Meet Inspira Advantage’s Med School Admissions Experts

Dr. Clark is a resident physician in physical medicine and rehabilitation (PM&R) at Stanford University. She has eight years of admissions committee and mentorship experience, including serving on the Admissions and Interview Committee at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine and acting as a medical student liaison at Stanford’s PM&R program.

Dr. Akomeah is an emergency and lifestyle medicine physician. She graduated with an MD from George Washington University School of Medicine, completed a residency at Carolinas Medical Center, and earned a Master of Education from Johns Hopkins University. She has five years of admissions committee experience, acting as an application reviewer and interviewer at her medical school and residency program.

Dr. Mwangi is a board-certified family medicine physician who is passionate about mentoring the next generation of healthcare professionals. He has extensive experience guiding both aspiring medical students and those seeking residency positions and has served as an interviewer for the HCA-Houston Healthcare West residency admissions committee. He has interviewed numerous aspiring physicians and reviewed their applications, giving him insight into what makes a strong candidate.

Dr. Yoon is a neurosurgery resident and seasoned admissions counselor with 10 years of experience, including serving as an admissions interviewer at Brown University. As a Forbes "30 Under 30" honoree, he has authored 30+ peer-reviewed papers. His pioneering work contributed to the creation of the Veterans Health Administration (VACO) Index, a COVID-19 mortality risk indicator used nationwide.

Dr. Athreya is a family medicine physician, mentor, and leader with extensive clinical and medical education experience. He is the Medical Director and Market Lead at Crossover Health, has interned with the World Health Organization, and volunteered with AmeriCorps, providing disaster relief and community support. With years of admissions and mentorship experience, Dr. Athreya is a knowledgeable guide for students navigating the medical school or residency admissions processes.

Dr. Hasselmo is a Yale psychiatry resident with a passion for child and adolescent psychiatry. A multi-award-winning author, she has been recognized for her contributions to medical, creative, and research writing. With five years of admissions experience, she has guided students through the medical school and residency application process, helping them gain admission to their top-choice programs.

Dr. Blutinger is a board-certified emergency medicine physician and public health specialist with over a decade of clinical experience. He was a former admissions committee member at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where he read and evaluated approximately 1,000 applications and interviewed nearly 300 candidates over three years. He currently works in Mount Sinai Health System as an attending physician and Emergency Department Medical Director.

Dr. Nwaukoni is a family medicine physician with extensive admissions experience, including serving on admissions committees at Cornell, PCOM, and Northwestern. She has 10+ years of interviewing mentorship experience, including spending five years as mock interview coaching for the Student National Medical Association.

Dr. Yoo is a board-certified ophthalmologist specializing in oculoplastic and orbital reconstructive surgery. He has extensive admissions experience, including serving on a residency selection committee for 17+ years, acting as Ophthalmology Residency Director for over nine years at Loyola University Medical Center, and teaching as a professor at Loyola for 15+ years.

Dr. Davis has extensive mentorship and admissions experience, including serving on the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine and USC Keck School of Medicine for a combined total of over 20 years. She worked at Cedars-Sinai for 20+ years as both a staff physician and Associate Program Director of Residency Training in OB/GYN. She is currently an expert reviewer and consultant for the Medical Board of California.

While attending the University of Washington School of Medicine, Dr. Bigham served on the admissions committee for three years, interviewing prospective students. His commitment to mentorship has resulted in students he has coached gaining acceptance to top medical schools like UPenn, Stanford, the University of Washington, Dartmouth, UCSF, UCLA, UC San Diego, WashU, and others.

Dr. Miljanic is the Chief Resident at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center’s radiology oncology program and graduated at the top of his class with honors from the University of Texas Dell Medical School. He served as an interviewer for the UT Austin Dell Medical School admissions committee and as a voting member on the UT Southwestern residency admission committee, evaluating hundreds of applications.

Dr. Chan is an integrated interventional radiology resident at the University of California, San Francisco. She has a Bachelor of Science with honors in biology from Stanford University and an MD from Yale School of Medicine. She has more than 10 years of experience guiding students through the medical school admissions process.

