detention of Immigrant Children,” and is a contributing author of the AAP Immigrant Health Toolkit. Dr. Griffin has spent the last ten years writing and speaking both nationally and internationally about her concerns for the trauma inflicted on immigrant children on the border. She serves as Medical Director of the Humanitarian Care Respite Clinic in McAllen, Texas, and is a nationally recognized leader in creating a network of clinics and academic medical institutions across the nation caring for newly migrated children and families.
Harvey Kaplan, MD | Dr. Kaplan is a retired pediatrician in San Mateo County (SMC). During his pediatric career, he served as the Chief of Pediatrics at The San Mateo Medical Center and currently still participates in reviewing child abuse cases at the Keller Center. He has served on the boards of the First Five Commission and CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) of SMC and is a current member of the grants committee of the Sequoia Health Care District. He is happy to share his nearly 50 years of clinical and community advocacy experience in children’s health care, and as a Giants fan.
Anda Kuo, MD | Dr. Anda Kuo is a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics where she is the Director of Health Equity and Community Engagement. She also is the Co-Director of the CA ACES Learning and Quality Improvement Collaborative (CALQIC). She is passionate about leveraging the expertise we have at UCSF in partnership with multi-sector stakeholders to make child health and wellness a reality for all children. Dr. Kuo’s professional roots are in medical education; she holds the UCSF Academy of Medical Educators’ Chair in Pediatric Education and is the founding director of the UCSF PLUS (Pediatric Leadership Advancing Health Equity) residency program. She co-founded the CA Community Pediatrics and Advocacy Training Collaborative bringing together 14 of the 17 pediatric training programs in the State and now modeled in 8 other states. She is a faculty mentor in the AAP Young Physicians’ Leadership Alliance and as an evaluation consultant for the Community Pediatric Training Initiative’s advocacy collaboratives in the Carolinas and New Jersey.
Gena Lewis, MD | Dr. Lewis is the Medical Director of Federally Qualified Health Center services, Associate Director of the Primary Care Department and pediatrician at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland. She cares for children with complex medical diseases and also provides primary and preventative care to new immigrant children and their families. She is the primary investigator on a 5 year HRSA grant supporting primary care education and has published articles on outpatient pediatric resident education and identifying and treating children living in poverty. She also helped found the Alameda County Medical Legal Partnership with her East Bay Community Law Center partners and she was recently recognized by East Bay Community Law Center with their 2019 Justice Award. Dr. Lewis has served as President to the American Academy of Pediatrics California Chapter 1 until May 2015. Her work focuses on educating legislators how to better promote the health and well being for all children in California including the care of the medically complex and special health needs child in the era of healthcare reform. She is married with a daughter and son.
Cara Lichtenstein MD, MPH, FAAP | Dr. Lichtenstein is the Program Director for the General Academic Pediatrics Fellowship and an Associate Program Director for the Pediatric Residency Training Program at Children’s National Hospital. She also works clinically as a primary care pediatrician at a community-based health center in one of the most under-resourced areas of Washington, DC. As the director of the residency program’s Leadership in Advocacy, Under-resourced Communities and Health equity (LAUnCH) Track, she has been working for over 10 years on designing curricula to train residents in the care of under-resourced populations and the development of skills in advocacy, public health, and community healthcare delivery; efforts that were recognized with the Academic Pediatric Association’s (APA) 2018 Teaching Program Award. Dr. Lichtenstein has had a long-standing interest in studying best ways to integrate training in advocacy, social determinants of health, and health equity into residency curricula for all residents.
Kawika Liu MD, PhD, JD | Dr. Liu is an internist/pediatrician/addiction medicine specialist and physician advisor at hospitals in the Inland Empire in Southern California. Previously, he has been a medical director and provider at a rural health center, tribal health centers, FHQCs and a managed care organization. Kawika received his MD from St George’s University School of Medicine, his PhD and JD from University of Hawai’i, Manoa. Dr Liu has published in lung cancer and other health inequities in Native Hawaiians. His interests are population health, human rights-based approaches to health, particularly indigenous health, substance use disorders and mental health, and causation in public health, cancer obesity, and asthma. He is the proud father of two daughters, Tanoelani, 16 and Kealalani, 11.
