MD++ in 2021: Community for Aspiring Physician-Innovators
Introducing our new executive team and goals for 2021
Since our public launch in May 2020, MD++ has grown at an incredible rate to over 800 medical students and aspiring physician-innovators all across the country. As the COVID-19 pandemic has shown, we need more physician-leaders who see the forest and the trees: physicians who not only serve patients directly through medical practice but who can also design and build a more equitable, efficient, and cost-effective healthcare system.
As we continue to grow with expanded leadership and as a newly minted 501c3 non-profit, we’re doubling-down on our mission to empower the next generation of physician-innovators who will improve healthcare delivery through the intersection of technology, business, health policy, and life sciences. We’re excited to also share our 2021 goals centered around community, connections, and content.
Community, Connections, and Content
Before anything else, MD++ will first and foremost always be a community (currently on Slack!) and we want to ensure that every new and existing member has had the opportunity to find value from at least one other member of this group in some way. By building on this community, we believe there’s an incredible resource in the shared social capital and connections our members have across our different industries of interest, personal networks, and career trajectories. Lastly, we will be aggregating the collective knowledge from our community and connections through content — the foundation for an eventual curriculum that physician-innovators can sustainably pursue alongside our clinical training.
We’re also putting a specific call out for partners who want to support this next generation of physician-innovators — if you’re interested in working with our community, sponsoring one of our upcoming events (e.g., innovation challenges), or mentoring medical students as a physician-innovator, please reach out to daniel@mdplusplus.org or alex@mdplusplus.org or contact us through our website.
Announcing MD++ 2021 Leadership
Daniel Friedman (VP of External Relations)
Daniel is a senior MD/MBA student at the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians & Surgeons and Columbia Business School. He is currently on a research year in collaboration with Heartbeat Health, where he serves as a product manager. During his preclinical time, he led the health systems curriculum at his medical school. He holds a B.A. in Neuroscience & Behavior from Columbia University, where he managed the business arm of his college newspaper as Publisher of the Columbia Daily Spectator.
Alex Wong (VP of External Relations)
Alex is a MD/PhD-G1 student at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, focusing on computational cancer biology. She is currently an Associate at Van Wickle Ventures and CEO and Co-Founder of her nonprofit, Fiction for Kids. Prior to medical school, she worked as a software engineer at Yelp and athenahealth. She holds an Sc.B in Computer Science and an A.B. in Biology from Brown University and an LRSM in Piano Performance from the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music.
Gary Wang (Director of Health Policy)
Gary is a MS1 at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. His passions include value-based care transformation, addressing social and structural determinants of health, and improving access to quality care for underserved populations. Prior to medical school, he performed research at the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy and worked as an analyst at Aledade, a Series D start-up that partners with independent primary care providers to succeed in value-based care models. He earned his B.S. in Neuroscience and Health Policy from Duke University.
Katie Link (Director of AI)
Katie Link is an MS1 at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where she is working on several research, educational, and entrepreneurial projects in medical artificial intelligence. She is passionate about developing meaningful solutions at the intersection of technology and medicine and has several years of experience in this space, most recently as an AI Resident at Google[X] before medical school. She holds a B.S. in Neuroscience and a minor in Computer Science from Johns Hopkins University.
Jun Jeon (Director of Biotech)
Jun is an MD candidate at the University of Pennsylvania, currently working with AlleyCorp in the healthcare team. He is passionate about creating a healthier society through investing in and operating with the world’s most thoughtful and passionate founders in the biotech and digital health space. His research background includes immuno-oncology, genomic analysis, microfluidics, iPSCs, and clinical trials. In digital health, he is drawn by the transformative potential of the virtual medium in systematically improving the landscape of specialized care. Jun received his BS in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from Johns Hopkins University and has previously served two research fellowship positions (IRTA & MRSP) through the NIH.
Geoff Bocobo (Director of Medical Devices)
Geoff is a medical student & cancer researcher on Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. He is also cofounder and leads business strategy for Medsix: a medtech startup which he helped grow from idea to clinical trials in under a year. With a passion for health innovation, he most recently worked on special pandemic response initiatives at MGB’s Center for Covid Innovation, as well as medical device investments at Hunniwell Lake Ventures. Before medicine, Geoff was a researcher at Brigham & Women’s Hospital, and prior to that, a student-athlete at Trinity College, where he studied Neuroscience and captained the Track team as an accomplished sprinter/hurdler.
Jon Wang (Director of Entrepreneurship)
Jon is a UCSF medical student on leave to pursue his startup shimmer, which is focused on building mental health communities for young adults. Prior to medical school, Jon developed a strong interest in community building, he was the founding member of a health tech startup, XP Health, and spent time building Golden Gate Science Olympiad, SHIFT, and Stanford Undergraduate Hospice and Palliative Care. He has published AI research at Stanford with the VP of Apple, and has previous work experience as an AI engineer and consultant at MIT, Apple, and Gates Foundation.
Bethany Dubois (VP of Community)
Bethany is a 1st year MD/MSCR candidate at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Prior to medical school, she worked on methods development for computational drug discovery at D. E. Shaw Research. She holds a B.A. in Applied Mathematics and Computational Biology from Brown University, where she served as an EMT and played varsity rugby. She is always working to create intentional, inclusive spaces for community, collaboration, and innovation.
Navin Balaji (VP of Community)
Navin is an MS2 at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. He leads the life sciences team at UM’s angel network, the ‘Cane Angel Network’. Previously he interned with AstraZeneca’s competitive intelligence group and was an engineer at Virtual Kinetics, building a mobile platform to improve clinical outcomes in physical therapy. Navin holds a B.E. in Biomedical Engineering from Vanderbilt University where he worked on several research projects and served on student government.
Caroline Liang (VP of Finance)
Caroline is a 1st year MD/MBA student at the Tufts University School of Medicine. At Tufts, she was elected as the school treasurer and also enjoys advocating for physician and patients’ rights through the American Medical Association. She has a background in economics and previously worked at the White House Council of Economic Advisers as a research economist focused on domestic policy analysis. At the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, Caroline and her colleagues collaborated with the White House Coronavirus Task Force to closely track economic data, government responses, and health outcomes. She holds a B.S. in Economics and Biology from the University of Wisconsin.
Jay Canarick (VP of Advocacy)
Jay is taking a year off from medical school at Albert Einstein to pursue an MBA at Kellogg. At Einstein, Jay is a member of student council and has been involved in Quality Improvement research at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore. Prior to med school, Jay worked at Parthenon-EY, a strategy consulting firm, focusing his work on healthcare strategy for providers and pharmaceutical companies, and private equity commercial due diligence. Jay graduated summa cum laude from Duke University, with a B.S. in Neuroscience.
David Mui (VP of Curriculum)
David is a 3rd year MD/MBA student at the Perelman School of Medicine and the Wharton School. At Penn, he founded the first Medical Mandarin program and Penn Pals, a language immersion program. He also worked on global health research in cardiology through the Penn Center for Global Health. Currently, David is a consultant for the Wharton Digital Health Club, where he works on utilization management and capitation. David graduated summa cum laude from New York University with a BA in Psychology.
Sherman Leung (Founder & Chair)
Sherman is a 2nd year medical student at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt Sinai and an early-stage healthcare investor with AlleyCorp. Before medical school, he worked as an enterprise technology investor at Underscore VC and a product manager at PatientPing and Mango Health building care coordination and medication adherence products. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science and M.S. in Management Science & Engineering from Stanford University, where he conducted machine learning research and organized healthcare hackathons.
