our board members

Emily Busse

  • MD/PhD candidate Baylor College of Medicine

    Contact: homes.director@gmail.com

    Emily most recently served on the Executive Board as Associate Director of Manager Operations where she overhauled the manager training curriculum to establish week-to-week clinic consistency. In her new role as Executive Director, her priority is to promote operational excellence by increasing volunteer engagement and optimizing clinic workflow such that HOMES Clinic can better serve our patients. She has been consistently involved with HOMES Clinic since her first year at Baylor College of Medicine and is passionate about serving those in Houston experiencing homelessness.

Colton Andrews

  • MD candidate Baylor College of Medicine

    Contact: homes.web@gmail.com

    In his role, Colton hopes to increase our ability to serve more patients and increase the number of volunteers we can have in clinic every weekend. Additionally, he hopes to help grow the health advocate program and better equip our volunteers to deliver social resources to our patients, further addressing barriers to their good health. Ultimately, he believes that ensuring HOMES Clinic patients get and stay connected to their healthcare needs is paramount. Colton began volunteering at HOMES Clinic early on during medical school and quickly saw the opportunity that HOMES provides to its patients. He values being able to serve the underserved and misrepresented population of people experiencing homelessness while also learning alongside students from multiple partner institutions.

Michael DiLeo

  • MD candidate Baylor College of Medicine

    Contact: homes.director@gmail.com

    In his new role as Executive Director, Michael is excited to broaden the reach of the clinic and increase our engagement with patients through data driven programs. He previously served on the HOMES board as the Associate Director of Projects, where he organized many events including vaccine drives and health fairs, and he is excited to build upon this to improve and grow these events in the future. He will also be helping to lead the new advocacy branch of the clinic along with a new Associate Director, and through this he hopes to expand the impact of HOMES and create lasting change in the community. Overall, he hopes to help build the organization and support the weekly clinical operations as well as implement new programs and events by working with the many Associate Directors.

Chelsea Godfrey

  • MD candidate Baylor College of Medicine

    Contact: homes.web@gmail.com

    In her role, Chelsea aims to continuously improve clinic workflow to deliver quality care to patients at HOMES and provide an enriching educational experience for students every Sunday. She hopes to implement changes that will equip students and clients with much-needed resources and services longitudinally. Upon entering medical school, Chelsea began volunteering at HOMES Clinic as a way to bring her interest in serving underserved populations experiencing homelessness to life in an environment that encourages learning and growth.

Sanika Rane

  • MD candidate Baylor College of Medicine

    Contact: homes.communication@gmail.com

    In her role, Sanika hopes to improve visibility and increase transparency surrounding HOMES Clinic, its mission, and its operations, especially by establishing a stronger online presence and engaging more with the Houston community. She is passionate about caring for vulnerable populations and addressing social determinants of health. As a physician, she plans to advocate for her patients by getting involved with public health, global health, and public policy.

Lauren Do

  • MD candidate Baylor College of Medicine

    In her role, Lauren hopes to continue to grow the large-scale events that serve those experiencing homelessness in Houston. She hopes to increase the number of community partners at the semi-annual health fairs and to expand the patient reach and scope of the vaccine drive. In her career as a physician, she hopes to continue working with her community to provide care for underserved populations.

Panos Kontoyiannis

  • MD candidate UT McGovern Medical School

    Contact: homes.manage@gmail.com

    In his role, Panos is committed to improving the day-to-day clinic operations and enhancing the manager experience. As a lifelong Houstonian, it is even more important for him to continue to assist the clinic in providing care to Houston’s most vulnerable population. He believes that by improving the clinic experience both for volunteers and patients, HOMES Clinic can better serve Houston’s unhoused population. Through initiatives such as optimizing clinic workflow, volunteer education, and clinic scope. Panos intends to create a consistent clinic experience for all, ensuring that any patient that comes to HOMES is consistently met with quality and compassionate care.