Jyothi Marbin, MD | Dr. Marbin is an Associate Clinical Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at UCSF, the Director of the Pediatric Leaders Advancing Health Equity (PLUS) residency program, the Director of Intern Selection for the Department of Pediatrics, and is an Associate Program Director for Recruitment and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for the Pediatrics Residency Program. As an educator, Dr. Marbin is interested in developing anti racist curricula around leadership, social justice and health equity. Her areas of interest include social justice and medical education, design thinking and adaptive leadership. Dr. Marbin attends in the primary care clinic, urgent care clinic and asthma clinic at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital.
Kelley Meade, MD | Dr. Meade is the Associate Dean of Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland and has served as advocate for many mission areas, but health equity is her passion. She has had a long career working in a federally qualified health center and is the child of a public servant. She has advocated for children with chronic disease, including asthma and obesity and also enjoy working with pipeline programs for careers in medicine.
Aaron Nayfack, MD, MPH | Dr. Nayfack, is currently a practicing Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrician with the Palo Alto Medical Foundation. He was also elected to, and is currently serving on the board of, the Sequoia Healthcare District. The District collects property tax money each year and then distributes these resources to support health and wellness programs through southern San Mateo County. Prior to this elected position, Aaron served on the board of AAP Chapter 1 as the delegate from San Mateo County, co-chaired the chapter advocacy committee and served on the State Government Affairs Committee. Despite this background, his favorite volunteer activity is still coaching his kids little league teams.
Lisa Patel, MD | Dr. Patel is a Clinical Assistant Professor at Stanford University where she is the director for the Community Pediatrics and Child Advocacy Rotation and focuses on climate change and health issues as the Advocacy and Policy Lead for the Sean Parker Center on Allergy and Asthma Research. She is a former Presidential Management Fellow for the Environmental Protection Agency, Co-Chair of the Climate and Health Task Force for AAP-CA1, and an Executive Committee Member of the AAP's National Council on Environmental Health.
Elizabeth Rogers, MD | Dr. Rogers is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at University of California San Francisco, practices neonatology in the Intensive Care Nursery (ICN), and is the Director of the ROOTS Program, The Grove Small Baby Unit, and the research director of ICN Follow Up Program at UCSF. She also serves as the Associate Vice Chair for Faculty Development and Chief Experience Officer in the UCSF Department of Pediatrics. Her clinical expertise is in preterm birth, health equity, neuroprotection, metabolic predictors of outcomes after preterm birth, developmental care, palliative care, family-centered care and advocacy, and long-term neurodevelopmental outcomes after neonatal critical illness. She has led follow up efforts for multicenter trials involving preterm and term infants at risk for pulmonary and neurodevelopmental impairment as well as international cohorts and serves on statewide and national quality improvement collaboratives.
Ankoor Shah, MD, MBA, MPH | Dr. Shah is a general pediatrician and currently the Deputy Director of Programs & Policy at the D.C. Department of Health. In this role, he manages the over $80 million of public health programming that aims to improve health outcomes and reduce disparities among D.C. residents. Previously, he was the Medical Director of the IMPACT DC Asthma Program at Children’s National Hospital and a primary care pediatrician. As Immediate Past-President of the D.C. Chapter of the AAP, he has grown partnerships between clinics, community organizations, and government entities. Dr. Shah has written opinion pieces for the Washington Post and The Hill, and was named a ’40 under 40’ leader in minority health by the National Minority Quality Forum.
Xin She, MD | Dr. She is a clinical assistant professor of Pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine. She is passionate about Global Health, Social Medicine and she has published on urban-rural health disparities in Chinese school-age children and elevated lead levels in urban Haitian Children. She has also worked on micronutrient deficiency in rural children with the Chinese CDC, HIV education for 5th graders and post-Katrina rehabilitation in New Orleans, HIV prevention through community outreach in Guatemala, and microfinance-funded foster care of orphans in the DRC. Most recently has been focusing on mentoring children from impoverished communities to achieve their maximal potential, applying the concepts of growth mindset and mindfulness to build personal resilience. She is a trained instructor in Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction for children and adolescents, and the co-PI of a randomized-controlled trial that uses mindfulness and mentoring to build resilience among migrant children in China.
Pamela Simms-Mackey, MD | Dr. Pam Simms-Mackey, originally from Oakland, is the Director of Graduate Medical Education & the Pediatric Residency Program at Benioff Children's Oakland. She also currently sits on the Board of Directors of The California Wellness Foundation, has worked on 3 committees of the American Board of Pediatrics and recently appointed to their Board of Directors in January 2020. She served on the First 5 Alameda County Commission for 14 years and was the chair of that commission for 10 years. Her passions, outside of her family (husband and 2 sons 20 and 17 years old) are mentorship (all ages and stages of career development), workforce and leadership diversity in healthcare and achieving health equity for all populations.
