E-STaR Scholars

Laurel Dang, MD

Primary Care Physician
Assistant Clinical Professor, Family Medicine

Laurel Dang is a board-certified family medicine physician who provides primary care for patients of all ages, including obstetrics care.

Dr. Dang believes in taking her patients' values and cultural context into consideration when
developing a treatment plan. She aims to empower patients with medical literacy to promote autonomy. Dr. Dang's goal is to provide compassionate care to generations of patients and their families.

Dr. Dang completed her family medicine residency at the Swedish Medical Center in Englewood, Colo. where she was chief resident. She earned her medical degree at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

Outside of work, her interests include watercolor painting, crocheting and tending to her orchids. On the weekends, she enjoys casually painting on the beach and rock climbing.

Heather Davis, MSN, RN, PCCN, SCRN

Advanced Practice Specialist RN

Heather Davis is a master’s-prepared nurse with fourteen years of clinical and leadership experience, including a decade of service at UC San Diego Health. She currently serves as an Advanced Practice Specialist for the Hospital Inpatient Medicine Service Line, supporting the 11th floor Neuro-Surgical Progressive Care Unit. Over the course of her career, she has worked in long-term acute care, hospice, orthopedics, and kidney/liver transplant, bringing a broad range of expertise to her practice.

She is pursuing a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Nursing at the University of San Diego, where her research focuses on how healthcare providers communicate about patients, with the goal of improving quality and equity of patient care. Her scholarship reflects her deep commitment to addressing disparities in healthcare access and outcomes.

Joseph Diaz, MD

Associate Clinical Professor, Department of Medicine
Clinical Services Chief, Division of General Internal Medicine
Department Wellness Director Committee Chair

Dr. Joseph Diaz is an Associate Clinical Professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine (GIM). He received his MD from the Long School of Medicine in San Antonio, TX in 2015, and graduated from the UCSD Internal Medicine residency program in 2019 before joining UCSD as a faculty member. He practices predominantly in the primary care setting and serves as the Clinical Services Chief for the Division of General Internal Medicine. His clinical/operational interests include improving workflow efficiencies in the delivery of ambulatory care and better understanding how technological innovations can be implemented into daily clinical practice. His research interests include better understanding systemic drivers of physician burnout and how to mitigate burnout; how physician coaching may improve physician wellness; how operational process improvements can better patient and population health; and how AI technologies can enhance and/or harm patient care and physician and patient experience.

He is currently part of a team studying how AI scribe tools affect patient and physician experience and is engaged in multiple projects to better understand and mitigate physician burnout through the alteration of clinic workflows and the reduction of physician non-clinical work. He serves as the Department of Medicine’s Co-Wellness Director and Chair for UCSD Health’s Department Wellness Director Committee and is passionate about improving physician work experience in order to improve patient experience and care. He precepts residents in clinic and teaches medical students in a variety of settings. He has served as the Clerkship Director for the fourth year GIM elective (MED434) and was the recipient of UC San Diego School of Medicine’s 2025 Kaiser “Excellent in Teaching” award from the MS3 class. He is currently getting his executive MBA at Rady School of Management and has a particular interest in new ventures and entrepreneurship in health care.

Sangwoo Shawn Kim, MD

Associate Physician, Radiation Medicine and Applied Science
Co-Chair, Quality Committee

Dr. Sangwoo Shawn Kim is a radiation oncologist at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). He completed his undergraduate studies at Swarthmore College, followed by medical school and residency training at UCSD, where he served as the chief resident in the radiation oncology residency program.

During his chief residency, Dr. Kim was the physician lead for the department’s transition to the Epic electronic health record (EHR) system, working closely with the clinical operations and information technology teams to facilitate a seamless experience for both patients and providers. He also plays a central role in the Radiation Oncology Quality Reporting System and currently serves as physician chair of the departmental Quality Committee. Motivated by a commitment to improving cancer care, Dr. Kim focuses his efforts on leveraging EHR-based tools to streamline workflows for patients receiving radiation therapy, enhance operational efficiency, and promote high-quality, patient-centered care.

