Hands On Advocacy
Meet Our Team
Project Leads:
Minna Ding
Minna is an MS2 at the University of Minnesota Medical School - Twin Cities Campus. She is currently interested in infectious diseases and GI medicine. She wants to learn how to advocate for her future patients and how to be a part of the solution in improving access to mental health. Her hobbies include reading cheap romance novels, hiking, and shopping the sales.
Jennifer Zick
Jennifer is an MS3 at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities Campus. She is interested in pursuing Psychiatry as a specialty. Through the Improving Access to Mental Health campaign this year, she hopes to help bring awareness to patients, caregivers, and the public about the importance of identifying mental health disorders and working interprofessionally to ensure that all patients have access to affordable treatments and resources to improve their mental health. In her spare time she enjoys hiking with her dog and cultivating her large collection of indoor houseplants.
Direct Advocacy Committee:
Aakash Deshpande (Chair)
Aakash is an MS4 at the University of Minnesota Medical School - Twin Cities Campus. He wants to learn how to advocate for and support his community as a soon to be physician. He is interested in learning and helping to eliminate health disparities in MN. His hobbies include reading, playing board games, basketball, and soccer, traveling, and exploring the cities.
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Sayeh Fattahi (Chair)
Sayeh is an MS2 at the Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine. She wants to help destigmatize mental health both as a medical student and as a future physician, and hopes to learn how to best advocate for her patients both on a personal level and a legislative one. She enjoys eating, reading, watching Netflix, and is always up for trying something new.
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Jennifer Kalkman
Jennifer is an MS1 at the University of Minnesota Medical School - Twin Cities Campus pursuing a career in pediatric medicine. She wants to learn more about the process of adovcacy, specifically how she can effectively advocate for her patients as a future physician. She also wants to learn more about the ways in which she can inform policy and legislation through advocating. She wants to help advocate for better mental health care within the State of Minnesota, a cause that is near and dear to her heart. Her hobbies include traveling, exploring the outdoors, dance, yoga, pilates, and trivia.
Madeline Youakim
Madeline is a MS1 at the University of Minnesota Medical School - Duluth Campus, who plans to pursue family practice medicine. She wants to learn more about the current healthcare system and how she can enhance its equitability and accessibility. She wants to serve as a direct advocate, connecting with congress people and contacting her local representatives to help make legislative changes. In her free time, she enjoys reading, hiking, playing boardgames, and cooking.
Joseph Barnett
Joseph is an MS1 at the Mayo Clinic School of Medicine and Science. He is pursuing a career in psychiatric medicine. He would like to better understand the process of working with legislative bodies in order to enact positive change. In his free time he enjoys climbing, biking, and bee keeping.
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Sarah Batbold
Sarah is an MS1 at the Mayo Clinic School of Medicine interested in learning more about all aspects of patient health and wellness. She thinks therapy is wonderful, and hopes to help break down stigma surrounding mental illness, as well as mental health service utilization. She is excited to continue learning about the state of mental health in Minnesota, and how physicians-in-training can use their voices to improve access to quality mental healthcare for all.
Grassroots Advocacy Committee:
Diana Back (Chair)
Diana is an MS4 at the University of Minnesota Medical School - Twin Cities Campus pursing a career in psychiatry. During experiences in her third and fourth year of medical school, she saw first hand the impact of the lack of access to mental health resources for patients across all fields. Given her future plans of becoming a psychiatrist, she wants to learn the skills necessary to advocate for her patients. She likes to spend her free time traveling and exploring different coffee shops and breweries.
Michelle Patregnani (Chair)
Michelle is an MS2 and the University of Minnesota Medical School - Duluth Campus. She is interested in emergency medicine and internal medicine. She believes that adequate mental healthcare has been overlooked far too long in our current healthcare system and wants to be part of the change. She wants to learn more about the resources currently available and how those can be used better for the benefit of patients. In her spare time she enjoys yoga, exploring new coffee shops, and riding all of the great bike trails that Minnesota has to offer.
Whitney Savage
Whitney is an MS2 at the University of Minnesota Medical School - Twin Cities Campus pursing a career in psychiatry. She believes that mental health has a direct influence on all other areas of health and wellbeing and that the stigma surrounding mental illness, combined with lack of access to healthcare has had a dangerous impact on health outcomes in our communities. She hopes to be a voice for underserved and stigmatized people and to use her position as a medical student to advocate legislatively on behalf of folks who are experiencing mental illness. She likes to spend her free time reading, horseback riding, downhill skiing, traveling, and spending time with her husband and two dogs.
Brianna Engelson
Brianna is an MS3 from the University of Minnesota Medical School - Duluth Campus pursuing a career in psychiatry. She hopes to learn how physicians can impact the healthcare system and their communities through advocacy. She feels strongly that mental healthcare should be accessible to all and is excited to advocate for her patients. She likes to spend her free time outside with her dog George.
Maryssa Poderzay
Maryssa is an MS2 at the University of Minnesota Medical School - Twin Cities Campus. She wants to learn how to properly and effectively advocate for her future patients. She is also interested in learning more about the current state of mental health care in Minnesota and what is currently being done and what can be worked on. She likes watching scary movies, playing with her cat, camping, and spending time with family and friends.
Kelsey Simmons
Kelsey is an MS3 at the University of Minnesota Medical School - Twin Cities Campus. She recently completed her psychiatry rotation and while she saw a lot of great care, she was struck by a lot of the inadequacies of care in the inpatient setting. By being involved in HOA, She is hoping to gain a better sense of what is preventing mental heath care from being more accessible and effective for patients. In her free time she enjoys hiking with her two dogs, cooking, baking, trying new local restaurants, and being outdoors.