Aditya More

  • MD candidate UT McGovern Medical School

    Contact: homes.manage@gmail.com

    In his role, Aditya hopes to build upon the current manager training process and serve as a pillar of support for managers when in clinic. His favorite part of HOMES is talking to the patients and helping them feel truly heard. In his experience, everyone including the attendings, managers, and volunteers, have been really passionate about making an impact, which makes him even more excited to join the Board and contribute to their efforts.

Madisyn Cox

  • MD/MPH candidate UT McGovern Medical School

    Contact: homes.healthadvocates@gmail.com

    In her role, Madisyn hopes to promote awareness of the health advocate position, increase knowledge about resources among all HOMES volunteers, and maximize the quality of information given to the people we serve. Madisyn has volunteered as a health advocate countless times and will use her experiences to create clear and concise information that can optimize its utility among patients and volunteers. Whether it at HOMES clinic or out on clinical rotations, Madisyn truly believes in the impact that these social resources can have on the homeless population and will work to ensure that HOMES volunteers are equipped to help the people they serve in any setting.

Elaine Hong Hunyh

  • PharmD candidate UH College of Pharmacy

    Elaine serves as the senior liaison between HOMES and UHCOP. She hopes to be able to coordinate and arrange adequate help for HOMES Clinic. She plans to prioritize contributing her care and compassion as well as ideas to serve our disadvantaged population. Before pharmacy school, she discovered her passion to serve for the underserved during her undergraduate years at Buena Vista, Virginia where she pursued a bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry with a minor in Chemistry.

Annie Man

  • PharmD candidate UH College of Pharmacy

    Annie serves as the junior liaison between HOMES and UHCOP. She is excited to represent the expanding role of the pharmacy profession by staffing the HOMES clinic with student pharmacists that supports pharmacist-delivered services in the community. Her passion includes advocacy in pharmacy and raising public awareness of the positive therapeutic outcomes that results from pharmacists’ interventions.

Akshat Kumar

  • MD candidate UT McGovern Medical School

    In his role, Akshat wants to use his background in technology, data science, and programming to better serve Houstonians experiencing unstable housing. He first heard about HOMES as an MS1 and immediately knew it was an organization of which he wanted to be a part. Volunteering there more and more, he quickly realized that his goal and HOMES's mission were one and the same.

Rebecca Franks

  • MD candidate Baylor College of Medicine

    In her role, Becca aims to improve volunteer preparedness and satisfaction in order to preserve and promote the delivery of high-quality care. Since college, Becca has been a volunteer EMT. Through this experience, she has observed the distinct needs of the unhoused population. Thus, she was drawn to HOMES’ holistic approach to providing comprehensive medical care while also connecting patients with appropriate social resources. This year, Becca hopes to guide evidence-based improvements that provide feasible, long-term benefits. Specifically, she aims to strengthen volunteer understanding of available social resources and clinic capabilities/structure to achieve greater efficiency and improve patient/volunteer satisfaction.

Abby Balkin

  • MD candidate Baylor College of Medicine

    In her role, Abby is looking forward to partnering with local businesses in the community to increase awareness of the HOMES clinic and bring different organizations together around a common cause. She plans to support both the numerous volunteers and patients that the clinic serves by increasing funding, bringing in new technology, and collaborating with other members of the board to better serve our patients and the community.

Sarah Grant

  • MD candidate Baylor College of Medicine

    Sarah serves as the liaison between HOMES and BCM, working to encourage involvement and connect students with the various HOMES volunteer opportunities. As representative, she aims to advance the street medicine lecture series at BCM and support the board with other upcoming and ongoing projects.

    Sarah’s undergraduate thesis about EHR interoperability and its potential for improving care for homeless populations inspired her involvement in HOMES. In this thesis, she explored gaps in care for homeless persons and the importance of a holistic approach to care. Sarah hopes to draw on this experience when facilitating other opportunities for BCM students to learn more about care for homeless populations, their unmet needs, and ways we can help.