Anna Lussier, BA

MD-PhD Student and Graduate Student Researcher

Anna Lussier is an MD-PhD student at the UC San Diego School of Medicine and the UC San Diego–San Diego State Joint Doctoral Program in Global Public Health. She is a Global Health Academic Concentration (GHAC) scholar within the UCSD school of medicine—where she first identified her passion for research and cross-cultural healthcare innovation. During medical school, Anna completed research on the application of hyperbaric oxygen therapy as a novel treatment for COVID-19 and Long Covid Syndrome, completing a GHAC-sponsored visiting scholarship at the Karolinska Institute, where she participated in clinical trial research exploring the potential for hyperbaric oxygen therapy to improve outcomes among critically ill patients suffering from COVID-19. Since then, she has pursued her PhD training with the UCSD Lindholm Lab, where she has collaborated across a wide array of research projects in diving and hyperbaric medicine as well as public health and migratory drowning prevention. 

Originally from rural Maine, Anna's passion for medicine is founded on the belief that health is a basic human right and that equitable access to care should be extended across regions and borders. Since beginning medical school, Anna's interests have expanded to include healthcare economics and systems science, particularly after witnessing the challenges inherent to the patient-provider-payer landscape of healthcare delivery in the United States. She is interested in applying systems science principles to create financially sustainable medical and public health innovation that improves outcomes while optimizing resource allocation and access to care for patients across San Diego County and the nearby Baja California.

Lab Profile
Global Health Academic Concentration Student Profile

Elsie Ross, MD, MSc

Vascular Surgeon
Associate Professor of Surgery

Elsie Gyang Ross, MD, MSc is an Associate Professor of Surgery and Adjunct Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, where she also serves as a Medical Director for Surgical Informatics and Clinic Medical Director for Vascular Surgery at Hillcrest. 

Her research focuses on the application of artificial intelligence (AI), implementation science, and outcomes research to improve the detection and treatment of peripheral artery disease (PAD) in order to reduce adverse outcomes. She leads an NIH R01–funded program to develop and implement AI-enabled PAD detection in diverse patient populations and is building translational pipelines that integrate AI with clinical workflows to enhance equity and real-world impact. Her clinical work focuses on symptomatic PAD, limb salvage, dialysis access, and advanced endovascular care. 

Dr. Ross completed her MD at Stanford University School of Medicine and her 0+5 vascular surgery residency at Stanford Health Care. She earned a Master's in Health Policy, Planning, and Financing at the London School of Economics and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine as a Fulbright Scholar to the United Kingdom. 

Megha Shankar, MD

Primary Care Physician, General Internal Medicine
Associate Professor, Department of Medicine

Dr. Megha Shankar is an Associate Professor of Medicine within the Division of General Internal Medicine and Department of Medicine at the University of California San Diego. She is a primary care physician, medical educator, and health services researcher who seeks to promote justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion in medicine with a focus on sexual and reproductive health. Clinically, she practices primary care at the UCSD 4th and Lewis Internal Medicine Clinic. She leads the women's health quality efforts as the Co-Director of the Population Health Services Organization Wellness/Prevention Committee, seeking to promote cervical and breast cancer screening. As an educator, she teaches within both graduate and undergraduate medical education. She serves as Core Faculty with the UCSD Internal Medicine Residency Program as the Director of the Social Justice and Advocacy Pathway and Key Faculty within the Primary Care Track. She directs the School of Medicine elective MED 286: Refugee, Immigrant, and Migrant Health and participates in the third-year medicine clerkship Mentor Clinician Program.

Her grant-funded research addresses cervical cancer screening, trauma-informed reproductive care, intimate partner violence, social justice curricula, and immigrant/refugee health. Originally from Chicago, she has an undergraduate degree in anthropology and biology from the University of Chicago and earned her medical degree at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine. She completed her internal medicine residency and primary care track at the University of Washington, followed by a health services research fellowship at Stanford University/Palo Alto VA.