Dr. Gupta is an interventional radiology resident who graduated from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine as an MD Merit Scholar. With over eight years of experience, including serving as a Duke University alumni interviewer, he has guided dozens of students to acceptance at the nation’s top medical schools. Dr. Gupta has also co-founded three startup companies focusing on developing devices to fill technological gaps in interventional specialties.

Dr. Zarif is a board-certified surgeon specializing in the management of traumatic, sports-related, and degenerative conditions of the hand and wrist. He completed his residency at Lenox Hill Hospital Surgery. He has 15 years of coaching and admissions experience and has served on several admissions committees, including the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, the diversity and inclusion initiative at Temple University, and Lenox Hill Hospital-Northwell’s residency admissions committee.

Dr. Ladines-Lim’s extensive educational background includes a BS from the University of Maryland, an MD from the Yale School of Medicine, and a PhD from MIT. He then completed an Internal Medicine-Pediatrics Combined Residency at the University of Michigan and is currently an Infectious Diseases Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania.

Before pursuing an MD-PhD at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the University of Cambridge Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Hallie graduated from Yale University. She spent two years working in the Yale University Undergraduate Admissions Office, including a year as the student lead for STEM recruitment. She has since graduated with a PhD in clinical neurosciences.

Dr. Lanier is a resident anesthesiology physician at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center. She has worked with many pre-medical and medical students, drawing from her experience as part of the admissions committee and an MMI interviewer at the University of Utah School of Medicine, allowing her to provide nuanced coaching and expert interview strategies.

Dr. LaRivière is an accomplished Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) alumnus and general surgery resident at the University of Colorado. He has 15+ years of coaching and admissions experience, including serving on the University of Colorado’s MSTP admissions committee and working as an applicant reviewer for his residency program.

Dr. Ng is a spine surgery fellow at Rothman Orthopaedics, Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. He was previously a Chief Resident in orthopedic surgery at the Maimonides Medical Center, a level 1 trauma center and the largest hospital in Brooklyn, NY. He has over a decade of admissions and coaching experience, including serving for years as an interviewer at Case Western University School of Medicine.

Dr. Pammal is an emergency medicine resident at Mount Sinai Morningside. He served as President of the School of Medicine Student Senate at New York Medical College (NYMC) for two consecutive years, where he spearheaded efforts as a Program Coordinator for NYMC's novel Resiliency Program and served as Editor-in-Chief of the Roundtable Journal on Health Policy.

Dr. Chung is a general surgery resident at the University of California, San Diego with 10+ years of mentorship experience, serving as an MIT educational counselor and a medical admissions committee member at the Yale School of Medicine. She has over 30 articles featured in major journals including scientific manuscripts, invited commentaries, and personal essays, and was an ad hoc reviewer for JAMA Surgery.

Dr. Mellacheruvu is a resident physician at Penn Medicine. He serves on the Resident Steering Committee where he collaborates with faculty and program directors to shape the residency experience. Dr. Mellacheruvu has extensive mentorship in helping students craft meaningful medical school personal statements and CVs; he has also acted as an MCAT, Step exam, and college-level STEM course tutor.

Dr. Kalagara attended Brown University before matriculating at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She is an experienced admissions coach who has worked with many students over the past five years. Students she has worked with have been accepted to medical programs such as Harvard Medical School, Drexel, Brown, and Sinai. She previously served as an application reviewer at the Icahn School of Medicine.

Dr. Ravi graduated with an MD from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley School of Medicine after completing her undergraduate studies in cognitive science at Rice University. She is a neurology resident at Houston Methodist Hospital, one of the nation's top-ranked neurology and neurosurgery hospitals. Dr. Ravi has years of mentorship and admissions experience with a strong background in research.

Dr. Patel is an internal medicine resident physician at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center and an incoming gastroenterology fellow at Staten Island University Hospital in NYC. Throughout his medical education, he has been actively involved in research, publishing manuscripts, and presenting his work at national and international conferences. Dr. Patel is a Doximity Digital Health Fellow and has diverse teaching and mentoring experience.

