Meet Our Residents
We are proud to train top residents from around the world, representing 4 continents and 14 states. We provide them an experience that combines clinical care with research opportunities, an understanding of all neurological subspecialties, as well as more in-depth training in specific programs of their choosing. Our department is stronger thanks to their dedication to our patients and their commitment to improve treatments and cure neurological disease.
PGY-4
Nan Cheng, MD
3rd Year Resident
Born and raised in Maryland, Nan spent nearly every summer of her childhood exploring and eating delicious foods with her grandparents in China. She then attended Duke University, majoring in Biology, and matriculated at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Due to an abundance of neurophobia, neurology was initially the one specialty she had definitively ruled out, however after a lucky 8 weeks of neurology rotations, she was hooked! She completed her internship at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center in Towson, Maryland during the height of the pandemic. She then road tripped across the country to LA with her two cats. Nan is interested in Neurocritical care and Neuropalliative care, but open and excited to explore all the other facets of neurology. In her free time, she enjoys cooking Sichuan food, baking desserts inspired by the Great British Bake Off and possibly taking sailing lessons after she learns to swim.
Michael Connerney, MD, MS
3rd Year Resident
Mike was born in Portland, Maine, and as his mother’s side of the family is Bolivian, he spent his childhood between Portland and La Paz, Bolivia. He attended schools in both cities over the years, eventually finishing his formal K-12 education at Cheverus High School in Portland, Maine. Mike attended college at Boston University majoring in Biology with Neurobiology, as well as Psychology and minoring in Music. During this time, Mike performed electrophysiology neuroscience research investigating the spatial memory mechanisms in rats, which would later become the basis for his interest in the brain and nervous system. After his undergraduate studies, he pursued the M.S. degree in Medical Sciences at Boston University School of Medicine. For his master’s thesis, Mike detailed the rhesus monkey motor pathways after performing a digital reconstruction of the upper motor neuron tract histology. After obtaining his M.S. degree, Mike matriculated at the Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine. During medical school, he was a leader of the Migrant Health Program, where student volunteers bridged access to healthcare resources and interpreted for migrant workers in healthcare visits. Mike was granted the Tenney Medical Student Research grant at Dartmouth to fund a year investigating the effects of deep brain stimulation on the rodent dopaminergic reward system. He completed his PGY-1 year of internal medicine residency training at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai – Elmhurst Hospital program in Queens, NYC. In his spare time, Mike plays the piano and enjoys skiing, hiking, running, escape rooms, and exploring LA.
Molly Fensterwald, MD
3rd Year Resident
Before moving to the Bay Area at age seven, Molly grew up in New Hampshire where she played in the woods and learned to skate on frozen ponds. Her dad’s work in journalism took the family across the country to San Jose. At UC Davis she majored in neurobiology and played club lacrosse, helping lead an underdog team to a national championship. As an undergraduate, she received a Beckman Scholarship to research antibiotics in a graduate organic chemistry lab that led to a joint patent on a promising gram-negative compound. Before medical school, she worked at Google doing bench research on a project investigating wearable devices and the use of nanoparticles for cancer detection. Although she enjoyed this window into Silicon Valley, she gave up Google’s bountiful free food for medicine and late nights studying at coffee shops. She completed her intern year at UCLA-Olive View. Within neurology, her interests include headache with a desire to help those limited by their neurologic disabilities. When she’s not working, she can be found exploring hiking trails, running, playing classical guitar, and obsessing over her rescue pup, Barley.
William Flavin, MD, PhD
3rd Year Resident
Bill grew up in the suburbs of Chicago as the son of a medicinal chemist, so it was unsurprising that his first summer job was washing dishware and assisting with organic synthesis in the chemistry lab of his Dad’s biotech company. Bill attended the University of Notre Dame where he majored in biochemistry while also competing on the varsity football team as a walk-on player, earning a starting position as the short snapper for the 2010 season. While an undergraduate Bill did research at the University of Chicago with Eugene Chang studying gastrointestinal electrolyte transport perturbations in enterotoxigenic and viral secretory diarrhea, and studied the impact of water-borne diseases such as these on patients and healthcare systems in Uganda. He then matriculated to Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine where he completed a dual-degree MD/PhD program. His PhD work focused on mechanisms of prion-like propagation of amyloid proteins in neurodegenerative proteinopathies. While in medical school Bill was a part of the Physician’s Vocation Program, focusing on the intersection of faith in medicine from a Catholic tradition. He will have completed PGY-1 with the UCLA Department of Medicine based at the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center. Outside of work, he is a husband and girl dad, with wife Ashley and daughters Mae, Jeanne, and Fiona, who are the highlight of every day. He is a big college football fan, enjoys golf (especially at the par 3 VA course) and other outdoor activities, and is a country and 80’s rock music lover.