Emily Quick
Emily is an MS1 at the University of Minnesota Medical School - Twin Cities Campus working towards a career in ophthalmology. She has found access to mental health care to be a limited but incredibly important part in caring for patients. She wants to help to improve this access as well as change attitudes regarding mental health care. In addition, She is excited to be involved in the advocacy process to learn how she can best implement this as she becomes a physician and advocate for her own patients. In her free time she enjoys baking, crafts, walking her dog, yoga, and traveling.
Messaging Committee:
Leah Williams (Chair)
Leah is an MS2 at the University of Minnesota Medical School - Twin Cities Campus and looks forward to working with the under-privileged elderly population. She wants to learn more about medical advocacy in general, but also about the loopholes in our mental health care systems where patients can get caught inside catch-22s, and working to repair those loopholes. In her free time she enjoys playing piano, singing, knitting, drawing, and deep soul chats with good friends.
Kaylie Evers
Kaylie is an MS1 at the University of Minnesota Medical School - Duluth Campus. She is pursuing a career in rural family medicine. She is excited to learn more about advocacy and how she can best help her future patients. In her free time she enjoys hunting, fishing, cooking, and sewing.
Health Equity Committee:
Brandi Bollig (Chair)
Brandi is a MS2 at the University of Minnesota Medical School - Duluth Campus. She is interested in family medicine and hopes to work with underserved populations. She is excited to practice her advocacy skills so that she can ultimately help her most vulnerable patients receive quality, cost-effective healthcare. Her hobbies include reading, playing basketball, and traveling.
Kasey Guenther
Kacey is an MS1 at the Univeristy of Minnesota Medical School - Twin Cities Campus. She is pursuing a career in pediatric medicine and research. She looks forward to learning more about how to be an effective advocate and how health policy/legislation can be informed and affected by healthcare professionals. In her free time she enjoys reading, swimming, and biking.
Kyra Valentine
Kyra is an MS1 at the University of Minnesota Medical School - Twin Cities Campus and looks forward to working with refugee and immigrant communities. She has found that mental health is often not addressed enough in medical school curriculum despite it affecting everyone. She wants to be more informed about the issues and challenges facing those who need mental health care resources. In her spare time she like singing, cooking, and baking.
Megan Crowe
Megan is an MS2 at the University of Minnesota Medical School - Twin Cities Campus and looks forward to gaining experience in medical advocacy, especially advocating for those whose voices haven't been traditionally heard. In her free time she enjoys hiking, running, and triathlons.
James Lee (Chair)
James is an MS3 at the Mayo Clinic School of Medicine. He looks forward to a career in child psychiatry working with LGBTQ youth. He wants to be able to spread narratives concerning mental health and its importance in our day-to-day. He also wants to right any inequality in access to mental healthcare, especially in regards to racial minority and LGBTQ populations. In his free time he enjoys rock climbing, singing-songwriting, eating good food, and playing with corgis.
Cassandra Roeder
Cassie is an MS1 at the University of Minnesota Medical School - Twin Cities Campus. She interested in a career in obstetrics and gynecology. She wants to learn more about how advocacy in health care works and how she will be able to influence policy in her future practice. Working to better mental health care in our state is always something she would love to be a part of. She also wants to be a part of HOA for her ECM PHHP longitudinal project. She enjoys drinking coffee, reading, spin class, and trying new restaurants.
Elaina Hintsala
Elaina is an MS4 from the Univeristy of Minnesota Medical School - Duluth Campus. She intends to practice as a family medicine physician in rural Minnesota, where mental health resources are a factor in health disparities for rural populations. She would like to learn how to be a better advocate for her community. In her spare time she enjoys exploring MN, traveling, relaxing with her husband and cat, and trying out new crafts (embroidery!).
Lisa Skarbakka (Chair)
Lisa is an MS2 at the Univerisyt of Minnesota Medical School - Twin Cities Campus and has a Master of Music Education from the University of Kansas. She previously worked as a board certified music therapist with North Memorial Hospice and the UMN Masonic Children's Hospital/Fairview. As a future physician she wants to do whatever she can to help eliminate health disparities in Minnesota. She wants to learn how to advocate for her patients, become more familiar with resources that are currently available, and support the development of policies and programs that improve healthcare within underserved communities. Her hobbies include dancing, biking, cooking, and 90s sing-alongs.
Jennifer Vasko
Jeni is an MS4 at the University of Minnesota Medical School- Twin Cities Campus. She is pursuing a career in internal medicine, with a pediatrics focus. She feels that physicians can play a powerful role in health advocacy, and is interested in developing the ability to effectively advocate for the needs of her patients to shape health policy. Mental healthcare is a particular clinical interest of hers. Through her clinical experiences she has seen the importance of adequate mental healthcare for patients. She hopes to learn more about the state of mental healthcare resources in MN and how we can imporve mental healthcare for all Minnesotans. She likes to spend her free time running, hiking, fishing, playing with her puppy, doing yoga, and traveling.
Jiaochen Ke
Jiaochen is an MS4 at the Univeristy of Minnesota Medical School - Twin Cities Campus. She is pursuing a career in psychiatry. She is excited to learn more about how policy impacts patient care delivery and how, as physicians, we can best advocate for our patients. She considers herself a dog mom and enjoys working out and traveling.
Additional Team Members:
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