Sara Mansoorshahi

  • MD candidate UT McGovern Medical School

    Sara serves as the liaison between HOMES and UT Health. She disseminates information about upcoming events and encourages others to join in the effort to help promote health care for all. Sara hopes that by promoting student participation in HOMES, more future physicians will prioritize health equity in their practice. Another part of her role is planning and executing the HOMES Street Medicine lecture series, which provides student an opportunity to from experts about the complexities of homelessness especially how it relates to healthcare, and steps they can take as a physician to contribute to the community.

Jonathan Lall

  • MD candidate UH College of Medicine

    Jonathan serves as a liaison between HOMES and UHCOM, but he also intends to serve as an advocate and educator for students interested in serving and making an impact amongst underserved populations in Houston. He became interested in participating with HOMES Clinic as a result of prior life experiences serving the underserved. Furthermore, he aims to engage students at UHCOM through the establishment of orientation/onboarding trainings, healthcare workshops, guest lecture series, and additional community service opportunities.

Sonali Mitra

  • MD candidate Baylor College of Medicine

    In her role, Sonali hopes to continue planning and executing various projects aimed at enhancing the services our clinic offers to those experiencing homelessness in Houston. Specifically, she intends to collaborate with clinic leadership to incorporate a smoking cessation program and a wound care program into the services HOMES already offers. Through implementation of these projects, she hopes to better serve the clinic patient population and make a lasting impact on the health and well-being of our community.

Nick Peoples

  • MD Candidate Baylor College of Medicine

    Contact: strategy.homes@gmail.com

    Nick stepped down as Co-Executive Director of HOMES Clinic in April 2023 after being named a Schwarzman Scholar, which will take him to Beijing for the coming year. In his new role in Strategy, he strives to leverage his experience to support HOMES Clinic and the Board of Directors however needed. Currently, he is negotiating the potential addition of social work students to the Health Advocate program, managing a portfolio of research projects measuring health and economic impact at HOMES Clinic, and remains founding editor of Word on the Street.

Spoorthi Kamepalli

  • MD candidate Baylor College of Medicine

    In her role, Spoorthi hopes to connect with local stakeholders in order to advance the mission of HOMES and advocate for the HOMES patient population. One of her top priorities for the year is to collaborate with policymakers and support policies that promote health equity. She also hopes to develop research initiatives that support this goal as well as work with community organizations that will empower HOMES patients and elevate their voices.

 

 

2022-2023

  • Thomas Gebert

    executive director, internal affairs MD/PhD candidate at Baylor College of Medicine

  • Nicholas Peoples

    executive director, clinic operations MD candidate at Baylor College of Medicine

  • Sanika Rane

    associate director of communications MD candidate at Baylor College of Medicine

  • Mary Fang

    associate director of clinic operations MD candidate at Baylor College of Medicine

  • Colton Andrews

    associate director of clinic operations MD candidate at Baylor College of Medicine

  • Michael DiLeo

    associate director of projects MD candidate at Baylor College of Medicine

  • Emily Busse

    associate director of manager operations MD/PhD candidate at Baylor College of Medicine

  • Panos Kontoyiannis

    associate director of manager operations MD candidate at UT McGovern Medical School

  • Will Lavercombe

    associate director of finances MD candidate at UT McGovern Medical School

  • Bhavesh Sayal

    associate director of street medicine MD candidate at Baylor College of Medicine

  • Spoorthi Kamepalli

    associate director of research MD candidate at Baylor College of Medicine

  • Caroline Praestholm

    associate director of quality improvement MD candidate at UT McGovern Medical School

  • Chelsea Godfrey

    BCM representative MD candidate at Baylor College of Medicine

  • Jonathan Lall

    UHCOM representative MD candidate at UH College of Medicine

  • Norman Zheng

    UTH representative MD candidate at UT McGovern Medical School

  • Elaine Hong Huynh

    UHCOP junior representative PharmD candidate at UH College of Pharmacy

  • Lexxie Hutson

    UHCOP senior representative PharmD candidate at UH College of Pharmacy