Rohit Gummi, MD
3rd Year Resident
Rohit Gummi grew up outside of St. Louis, Missouri. For college, he traveled to the east coast to attend Johns Hopkins University, where he completed a degree in Biomedical Engineering and Applied Mathematics. He worked on multiple medical design projects that grew his interest in the field of medicine. This led him back to the Midwest to complete his medical degree at the University of Missouri where he was able to spend time working on projects in Neurology and cultivate his existing interest in the complexities behind the disease processes in the field. Now, after graduating, he is currently completing his PGY-1 year in preliminary medicine at the University of Missouri and is excited to move to Los Angles for Neurology residency at UCLA. Having spent most of his life by St. Louis, he’s been a fan of his hometown Cardinals and Blues. But having lost their NFL team, he is looking forward to picking up new teams in Los Angeles. He continues to enjoy exploring new places and board games with friends.
Colin McCrimmon, MD, PhD
3rd Year Resident
After 18 years of living in Charlottesville, VA, Colin decided that he still hadn’t had enough of his small hometown, so he decided to stick around for an additional 4 years while pursuing an undergraduate degree at the University of Virginia. There, he took pre-med classes, as he had been interested in medicine ever since reading the Hot Zone (by Richard Preston) in middle school, and started working in an X-ray crystallography lab. It was in this lab that he grew interested in pursuing graduate research and that he first heard about the superior southern California weather (his advisor was a former graduate student at UCLA). So when it came time to choose a graduate program, he decided on an MD/PhD program at UC Irvine, in part, to explore a different region of the country known for its climate and abundant outdoor activities. At UC Irvine, he became interested in neurology through research and clinical exposure, and his PhD thesis involved the use of brain-machine interfaces for rehabilitation and movement assistance. He is currently completing his preliminary medicine year at UCLA, and is looking forward to starting neurology in a few short months. In his free time, he enjoys traveling with his wife, hiking, rock climbing, watching UVA basketball, and listening to traditional Irish music, and hopes in the coming years to attend a Lakers game, see a show at the Magic Castle, and sample many of LA’s iconic dishes.
Sean McDougall, MD
3rd Year Resident
Sean was born in Concord, Massachusetts on October 23, 1991 and grew up in nearby Boxborough, both suburbs of Boston. Taking after his Dad, a native of Canada and former member of the Canadian Olympic ski team, he grew up in an athletic household playing hockey and running track and cross country. Sean has two older siblings, Ian and Rebecca. He went to college at the University of Massachusetts Amherst where he majored in biology and minored in chemistry. At UMass he joined the labs of Drs. Heather Richardson and Geng-Lin Li where he studied the development of the prefrontal cortex in rat models using patch clamp electrophysiology techniques. Next he went to medical school at New York Medical College, graduating in 2018. During medical school he matched into neurosurgery residency at Case Western / University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center where he completed his first year of neurosurgical residency. During this time he realized that his true passion was in neurology and made the decision to switch specialties and pursue training in neurology. Sean is currently completing his preliminary year of medicine also at Case Western / University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center and is excited to be coming out west to start training in neurology at UCLA this July.
Karla Minota, MD
3rd Year Resident
Karla spent the first half of her life between Colombia and Florida, moving to Bogotá to complete high school and medical school at the University of Los Andes. She then completed a post-doctoral fellowship in autonomic neurology at Mayo Clinic, where she focused on identifying biomarkers in Parkinson-plus syndromes and investigated the therapeutic role of intrathecal stem cell administration for treatment of multiple systems atrophy. She completed her preliminary year at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and is thrilled to be in Los Angeles with her partner, who is a resident in plastic and reconstructive surgery at the University of Southern California. In her spare time she enjoys traveling, exploring vegan cuisine, and spending time with friends.
