Melissa Chen, MD
PRESIDENT
Melissa is an internist and Clinical Director at the Interprofessional Community Clinic in North Chicago, a clinic led by students from 7 disciplines at the Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science and established in 2013. The clinic runs once a week and consists of 4 co-located services: medicine, physical therapy, behavioral health, and podiatry. She also teaches the Chicago Medical School students of RFU as an Associate Professor.
In 2021, she is pioneering the school's first longitudinal curriculum on health equity.
Teresa Schiff, MD
PRESIDENT-ELECT
Teresa Schiff is an Assistant Professor at the John A. Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawaii. She serves as the Medical Director for the Hawaii H.O.M.E. Project, a student run mobile clinic that provides free health care to the homeless on the island of Oahu. HOME Project is working to increase interprofessional partnerships for students and patients in behavioral health, pharmacy, and social work. We are also developing our leadership training to empower students in various operating roles including patient advocacy, research, quality improvement, and fundraising.
Annette Gadegbeku, MD
PAST PRESIDENT
Annette is an Associate Professor in the Department of Family, Community, & Preventive Medicine at Drexel University College of Medicine/Tower Health Medical Group. She is Clinical Faculty Advisor for the DUCOM Health Outreach Project (H.O.P.) Student Run Clinics & Programs and Associate Program Director for the Drexel-Tower Health Family Medicine Residency program where she has integrated resident preceptorship over a longitudinal community medicine curriculum. HOP was established in 1990 and has grown to include 5 clinics and 10 outreach programs over the last five years at various locations in Philadelphia including a Salvation Army drug & alcohol rehabilitation center, a women & children’s shelter, and a Prevention Point needle exchange site.
Samantha Ann Yakas Brink, MPP
SECRETARY
Samantha is a Project Coordinator for the Office of Community Engagement and Office of Community Health and Inclusive Excellence at Drexel University College of Medicine. She manages DUCOM’s Health Outreach Project (HOP), a collection of student run clinics and educational projects across the Philadelphia and West Reading campuses. The clinics and projects are primarily run by first- and second-year medical students at 15+ community locations and include services for primary care, vision screening, and HEP C testing. The majority of the population HOP serves is unhoused and uninsured. Samantha also supports the health advocacy practicum course for first-year students and is involved in the creation of pathway programs for children interested in health sciences.
Melanie Menning, MD, MPH
Treasurer and research co-chair
Melanie Menning, MD MPH is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Family Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center. She is the Research and Education Faculty Advisor of the SHARING student run free clinics which serves the poor, uninsured patients in Omaha, Nebraska. SHARING is a group of interprofessional clinics, which are staffed by students in the disciplines of Medicine, Dentistry, Medical Lab Sciences, Medical Nutrition, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Physical Therapy, Physicians Assistants, Public Health and Social Work.
Melissa Halverson, PharmD
Member At-Large AND CONFERENCE CO-CHAIR
Melissa Halverson graduated from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences earning both a doctorate in Pharmacy as well as a Master in Public Health. She is the director of the 12th Street Health and Wellness Center, an interprofessional, student-run, free clinic. She is now the Director of Didactic Education and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physician Assistant Studies teaching the pharmacology and pharmacotherapy courses as well as coordinating the service-learning curriculum.
Christopher Eric Ervin MD
Research Co-Chair & member At-Large
Dr. Christopher Eric Ervin earned his medical degree from Duke University School of Medicine, General Surgery internship at University of Illinois at Chicago and Emergency Medicine residency at Cook County Hospital. He presently works at Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) as adjunct faculty with the Department of Physician Assistant Studies and Director of Community-based Initiatives in the Department of Family Medicine, serving as the Director of Operations for Morehouse School of Medicine Student-run Free Clinic, the MSM H.E.A.L Clinic (Health Equity for All Lives), and manager for the HRSA-funded CHAMPS program (Community Advanced by Medical Practice Superstars). As an Emergency Medicine physician, he has served on multiple committees and have held assistant and interim medical director positions at numerous hospitals. He served as Chair of the Emergency Medicine Section, Secretary of the House of Delegates, and the Bioterrorism Task Force for the National
Medical Association. As a representative for the American College of Emergency Physicians on the Commission to End Health Disparities, he served on the Steering Committee, Co-Chair of the Subcommittee on Workforce Diversity, and Chair, Ad Hoc Committee on Business and Health Disparities. Dr. Ervin has served in numerous capacities with community-based nonprofits, including Chair of Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities Region 3 Advisory Board, President of the South Fulton Human Services Coalition, member of Georgia Department of Public Health Community Health Worker Advisory Board, and past chair of the Georgia HIV Prevention and Care Council, In 2019, Dr. Ervin was honored by the state of Georgia with a Proclamation for his commitment to community service.
