Cristina Valdovinos is a first year medical student in the Charles R. Drew University/UCLA Medical Education program. Raised in South Central Los Angeles, Cristina completed a BA in Human Biology at Stanford University and an MPH in Epidemiology at Columbia University. She went on to work as a clinical research coordinator at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles for over five years. This work inspired her to pursue a career in medicine. She completed a post-bacc program at CSU East Bay to strengthen her candidacy for medical school. Cristina is undecided regarding specialty choice, but hopes to provide compassionate care as a physician in an underserved community & to use her public health and research training to improve minority participation in clinical trials.

Undergrad Institution: Stanford University

Hometown: Los Angeles, CA