Allan Phan, MD
3rd Year Resident
The son of two Vietnamese immigrants, Allan was born and raised in the city of Milpitas in the south Bay Area. His fascination with the nervous system first took hold in college, where he was involved in a research project studying neuronal development in the nematode C. elegans. Before starting medical school, he took some time to volunteer with hospitals and medical missions in Vietnam, incidentally finding love along the way. He ended up moving to Madison, WI to earn his MD degree at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. His interest in Neurology never waned - as a medical student, he worked on a new project studying protective molecular factors against hypoxic ischemic injury in a cell culture model of ischemic stroke. He enjoys working in the hospital and is considering pursuing a career in Vascular Neurology but is keeping an open mind as he makes his way through residency. He participated in the couples match and wound up back in California alongside his wife (who is training in Pathology at Cedars Sinai). He completed a prelim year at UC Irvine before moving up the coast to Los Angeles. Being in California means that he is once again near family and able to enjoy some of his greatest hobbies, which include cooking, trying new restaurants, gaming (ever a Nintendo fanboy), swimming, watching American football, and traveling with family and friends.
PGY-3
Nahayo Esperant-Hilaire, MD
2nd Year Resident
My name is Nahayo Esperant-Hilaire. I am from Wheaton, IL, but grew up in the central African great lakes region. My family and I moved to the United States in 2008. I attended Wheaton North High School in Wheaton, IL, graduating from Wheaton College with a BS in Biology. After college, I moved to Morro Bay, CA and became a CNA while preparing to matriculate into medical school. I returned to Illinois to pursue my goal to become a physician and attended SIU School of Medicine. After graduation I researched Alzheimer disease at my alma mater. I am currently finishing my preliminary year in internal medicine at Northside Hospital in Lawrenceville, GA.
I have observed that neurology is a less represented specialty in underdeveloped countries. This became evident after spending a week in La Merced, Peru, volunteering on a medical mission service trip. It was devastating to see patients being sent away without any treatment because of the lack of infrastructure and shortage of neurologists. My ambition is to become a top-notch neurologist and work on bringing neurology expertise to underserved areas around the globe. I am fortunate to have been accepted into one of the most recognized neurology residency programs in the country, here at UCLA.
I have five brothers and two sisters. Most of my siblings reside in the USA, and the rest live in Australia. I enjoy bicycling, volleyball, and soccer. I have visited many national parks and the one I enjoyed the most was Yellowstone. My favorite food is ceviche.
Leonard Brian Hickman, MD, MSCI
2nd Year Resident
Brian grew up in Northern Indiana and went to the University of Notre Dame for undergrad, where he studied psychology. He attended Washington University in St. Louis for medical school, where he found his interests in neurology, coffee, and camping in the Ozarks. He also happened to meet his future wife across the dissection table in Anatomy. He performed research on EEG activity during states of unconsciousness, including during general anesthesia and following seizures, as a TL1 grant scholar. In addition to graduating from medical school as a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha honor society, he earned a master’s degree in clinical research. He completed his intern year in internal medicine at the University of California, Irvine, where his wife is an OB/GYN resident. In his free time, he enjoys reading sci-fi and history, hiking in national parks, running, and traveling to new places to scuba dive.
Phat Huynh, MD, PhD
2nd Year Resident
Phat was born and raised in Nha Trang, a tropical paradise in the central coast of Vietnam. His immediate family moved to Orange County when he was 14 where he attended high school and dreamed to become an architect. However, the stark contrast in health disparities between the United States and his home country that Phat observed on a home visit prompted him to look into a career in medicine where he thought he could make a greater impact. Phat attended UCLA as an undergraduate with a major in Molecular biology and a minor in biomedical research, where he first discovered his love for the latter. Phat pursued several independent research projects in the Teplow lab studying the role of protein misfolding in the context of Alzheimer disease. Phat’s interests in the field of neurodegeneration led him to attend the MD-PhD program at Washington University in St. Louis, where he completed a PhD thesis in the laboratory of David M. Holtzman, a leader in the field. Phat’s research interests include the role of apolipoprotein E in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer disease and the potential of antisense oligonucleotides as a therapeutic revenue for neurodegenerative diseases. Phat is a proud bruin, and he is thrilled to be back in southern California to pursue neurology residency at UCLA. He plans to pursue an academic career as a physician-scientist. In his spare time, you can find him shredding on the slopes at Big Bear or Mammoth in the Winter, or falling off his surfboard at San Onofre in the Summer. He occasionally enjoys more mundane activities such as hiking, camping, and cooking (mostly Vietnamese food).