Dr. Cheng attended the University of Southern California before enrolling at the Keck School of Medicine, pursuing the primary care track. She has four years of coaching and admissions experience, including serving on Keck's Evaluation and Selection Committee, interviewing prospective applicants, and on the Keck Admissions and Recruitment Committee, evaluating and voting for student admissions.

Dr. Rand is a resident physician at UC San Diego. She has served as a student interviewer at UC Irvine, where she honed her communication, organization, and empathy skills to guide students through their journey toward healthcare careers. She looks forward to helping students find structure, clarity, and confidence in their medical school applications.

Dr. Podury earned her MD from Harvard Medical School in the Harvard-MIT HST Program after completing her BA in Neuroscience at Cornell. With a talent for improving patients' lives through technology and research, she is eager to guide applicants through the admissions process.

Dr. Kirsch is an accomplished neurologist who earned an MD from Touro University Nevada, where he graduated in the top 5% of his class. He completed a rigorous neurology residency and epilepsy fellowship at Case Western Reserve University – University Hospitals, where his exemplary performance earned him multiple accolades, including the prestigious Intern of the Year Award.

Dr. Xiang graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College before attending Harvard Medical School's MD/MPH program, where he served on the admissions committee as an interviewer. He has extensive experience in mentoring medical students, including conducting mock interviews, writing committee letters, helping with primary applications, and serving as a non-resident tutor at Harvard.

Dr. Okeke is a neurology resident at the University of California, San Francisco. He graduated cum laude with an MD from the Emory School of Medicine, where he served as a group interviewer for the admissions committee and provided feedback on applicants’ candidacies. At Emory, his exceptional qualities were recognized with his induction into the Gold Humanism Honors Society.

Dr. Huell graduated from Georgia Tech before attending the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, where he received the full-ride Klara and Larry Silverstein Merit Scholarship. He served as an NYU admissions ambassador where he assisted with the recruitment of and retention of applicants and facilitated MMI interviews. Students Dr. Huell has coached have been accepted to nearly every top 20 medical school.

Dr. Lee attended the California Institute of Technology before enrolling in the University of Washington’s MD/PhD molecular and cellular biology program. He served as an interviewer and student admissions ambassador at the University of Washington School of Medicine and is currently researching immunotherapy development and immunology.

Dr. Keegan attended Georgetown University before attending the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine on a full-tuition merit scholarship. She has three years of admissions and mentorship experience, including serving as an admissions committee member at UChicago, as an advocacy ambassador where she mentored new and prospective students, as a teaching assistant for multiple courses, and as the Program Director of Chicagoland Free Clinics Consortium.

Dr. Mullikin graduated from Duke University School of Medicine with an MD/MBA before matching with Duke’s plastic surgery residency program. She served on Duke’s admissions committee during medical school, where she reviewed applicant profiles, assessed their potential contributions, and championed holistic admissions practices.

Dr. Johnson graduated with an MD from Stanford University School of Medicine and successfully matched with his first-choice residency program at Stanford Dermatology. Dr. Johnson is an active member of the Leadership in Health Disparities program and the Stanford Clinical Summer Internship program, working to create opportunities for students from diverse backgrounds.

Dr. Sharma attended the University of Pennsylvania before attending the Perelman School of Medicine and the Wharton School to pursue an MD/MBA, fuelling her passion for healthcare delivery innovation at the intersection of business and medicine. After serving as a Perelman interviewer, she joined the admissions committee, equipping her with insider knowledge of what top medical schools seek.

Dr. Ravikumar graduated from the competitive College of New Jersey (TCNJ) BS/MD program, earning her MD from Rutgers New Jersey Medical School (NJMS). She was a member of the NJMS Student Interviewing Committee, and has mentored several pre-med students and high schoolers interested in medicine.

Dr. Ramini is an ophthalmology resident at Loyola University Medical Center. He earned his MD from Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine, graduating with Honors in research. Dr. Ramini spent three years serving on the Loyola Stritch School of Medicine admissions committee, and he has over five years of experience in mentoring students with a proven track record of success.

Dr. Sarad is a general surgery resident at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center with 15+ years of experience in mentorship and admissions. She has served on admissions committees at the Keck Graduate Institute as a graduate admissions assistant and at the Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine as a student admissions liaison.