Meet the Students

Meet the 12 ELAM students participating in this year’s ¡Salud! Southwest Exchange

Akua Brown

Akua Brown is a fourth-year student with a long history community building and volunteering around the world. For the past 20 years she has volunteered in her community and abroad. Her efforts include spending time as a medical volunteer at the George Mark Children’s House, which offers hospice and respite care to children and their families in Oakland, Calif., volunteering at San Francisco City College, as a teacher’s aide in an ESL night school classroom, volunteering as a tutor and mentor to young Black women in the Richmond Unified School District and also at the Friendship House in San Francisco, a Native American Drug Rehabilitation Center.

Alicia Garcia Steele

Alicia Garcia Steele is a pre-med student at ELAM. She served as a health justice intern at the Native Health Initiative prior to beginning her studies in Cuba. Alicia also collaborated with American Indian community members to encourage the prevention of illnesses and diseases and promoted positive mental and physical health while upholding American Indian Culture, and traditional ways of healing.

Cassandra Cusack Curbelo

Cassandra Cusack Curbelo is a pre-med student at ELAM. She attended the University of Chicago, taught children with special needs and was an advocate and birth aide for young, single, first-time mothers. Before attending ELAM, Cassandra organized demonstrations and youth ideals marketing. As one of the organizers of the tour, she looks forward to participating in the empowerment of underprivileged communities.

Gregory Wilkinson

Gregory Wilkinson is in his fifth year of study. Gregory studied sociology in New York. His aims as a doctor are to be a trustworthy figure in the community and provide quality health care to the underserved so that members of marginalized communities are comfortable seeking  preventive treatment and improving their quality of life.

Ian Fabian

Ian Fabian is a first-year student. He graduated from New York University in 2007 with a BS in neural science. Ian was also an active member of Community Roots, a peer-mentoring and youth organizing network where he lent young members of marginalized communities his skills as a top student, a community organizer and a martial arts instructor.

Jesús Sotomayor

Jesús Sotomayor is a second-year student from Puerto Rico. Since his childhood, he has hoped to channel his empathy into a career in medicine for the underserved. A supporter of Puerto Rican independence, he recognizes the need in the need for improvements in the entire U.S. health care system and hopes to be of service during the SSWE.

Joanna Mae Souers

Joanna Mae Souers, one of the SSWE tour’s principle organizers, is a second-year student and a graduate of Cornell University.  Prior to entering medical school, she worked on environmental studies and community organizing projects including the Nyanza Project in Tanzania, Project Bonafide in Nicaragua and Cloudbridge in Costa Rica. Her relief work with Common Ground in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina led her to medical school.  Recently, she participated with “hij@s” and other ELAM students in a similar student organized community health project in Peru.  Through these experiences she hopes to increase awareness on a local and global level, to bring more capable, responsible and effective preventative and primary care to communities in need.

Keasha Shindana Guerrier

Keasha Shindana Guerrier is a fourth-year student at ELAM.  She attended NYIT where she received degrees in Fine Arts and Technical Writing.  Keasha spends her summer vacations volunteering at health clinics and rural hospitals where she administers physical exams provides health screenings and educates patients on diet plans and medication usage.  She is committed to making a difference and working toward improving our health care system.

Kereese Sharla-May Gayle

Kereese Sharla-May Gayle is in her fourth-year in the program. Throughout middle school and high school she volunteered at the Children’s Hospital in New Orleans. She served as a mentor to inner city youth while attending Georgetown University. At ELAM, Kereese was president of the U.S. delegation. During summer vacations she worked in a health clinic in Kingston, Jamaica – the city of her birth – where many patients had little or no money to pay for health care. She aspires to form a network of like-minded individuals to provide workforce for underserved communities in the United States.

Medina Beauty Vernon

Medina Beauty Vernon is a third-year medical student and a mother. She is currently pursuing her life-long dream of becoming a doctor and admires the Cuban medical system’s ability to use limited resource to thoroughly help all members of the community. She plans to incorporate these strategies into her own practice.

Melissa Headley

Melissa Headley is a fourth-year medical student. She started ELAM with a decade of experience in women’s health and served as a volunteer, patient advocate, Spanish interpreter and administrator in this field throughout Texas and the Pacific Northwest  Melissa was a part of the start-up team at Whole Woman’s Health in McAllen, Texas in the Texas-Mexico border in January 2004.

Pasha Jackson

Pasha Jackson is a pre-med student at ELAM. Before studying medicine, Pasha played professional football. He credits his modest, single-parent, urban upbringing with providing him a unique perspective into medically underserved communities and the disorders that result from such neglect.  One of the SSWE’s main organizers, Pasha looks forward to showing how individuals unified by a noble cause can accomplish in spite of oppression.