Thanh-Liem (TL) Huynh-Tran, MD
2nd Year Resident
Born and raised in Santa Barbara, California, Thanh-Liem “TL” Huynh-Tran majored in Biology at Stanford University. He then returned to southern California to attend the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. There he developed an interest in medical education and was involved in the teaching fellowship program for medical students, mentorship programs for undergraduates, and the Los Angeles chapter of the International Brain Bee for high school students. In his free time, he enjoys wine tasting, restoring leather products, creating food sculptures, and playing with other people’s pets.
Jenny Lee, MD
2nd Year Resident
Jenny was born in San Diego, CA, and grew up in South Korea until age 19. She then came back to the U.S. and attended Emory University. She double majored in Biology and Educational Studies and received a Bachelor of Science degree in 2016. Jenny then moved to Chicago to receive her medical degree in 2020 from Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine, where she became a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society and the Alpha Sigma Nu Jesuit Honor Society. She will have completed PGY-1 at the University of California Los Angeles, and she is excited to explore various fields of neurology in the upcoming years. Jenny always wanted to be a physician, and her interest in neurology sparked when her grandmother suffered from a stroke. Outside of work, she enjoys spending time with family and friends, cooking (mostly Korean food), and traveling. She de-stresses by watching Netflix/YouTube, taking care of her plants, and writing diaries every day.
Tirth Patel, MD, PhD
2nd Year Resident
"I caught the neurology bug as an undergraduate student here at UCLA. I was fortunate to be a part of the Student Stroke Team (steadfast motto "Time is brain") for three years. I had the amazing opportunity to get involved in the care of acute stroke patients, which fostered my passion in neurology. I then took this newfound passion and interest with me to Washington University in St. Louis. I joined the MD/PhD program there, obtaining my PhD in the laboratory of Dr. David Holtzman. My work focused on the role of tau protein on pathogenesis and therapeutics of Alzheimer disease and other forms of neurodegeneration. After almost a decade away from sunny southern California, I am excited to be back at UCLA (time, flat circle etc etc). Outside of work I am a big fan of biking, reading, watching sports, playing video games, and devouring chicken tenders."
Nolan Pearson, MD, MM
2nd Year Resident
Nolan grew up in suburban Dallas/Fort Worth. He then attended Oberlin College in Ohio, where he split his time between the science library, the practice rooms, and the only bar in town while completing a double degree in Piano Performance and Biochemistry. After a gap year spent working as a caregiver for an individual with Alzheimer’s disease, Nolan relocated to Evanston, Illinois to complete a Master of Music at Northwestern studying with the inimitable Ursula Oppens. He remained at NU as an Instructor while pursuing a performance career for several years, bopping around from Hong Kong to Banff to Istanbul to play beautiful music with wonderful colleagues. He meanwhile began volunteering at a free health clinic in Chicago’s Ukrainian Village and fell in love with patient care. After much soul-searching, he embarked on a new adventure, and attended the University of Michigan Medical School where he received the Dean’s Commendation for the Art of Medicine and discovered a passion for Neurology. He completed his intern year with the UCLA Department of Medicine and is excited to begin training in his chosen field with UCLA Neurology. In his spare time, Nolan loves to escape to SoCal’s stunning beaches and mountains, tend to his cat-friendly houseplants, and explore Los Angeles with new friends.
Vivian Shen, MD
2nd Year Resident
Born in the east coast, Vivian moved to California when she was 6 years old and spent the majority of her life there. She went on to pursue a bioengineering degree at UC Berkeley and then worked for a year at the consulting firm Accenture in SF before starting medical school in Brooklyn, NY at SUNY Downstate. There she discovered her interest in neurology through her sub-internships there and at Mount Sinai and met great faculty along the way. She is thrilled to be continuing her education at UCLA neurology for residency while enjoying the great natural outdoors that the west coast has to offer! Her interests are in movement disorders, and she hopes to pursue further research in that area. She enjoys teaching and was an anatomy tutor in medical school and president of the Notochords acapella group. In her free time, she enjoys ocean views, exploring new places, dancing, singing, and hiking.
