Helplessly, I watched as my grandmother deteriorated from Alzheimer's disease, a woman who moved away from a Native reservation to become a professor. She had spent her life acquiring knowledge in a field that had actively inhibited our community from joining, only for her knowledge to be taken from her; at that moment, helplessness felt like heritage. I tried supporting her by staying positive, but ignorance changed nothing. After her passing and considerable reflection, I realized that the impact I wish to make in my community requires a modified form of endurance: A dedication to alleviating the issue. In the following months, I volunteered in hospice, spoke with hundreds of elders in similar situations as my grandmother, and worked with the families affected by the loss of their loved ones, but an aching feeling of impotence remained.
As a Lakota student leader in Carleton’s Indigenous Peoples’ Alliance, I’ve spent hours listening to elders describe where Western care breaks down when language and tradition are treated as peripheral. Their stories mirror those in my own family: loved ones who delayed treatment because of cost, fear, or a learned sense that the system wasn’t built for them. Those patterns aren’t solved by better pamphlets. They change when healthcare shows up consistently and humbly, with cultural knowledge as a foundation rather than an afterthought.
In response, I brought my passion for equity into both the clinic and the lab. Clinically, I’ve worked as an EMT in a rural community and spent four years of weekends in the ER, often speaking with frightened families, some of whom don’t speak English comfortably, trying to translate both information and reassurance. In those moments, trust isn’t a slogan; it determines whether someone accepts care, follows through, and returns before a problem becomes irreversible. Being able to slow the room down, explain without condescension, and protect dignity has felt like a small but real way to begin rebuilding what has been broken.
In research, I’ve pursued the diseases that weigh heavily on Indigenous families, Alzheimer’s disease and substance use disorders. In the Neiworth Primate Cognition Lab, I studied Alzheimer’s pathology in tamarins and developed an independent project examining network-level dysfunction (DMN/TPN) as a potential early marker of decline. At the Mayo Clinic, I worked in addiction neuroscience and neuromodulation, including deep-brain stimulation approaches for alcohol use disorder. Presenting my findings at AISES as research's impact lies in moving digestible knowledge back to the communities most affected.
Living with Native communities in the Arctic reinforced that culture is ingrained in medicine, and that these challenges aren’t geographically bound. The details change, but the pattern repeats: distance from services, cultural mismatch, and the fatigue of being studied rather than partnered with. I’ve realized my scope must widen, not away from my community, but in service of it.
That is why, as I begin medical school at UCLA, I plan to immerse myself in the Global Health Equity Pathway and build long-term partnerships with local tribal communities in Southern California. My goal is not to “help” from a distance, but to learn how to co-create care that communities trust and use, dementia support that honors caregivers, mental health services that feel safe, and addiction interventions built around community strengths. I want to become the kind of physician who can move between clinic, community, and research, closing the loop that was missing when I watched my grandmother fade: turning helplessness into understanding, and understanding into care that holds.
A community service leadership role that had very recently and will have in this coming summer as well. What I have set up for the past few summers is a youth language camp for kids aged from 7-14 years old for the Yakama Language (Ichishkiin). Ichishkiin is my native language as I am affiliated with the Yakama tribe but the Ichishkiin language was expected to be eradicated around 20 years ago. Well before I was born the ichishkiin language had four major speakers. Thankfully one of these speakers led the charge to get more speakers of our language. She was successful in this endeavor and it is thanks to her and one of her students that Ichishkiin is still spoken today. This language is spoken in four schools and is now considered an accredited language for graduation. But we now have another issue, the language is not being spoken by the younger generation because it is very difficult to use on a daily basis. So I took it upon myself to create a curriculum that is both informational and fun to use. My first summer of this language camp was to listen to what the students wanted to learn and then to create images with the words. Now three sessions later I have now set up groupings of different topics such as colors, numbers, animals, plants, specific sentences, and unique creations. My students are given the opportunity to learn what they want to learn and then I will ask each student at the end of our time to use these words with their family cause if the kid is interested in a topic then the parents will follow. Some major changes that I have noticed in my hometown is the Ichishkiin usage, we now have Ichishkiin classes at the high school and middle school for any student to take and I am able to hear more of my native language than I have ever heard in my life. Today, there are two teachers of Ichishkiin in my home school and another handful throughout the valley. Through the perseverance and constant development of younger speakers and devoted teachers, we are seeing a rise in speakers as well as an increase in the fluency of speakers. I was given the seal of bilaterally from the Yakama tribal council with one other student in my class, this year four people will have that opportunity. It is the little changes like this in the community that I am extremely blessed and happy to be a leader in this development.