Sohil Sud, MD | Dr. Sud, is Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Pediatric Hospital Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He cares for newborns and hospitalized children at Zuckerberg San Francisco General (ZSFG) Hospital and Washington Hospital in Fremont, California. He currently serves as Past Chair of the Pediatrics Department at Washington Hospital and as Director of the Pediatric Global Health Clinical Scholars Pathway. He is a Faculty Affiliate of the UCSF Institute for Global Health Sciences and of the Health, Equity, Action, and Leadership (HEAL) Fellowship. Dr. Sud has served on the advisory boards of the American Academy of Pediatrics, California Chapter 1 and of Girls Health Champions. He has recently been turning his attention to protective measures against COVID-19 in hospital and community settings.
John I. Takayama, MD, MPH, FAAP | Dr. Takayama is a general pediatrician at the University of California San Francisco; he directs a clinic for children and youth with special health care needs. He is Immediate Past President of AAP California Chapter 1; serves on the Executive Committee of the AAP Section on Developmental Behavioral Pediatrics; and is an active member of the Council on Children with Disabilities and Section on Minority Health, Equity and Inclusion. During the current pandemic, he served on a panel discussion on the impact of COVID-19 on children with special health care needs and was interviewed by the Sacramento Bee on considerations for school re-opening.
Shannon Udovic-Constant, MD | Dr. Udovic-Constant a general pediatrician with The Permanente Medical Group practicing in San Francisco and the Vice Chair of the California Medical Association (CMA) Board of Trustees. She is also an Assistant Clinical Professor in Pediatrics at UC San Francisco, where she teaches medical students and residents. She is She is a long-time advocate for policies to improve the health of children and communities, and in the past has served as the chair of the California American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) State Government Affairs committee, as a CMA Trustee since 2013, and has also been the chair of the CALPAC Independent Expenditure Committee and part of CMA’s Diversity and Inclusion Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) and Firearm Prevention TAC. In 2012, she was named the recipient of the AAP Martin Gershman, M.D. Child Advocacy Award, an honor given annually to a pediatrician who has “shown outstanding dedication and commitment to promoting the health and well-being of children in California through educating policymakers and advocating for appropriate legislation, regulation, policies, funding or programs.” She is married to James Constant, a general surgeon, and they have two young children.
Raelene Walker, MD | Dr. Walker is the current AAP California Chapter 1 President, a general pediatrician, hybrid primary care/hospitalist, and the Pediatric Medical Director of palliative care and hospice program at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation. She is a very involved mother of two adolescents.
Victoria Ward, MD | Dr. Ward is a clinical assistant professor of pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine, with a research focus in pediatric global health. In addition to her clinical role as a pediatric hospitalist, she serves as the Medical Director for Digital Medic, building digital health education for low resource settings. She additionally serves as the Director of Global Child Health for the Global Center for Gender Equality at Stanford and leads Gates-funded research projects on prematurity and maternal child health programs in Africa and Asia. Victoria has also spent the past ten years working on the issue of human trafficking, implementing large-scale awareness and prevention programs and currently serves as the Chair of the Board for the anti-trafficking organization, Made in a Free World, which works to provide care and rehabilitation to those rescued out of trafficking.
Paula Whiteman, MD | Dr. Paula Whiteman is double boarded in Emergency Medicine (EM) and Pediatric EM. As Assistant Professor of EM at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, she works with residents from various specialties. She is Director of Pediatric Emergency Services for Emergent Medical Associates working with their sites regarding pediatric readiness and education. Dr. Whiteman is the District IX Vice Chairperson and served as the District IX Chapter Forum Management Representative as well as president of AAP-CA2.
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Lahia Yemane, MD | Dr. Yemane is a Clinical Assistant Professor in General Pediatrics and Associate Program Director for the Stanford Pediatrics Residency Program. She is originally from Texas and currently is the Co-Director of the Stanford Medicine LEAD (Leadership Education in Advancing Diversity) Program, which is a 10-month longitudinal leadership program for residents and fellows across GME to develop diverse, inclusive leaders that advance health equity. Nationally, she is the past-chair of the Underrepresented Minorities in Pediatric GME Learning Community for the Association of Pediatric Program Directors (APPD) and current Director of the APPD AIMS (Advancing Inclusiveness in Medical Education Scholars) Program, which provides professional development and mentorship to underrepresented in medicine pediatric residents interested in careers in medical education leadership.