Kylie Ternes, MD
2nd Year Resident
Kylie is originally from Mammoth Lakes, California and grew up in the Eastern Sierras before moving to her adopted hometown of Austin, Texas as a teenager. She then moved to Baltimore to attend Johns Hopkins University for undergrad where she majored in Neuroscience and English Literature. She was also a member of the varsity women’s swim team and is an All-American athlete. After college, she moved to Philadelphia to work and do research at the University of Pennsylvania Frontotemporal Degeneration Center which sparked her interest in neurology as a future career. She then moved back to Texas to attend Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and developed an interest in working with underserved populations through the lens of neurology. She went back to Philadelphia to complete her preliminary year in internal medicine and is excited to finally move back to the West Coast with her cat in tow for neurology residency. In her free time, Kylie enjoys live music, film, reading, and being outside—whether eating at restaurants or hiking, skiing, or swimming.
PGY-2
Yasmin Ghochani, MD, PhD
1st Year Resident
Yasmin is from Southern California and attended the University of CA, San Diego (UCSD) for her undergraduate studies, double majoring in Biochemistry and Cell Biology along with Cognitive Neuroscience. While in San Diego, Yasmin took advantage of the “biotech mile” through internships/student research positions in The Scripps Research Institute’s (TSRI) MIND, and Pfizer Global R&D – La Jolla. She then continued to conduct her master's degree research at UCSD in biology with emphasis in neuroendocrinology of reproduction in the Mellon Lab. Following the completion of her MS dissertation, she returned to TSRI to aid in completion of a study in hypothalamic thermoregulation. She then relocated to Irvine, CA to be closer to her now spouse, Alister, while he completed his PhD studies in electrical engineering. In Irvine she obtained a position with Allergan, Inc., where she mainly studied dry eye disease therapeutics, but also helped establish mouse models of Multiple Sclerosis for the inflammation research program. Following her 2 gap years in the industry, Yasmin returned to academia and conducted her Ph.D. studies at the University of CA, Los Angeles in Molecular Biology. Her dissertation research grew more translational, as she studied the Glioblastoma perivascular niche in search of vascular mediators of tumor growth and invasion with the Kornblum lab. Newly interested in translational and clinical research, and to appease her passion to provide direct care to patients, Yasmin attended medical school at the University of Arizona College of Medicine-Phoenix. She continued to conduct research at the Barrow Neurological Institute, where she studied the safety and efficacy of various endovascular techniques and adjuvant therapies in treatment of basilar tip aneurysms with Dr. Ducruet's lab. Yasmin learned a great deal regarding neurological vascular interventions through this project and continues to have a keen interest in vascular neurology today. Yasmin has completed her PGY-1 with the UCLA Department of Medicine based at the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center. Outside of work, Yasmin is the proud mother of an imaginative 4-year-old son, Julian, and a curious 1-year-old daughter, Charlotte. She is a fan of walking around town while shopping with friends and family, enjoys yoga with her son, and is a lover of all water activities. Her spouse and she also love travelling near and far and try to get out of town at every opportunity.
Salman Hashim, MD
1st Year Resident
Salman was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. His interest in Child Neurology started in college when he studied Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology and minored in Middle Eastern/South Asian Studies at Emory University. While at Emory, Salman spent several years working as a research assistant in the Early Child Development Program at the Emory Autism Center. There, he worked closely with a multidisciplinary team to incorporate elements of ABA, speech/language pathology, and PT/OT therapies to develop and implement treatment plans for children with autism enrolled in the program.
Salman then went on to attend the Mercer University School of Medicine in Macon, Georgia, where he was heavily involved in Student Affairs, serving as the Student Body President, as well as working on several global health projects based in Central America, East Africa, and the South Asian subcontinent. His academic interests include neurodevelopmental disabilities, epilepsy, headache/TBI, and global health. His interests outside of medicine include both indoor and outdoor rock climbing, pickleball, traveling, exploring new restaurants/cuisines, and anything Harry Potter.
