Current Resident

Christine was born in South Korea but moved to Reno, NV when she was 8 years old. She attended Dartmouth College where she majored in chemistry. She graduated with high honors and completed her thesis on organic synthesis research which focused on developing synthesis pathways to make optically active monomers to construct chiral and conformationally rigid synthetic oligomers that have potential therapeutic properties. Before matriculating into medical school, she worked as a sushi chef in Las Vegas and as a team host at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics.

Zirun was born and raised in Beijing, China. She moved to the United States to attend Duke University where she majored in neuroscience. She graduated with distinction and completed an honor thesis on validation of a conditional TrkB mutant mouse model to study epileptogenesis. Zirun completed her medical education at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University in New York, where her research interest developed in glioblastoma and traumatic brain injury.

Adriel, a Panamanian-American from Houston, TX, graduated magna cum laude from Brown University with a BSc and BA in Neuroscience and Science, Society, and Technology Studies. He earned his MD through the combined Baccalaureate-MD Program in Liberal Medical Education at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.

Katherine Kelly grew up in Nashville, TN. She gained an undergraduate degree in neuroscience from Northwestern University, where she also competed on their sailing team. During this time, she attended a culinary program in Siena, Italy where she developed a love of Italian food. Before attending medical school, she worked as a research manager for the group SOCKs at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital.

Julian was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He completed his undergraduate degree in biochemistry at Santa Clara University while on an NCAA D1 basketball scholarship, and also played for the Canadian Junior Men’s National Basketball team in the FIBA Americas Championships and FIBA World Championships. He subsequently spent one year at the University of Toronto playing varsity basketball and studying exercise science prior to attending Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Eliza was born and raised in Seattle, WA. She attended Cornell University where she majored in neurobiology and performed research in the neural mechanisms of trial-and-error learning. After graduating, Eliza researched the spatiotemporal dynamics of seizure propagation in the Dr. Theodore Schwartz Lab at Weill Cornell Medicine before matriculating to The University of Colorado School of Medicine. In her spare time, Eliza enjoys trail running, backpacking, and maximizing time spent in the mountains. 

Dr. Nistal received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Neuroscience at The Johns Hopkins University.  Upon graduation, Dom spent a year as a corps member for City Year Boston tutoring and mentoring eight underperforming fourth grade students, providing whole classroom support and after-school tutoring in math and English. He graduated from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai where he received the Neurosurgery Scholar Award and developed a multi-institutional protocol for the collection, analysis and interpretation of ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke clots

A native of Washington and USTA ranked tournament competitor, Dr. McAvoy earned her combined BS/MS in Biochemistry with highest honors at Brandeis University.  She earned her MD through the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology Program where she did research studying drug-embedded coatings for medical devices in the Department of Chemical Engineering at MIT under Dr. Robert Langer and Dr. Daniel Anderson.  In 2011, Malia was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Biology fellow at UW.

Dr. Abecassis graduated from Northwestern University’s McCormick School of Engineering with a BS in Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences & Economics in 2011. Before deciding to pursue medicine, Zack worked as a management consultant in the healthcare space analyzing complex processes in an effort to maximize procedural efficiency.  He completed his medical training at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern.