Medical Missionaries Global Health Fellows 2018-2019
Read about the Global Health Fellows who are doing their year of service at St. Joseph Clinic from June 2018 through July 2019.
Anael Rizzo
graduated in 2016 from the University of California – San Diego (UCSD), where she majored in physiology and neuroscience and minored in political science. She is currently enrolled in a post-baccalaureate medical program at the University of California – San Francisco (UCSF).
While at UCSD, Anael served as Community Education Coordinator and Board Member of the International Health Collective, where among other things she set up a Clinic and Community Health Worker program in Tijuana, Mexico. Additionally, she spent two years working as a research assistant studying regeneration after spinal cord injury. As a San Francisco native, Anael has served in various roles across the Bay Area, including being a Patient Navigator at the Stanford Arbor Free Clinic, a community educator for the Healthy Ambassadors program in Oakland, CA, and a Medical Document Specialist and remote medical scribe for Augmedix.
Anael’s investment in being a change agent has been largely influenced while abroad on mission trips to Mexico, Colombia, and Nicaragua. She speaks Spanish fluently and will be studying Haitian Creole between now and June. Following her Global Health Fellowship, Anael plans to pursue degrees in medicine and public health/global health.
Jason Piersaint
will graduate from Columbia University in May 2018. He is majoring in Neuroscience and Behavior.
Jason serves as a Counselor for the Sinai Braves Pathfinder Club, providing leadership training and mentoring to community youth. He has served as Vice President of the Columbia University Chapter of the NAACP, responsible for creating events that promote ideals of equality. Jason was also Secretary of the Columbia University Adventist Christian Fellowship and a Volunteer for the Columbia Student Health Outreach program, providing a local food bank. He is also a Volunteer at Mt. Sinai St. Luke’s Hospital in New York City.
At Columbia, Jason has been a research assistant in a study of the mechanism of development (or pathogenesis) of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The findings from that study were published by the refereed journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA (PNAS), in September 2017.
Jason speaks Haitian Creole fluently. At the conclusion of his Global Health Fellowship, Jason plans to pursue degrees in medicine and public health.
Ruth Dunn
will graduate in May 2018 from Louisiana State University with a degree in biological sciences and a minor in French. Following her Fellowship, she intends to pursue degrees in Medicine and Public Health. She has made volunteer mission trips to Brazil, Poland, Dominican Republic, and Kenya.
Ruth has developed an interest in the intersection of infectious disease and healthcare inequity. At LSU, she has done research on ways to combat insulin resistance in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus. At the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, she has done research to evaluate the effectiveness of pediatric vaccinations on respiratory viruses. She has worked in healthcare in the Baton Rouge community, and with the Louisiana Department of Health.