Erick Martínez Juárez, MD
1st Year Resident
Born in a small town called Bainbridge and raised in a migrant farmworker camp in deep rural southwest Georgia, Erick is the second of five proud children to Mexican immigrant farmworkers. After becoming the first Hispanic valedictorian of his high school, he briefly attended the United States Military Academy at West Point in New York before changing his career goals. After leaving the Academy, he enrolled at Harvard University, where he graduated with a BA in neurobiology in 2015 and became the first person in his entire family history to graduate from college. Prior to medical school, Erick spent a year in Medellín, Colombia, as a teaching fellow for former child soldiers through the Princeton in Latin America program. He also worked briefly for a growing bioplastics company near his hometown before matriculating at the Medical College of Georgia (MCG) at Augusta University. It was at MCG where he followed through with his passion for neurology. He will have completed PGY-1 with the incredible UCLA Department of Medicine based at the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center. Within neurology, Erick is currently interested in vascular neurology, movement disorders, and EDI, but he is open and excited to explore everything that neurology and UCLA has to offer! He aspires to uplift all communities, especially Latinxs and farmworkers, in earnest through medicine and (likely) public service. During his free time, Erick loves dancing to Latin music (Bad Bunny, reggaeton, cumbia, salsa, merengue, etc -- he hopes to improve his budding skills here in SoCal!), eating tacos, reppin Georgia, running, watching & playing sports, and exploring new cultures & their cuisines.
Rebecca Jules, MD
1st Year Resident
Rebecca was born and raised in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, then moved to South Florida as a teenager. Her initial interest in the neurosciences was sparked in high school during a lecture on neurotransmitters. She then attended the University of Florida where she majored in neuroscience. She remained at the University of Florida for medical school in the hopes of becoming a neurologist. After medical school, she traveled from one coast to another to complete her intern year at UCLA-Olive View and remained in LA for her neurology training at UCLA. Within neurology, her interests include global neurology in hopes to practice neurology in different areas of the world. When she is not working, her interests include going to comedy shows, exploring the diverse food scene in LA, hiking around the area, and honing her Spanish skills by binge-watching telenovelas.
Ramita Karra, MD
1st Year Resident
Ramita Karra was born and raised in Silver Spring, Maryland, and is a proud graduate of University of Maryland, College Park (go Terps!). Along with having the chance to represent her university at the College Table Tennis National Championships, she was the recipient of a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Undergraduate Research Fellowship and discovered her love for the neurologic sciences while exploring cholinergic modulation of neurogenesis in the mouse olfactory bulb. After her undergraduate studies, she spent two years as a Post-Baccalaureate Intramural Research Fellow at the National Institutes of Health, where she was introduced to neurogenetics and analyzed whole exome sequencing data from multiple neurofibromatosis type 2 tumor types. A proud moment during these years included winning the annual baking contest in her lab with espresso dark chocolate cupcakes. After graduating from the University of Maryland, School of Medicine, she found her way back to the NIH as a Post-Doctoral Intramural Research Fellow and had the opportunity to further refine her interest in neurogenetics while delving into whole genome sequencing data from patients with ALS and related disorders. She is thrilled for the opportunity to train in sunny LA, and continues to enjoy exploring hiking trails, baking, and aspiring to drink less coffee.
Noelle Kobayashi, MD
1st Year Resident
Noelle Kobayashi is a native of Southern California. She grew up in Orange County where she played soccer, hit the slopes, and spent too much time trying to capture lizards in an attempt to emulate her childhood hero Steve Irwin. She attended undergrad in Colorado majoring in Biomedical Sciences. While in Colorado she used her free time to hike, snowboard, go to concerts with friends, and shower her three fur babies with love. During her gap year she joined a stem cell research lab at UCI and became a hot yoga instructor. She decided the weather in California was just too unpredictable, so she moved across country to Ohio to attend THE Ohio State University for medical school where she developed a passion for education and health care equity. Her interest in neurology stemmed from watching family members develop Parkinsons disease and this interest was solidified during her Neurology clerkship. She is thrilled to be back in Southern California closer to family (the cross-country flight with a dog and two cats was never fun to coordinate) and is looking forward to putting all of the winter coats and parkas in a box in the closet that doesn’t get touched until the snowboard comes out!
Amir Molaie, MD
1st Year Resident
Amir was born in Los Angeles and grew up with an early interest in the brain, inspired by his father’s work as a Neurologist. He studied neuroscience at UC San Diego, and subsequently worked on various related endeavors, including within the UCSD Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study, the UCSF Cognition and Addiction laboratory, and as a Master’s Student at Tufts University, before pursuing his medical degree at Tufts. There, he furthered his interest in all things Neurology with research projects in Neuro-Ophthalmology and Vascular Neurology. Amir is delighted to be back on the West Coast to complete his training at UCLA. In his spare time, he enjoys traveling & watching stand-up comedy.