Ami Marshall EdD, MSN, APRN, ANP-C
Member at-large AND CONFERENCE CO-CHAIR
Dr. Ami Marshall is an Assistant Professor and Specialty Director for the Adult Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner (AGPCNP) Program at Yale School of Nursing. In conjunction with working at YSN, Dr. Marshall provides clinical care at Connecticut Primary Care and Wellness, a Nurse Practitioner owned and operated primary care practice. Dr. Marshall has worked in a variety of community-based settings over her nurse practitioner career, ranging from internal medicine private practice to community health environments where she provided primary care to under-resourced populations. She is currently a medical director at HAVEN Student-Run Free Clinic, overseeing the reproductive health department.
Dr. Marshall completed a doctorate in nursing education (EdD) at Southern Connecticut State University in December 2018. Her dissertation topic explored faculty perceptions of the use of computer-based simulation as a teaching pedagogy in graduate nursing education. Scholarly interests include enhancing Nurse Practitioner (NP) training to improve patient outcomes through nutrition and culinary approaches, preparing NP students to recognize, manage, and treat Substance Use Disorder through curriculum and clinical training, developing and evaluating innovative clinical practicum models in NP education, strengthening NP training in gerontology to support the development of age-friendly health care delivery, and advancing health equity in under-resourced communities through patient-centered approaches and innovative models for health education and care delivery.
She is a member of Sigma Theta Tau International: Honor Society of Nursing, the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, and the current president of Connecticut Advanced Practice Registered Nurse Society.
Jill Omori, MD
Faculty Development Co-Chair
Jill Omori is an Associate Professor of Family Medicine & Community Health at the University of Hawai’i John A. Burns School of Medicine. She is also the Infectious Disease Officer for the City and County of Honolulu and the Director of the Office of Medical Education, and Hawaii H.O.M.E. Project. Her main objectives as a medical educator are to empower and inspire her students to want to be more than just good doctors, but rather great doctors who push themselves to be critical thinkers and lifelong learners. Omori is establishing herself as an expert in healthcare for homeless patients through the Hawai‘i Homeless Outreach and Medical Education Project.
Yovanna Pomarico PhD, MBA, CMA
Faculty Development Co-Chair
Dr. Yovanna Pomarico is a seasoned educator with 30 years of experience dedicated to helping students from diverse backgrounds succeed in healthcare. As the Administrative Coordinator and Faculty Advisor for Interpreter Services at the Interprofessional Community Clinic (ICC), she manages the recruitment of faculty volunteers, oversees the training of student medical interpreters, and provides direct interpretation to ensure equitable patient care.
Dr. Pomarico holds a PhD in Interprofessional Studies from Rosalind Franklin University, where she also directs the Pre-matriculation Program (PMP), which is designed to equip students with the foundational knowledge and skills necessary for success in their graduate medical education. Her commitment to students is further informed by her previous non-profit work, where she developed educational and employment programs for underserved communities.
Rebecca Lundh, MD
PAST PRESIDENT AND Membership Co-Chair
Rebecca Lundh is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) in Milwaukee. She is faculty at the Ascension Columbia-St. Mary's Family Medicine Residency and the Medical Director for Saturday Clinic for the Uninsured (SCU), the MCW student-run free clinic which was established in 1991. Medical and pharmacy students work interprofessionally under faculty supervision to provide care for patients with acute and chronic illness at this weekly clinic.
Brenden Tu MD
membership co-chair
Brenden Tu grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. He completed a BS degree in natural resource science from UC Davis. He then completed a Master’s degree in Wildland Fire Management, with an emphasis in fire behavior and safety, from Colorado State University. After 6 years with the USDA Forest Service, he changed careers and attended medical school at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. He completed his residency training in Family Practice at UC Davis. After residency he worked for three years as the Lead Physician at Salud clinic, a Federally Qualified Healthcare Center in West Sacramento. He is currently working as a staff physician at the UC Davis Student Health and Wellness Center.
Brenden is currently the medical director for two student run clinics- Clĺnica Tepati since 2008 and the Knights Landing One Health Clinic since 2012. Clĺnica Tepati was founded in 1974 to fill the need for culturally competent primary health care to the uninsured Latinx community in Sacramento. The Knight Landing One Health Clinic was established in 2012 as part of a larger community engagement project based on the One Health concept, providing health care to the small farming community of Knights Landing.
In addition to general primary care, his specific interests include LGBTQ health, international health (mostly practiced in downtown Sacramento), teaching health professional students, and mentoring undergraduate students.