In my free time, I enjoy exploring new places and socialize with my friends. I also love cooking and making Persian food for my friends. All the fun experiences I’ve had since coming into the country started at UCI, and I couldn’t be more grateful for the opportunities they gave me.

Kathleen Lo
M.D  |Family Medicine Resident, PGY-1
kwlo@hs.uci.edu

My name is Kathleen and I was born in Hong Kong and moved to Los Angeles, California when I was a teenager. My family and I lived on the east suburban side of Los Angeles, also known as the “626” or “The Boba Town.” We were confronted with temptation from a large variety of boba shops when growing up!

I majored in Biochemistry at UCLA and took one gap year to further pursue research with UCLA Department of Geriatrics as a study coordinator while working as a MA/ scribe in a primary care clinic in Alhambra. In 2017, I began medical school at UC Irvine School of Medicine. My interest in Geriatrics led me to a summer internship opportunity with UCI MIND, one of the NIH-funded Alzheimer’s disease research centers in the nation, to begin graduate research with Dr. Sajjadi and increase clinical exposure to dementia care. My projects in the Sajjadi lab had been about Alzheimer’s Disease by analyzing biomarker results. I am currently working on a project analyzing the National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center (NACC) dataset to predict the transition of cognitive statuses using longitudinal neuropsychological tests. During my medical school education, I was also actively involved in community health and served as a graduate board member for An Lanh Free Clinic, a student-run free clinic to provide quality healthcare to underserved populations in the Garden Grove area. Currently, I am working with y fellow medical students and undergraduates to initiate a UC Irvine chapter of National Alzheimer’s Buddies, to connect undergraduate volunteers with residents with Alzheimer’s Disease as a response against the social isolation experienced by ones with Alzheimer’s.

In my free time, I love being outdoors with my four-year-old corgi, named Mickey. We are weekly visitors to the Huntington Dog Beach and various hiking trails in Orange County! I also enjoy traveling and immersing myself in the local culture, create new friendships with the locals, and step out of my comfort zone to try new activities. Before graduating from medical school, I really hope to get certified for scuba diving and open a whole new world to the deep sea.

Sarah Al Najjar
B.S.  |Dental Student 

Dai Phuong Nguyen
B.S.  |  MS3
dain1@hs.uci.edu

Hello! I was born in Vietnam and raised in Hayward, California. As a hoodie-wearing Bay Arean, I was confronted by 360 days-of-sunshine after relocating to Southern California for college. I majored in Molecular, Cellular, Developmental Biology (MCDB) at UCLA, and minored in Biomedical Research and Asian Languages. During my time here, I volunteered with the mobile clinic, traveled on a medical mission trip to Nicaragua, and served as a Care Extender at the Ronald Reagan Medical Center. These experiences allowed me to gain diverse exposures to patient care and drove my interest in pursuing medicine. I am currently a second-year medical student at the UC Irvine School of Medicine.

Research has also been an integral part of my academic life. During my years at UCLA, I studied the contribution of the cytoskeleton to the heterotypic properties of endothelial barriers. I then spent two years at the National Heart, Lung, Blood Institute at the NIH researching the vascular manifestation of the primary immunodeficiency disorder Autosomal Dominant Hyper-IgE Syndrome (AD-HIES). I joined the Sajjadi lab in February 2019 to learn about imaging research. My current project looks at the relationship between cerebral blood flow and dementia in the oldest-old population using ASL MRI.

In my spare time, I enjoy coffee-shops hopping, chewing on boba drinks, and watching K-dramas.