Gurpreet Seehra, MD
1st Year Resident
Gurpreet Kaur Seehra was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, where she stayed for her undergraduate education at Washington University studying Neuroscience with a minor in Psychology. She spent her summers either working in her father's automotive business or performed Parkinson's research in Drosophila melanogaster. After graduating, she continued her studies at the University of Missouri- Kansas City School of Medicine. Between her third and fourth year of medical school, she was able to further pursue research by attending the NIH Medical Research Scholars Program, where she developed a novel prognostic scale for assessing neurological decline in Gaucher disease type 2. Her research and rotation experiences confirmed her passion for the inner workings of the brain. After medical school, it was time for her to finally leave Missouri, which is when she moved to Los Angeles and started her Pediatric Neurology training in 2020 at UCLA.
Gurpreet is grateful for her husband's support throughout her academic journey and the fun experiences/hobbies they have outside the hospital, including biking, cooking, attempting latte art, further immersing in their Sikh community, and serving the community through weekly food pantries.
Alvin Singh, MD
1st Year Resident
Alvin was born in and spent the majority of his life in Chicago. He went on to obtain a Bio-Psych double degree from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign and his Masters in Global Health from Northwestern University. He then worked for 2 years managing world-wide clinical trials in both industry and academia, while learning more about neurology from a clinical research perspective. During his MS1 year at the Chicago Medical School, Alvin was fortunate to receive a scholarship to attend the 2018 AAN Annual Meeting in Los Angeles, where he felt his connection to neurology deepen. Then, as fate would have it, he would couples match in LA with his wife, who is training in Internal Medicine at Harbor-UCLA. Alvin completed his intern year at UCLA-Olive View and is excited to begin his Neurology residency at UCLA. Given his first-generation, low-income upbringing, he is passionate about working with underserved populations through the lens of neurology. In his spare time, he can be found watching college basketball, sampling LA’s best foods/cocktails, cooking alongside his wife, or being a cat dad to Leo.
Emily Tillmaand, MD, PhD
1st Year Resident
Emily was born in Upstate New York and moved around in New York and the Midwest before settling in Southwestern Ohio as a teenager. She first showed an interest in Neurology in elementary school proclaiming that “the best way to use your brain is to study the brain!” However, she decided to study Chemistry at John Carroll University in Cleveland, OH for her undergraduate education. There, she also worked as a resident assistant, spent her summers on basic science research and ran for/captained the cross country and track teams. After college, she worked as a research technician at the Cleveland Clinic, where she first encountered the career of a Physician Scientist and felt that it was a great fit for her. With this new goal in mind, Emily headed to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to complete her MD/PhD, this time melding her love of the nervous system with chemistry, studying the neurochemistry of primary sensory neurons particularly as it relates to pain and itch sensation. Her clinical rotations also reinforced her desire to evaluate and treat patients with neurological disorders. She completed her intern year with the UCLA Department of Medicine and is honored to train with UCLA Neurology. Throughout it all, Emily continues to run competitively, garden, find new ways to reduce her carbon footprint and intermittently tap into her joy of performing in choirs and musicals.
Vanessa Vides, MD
1st Year Resident
Vanessa is from Las Vegas, NV but spent some of her early childhood in northern NJ where she was born. She was awarded the Governor Guinn Millennium Scholarship to attend the University of Nevada Las Vegas where she double majored in Biochemistry and Biotechnology. Initially, it was Vanessa’s deep interest in Medical Oncology and the Medical Humanities that compelled her to pursue a career in medicine, Neurology would come to captivate her interest later on in medical school. She attended The Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine where she obtained her medical degree. She graduated with honors and was formally inducted into the AOA Honor Society in 2021. Vanessa was awarded the American Society of Hematology MMSAP Scholarship which facilitated her research at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA. Under the guidance of her mentor Dr. Saar Gill, she completed correlative studies on a clinical trial that assessed the safety, feasibility, and response rates of patients with CLL who were treated with CAR T cells in combination with Ibrutinib. Vanessa was also very involved in medical education during her time at Penn State where she functioned as the curriculum chair for her class. Vanessa also deferred her first year of medical school to help Penn State co-create a new medical curriculum for its new regional campus. Vanessa completed her Internal Medicine Internship at The Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital. Vanessa’s professional interests include Neuro-Oncology, Neuro-Cardiology, medical education, and the medical humanities. Vanessa’s other interests include spending time with her yellow lab Maddux, running long distances, reading, poetry writing, playing the piano, and expanding her Chuck Taylor shoe collection.