Alicia Agnoli

Alicia was raised on Martha’s Vineyard, where she was conditioned to appreciate both the excitement of summer tourist season and the insulating community of winter.  She left her island home to attend college at Princeton. Though she had suspected from an early age that medicine would be the career that best served her dual loves of science and people, it was during her studies in anthropology that she began to understand just how she wanted to do so. She wrote her senior thesis on the role of community in a children’s hospital.

After college, she spent a few years doing epidemiological and cardiology research in Boston (and generally falling in love with the city) before enrolling in medical school at Tufts.  She entered the MD/MPH dual degree program, recognizing her passion for public health and its natural complement to her interests of social justice in medicine.  She spent a summer in India working with a clinic for the urban underserved and studying their community health infrastructure. Her independent research has also focused on addiction medicine and treating dependence in the primary care setting.  She is excited to be joining the Tufts/CHA family and nurture her passion for effective community medicine and healthcare progress.

Outside of medicine, her interests include live music, traveling, bicycles, cooking, and pretty much any activity that gets her outside… preferably near the water.

Danit Bravher

Danit comes to Tufts from the far shores of northern New Jersey, where she spent the greater part of her childhood singing and dancing alongside her sister and swimming in fresh water lakes near her home. After high school, Danit attended Haverford College in Pennsylvania. At Haverford, she majored in chemistry and devoted most of her time to singing a cappella and dabbling in animal rights activism. She spent many summers in and after college working as a vet tech and as a farmhand, caring for chickens, pigs and cows on various organic farms in upstate New York. After an angry goat shattered her knee, however, it was time for a career change! One year after graduating from college, Danit eagerly took an Americorps position based out of a federally-qualified health center in New York City. There, she assisted family doctors in establishing an innovative model of group prenatal care, also providing health education and options counseling to pregnant teenagers. The following year she entered UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in Camden, NJ, where she continued to develop interests in women’s health, family planning and healthcare disparities. During medical school, Danit conducted a study investigating reproductive health outcomes in women receiving elective first trimester terminations in an outpatient family practice in New Brunswick, New Jersey. She also served as the co-director of a student group called GLAM (Gays, Lesbians and Allies in Medicine), and volunteered as a staff member at her school’s student-run clinic. She is elated to be joining Tufts Family Medicine for residency! Outside of work, you can find her singing obnoxiously loudly in the car, snuggling with her cat, Bella, and trying out a new restaurant with her girlfriend, Gen.

Julia Breton

Julia hails from the artsy-urban, proud-old-Southern city of Richmond, Virginia. After high school, she left for beautiful Charlottesville nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains to attend the University of Virginia where she was a member of the Women's NCAA Div I Track and Cross Country teams and led many organizations including NOW, the Peer Health Educators program, and a group that organizes service trips abroad.  She became such an active member of the UVA community that she was asked to live on The Lawn.

As a Cognitive Science major, she planned to become a social worker or a psychologist, but a service trip to a clinic in Guatemala in her third year gave her an epiphany that she could more effectively improve the quality of life of others as a physician.  She figured she'd just have to get through a few pre-med science classes...no big deal.  Despite learning along the way that the science classes and tests were far from being over, she followed her heart and still believes it is worth it for all the patients whose quality of life she'll be able to improve.

After UVA, Julia worked full-time at the Bronx Veteran's Hospital as a research assistant for Mount Sinai's Geriatrics and Palliative Care program.  She fell in love with New York and with a fellow Wahoo she met while up there, her now husband who goes by "Gumby."

For medical school, she returned home to VCU (MCV) where she was active in both the Family Medicine and in the Geriatric Student Interest Groups.  She also participated in an 4-year Honors program for students who want to work with the underserved.

Julia loves the primary care revolution at Tufts FMR and is excited to be joining such a caring and compassionate community.  Her medical interests include outpatient everything, especially geriatrics and house-calls, and her commitment to the elderly hasn't wavered since first volunteering at a nursing home when she was 12 years old.

In her spare time, Julia is outside--whether it be running, walking, hiking, reading, or having phone dates with old friends.  She also loves live music, and is the proud sister of a rock star.  Julia and her loveable husband are both happy, energetic extroverts who hope to warm Boston with their smiles!

Alia Lilienstein

Alia was born and raised in Northern California, the land of pasture-raised milk and free-range bee honey. As both the daughter of an immigrant and a descendant of Mayflower Pilgrims, Alia’s pursuit of a degree in American Studies from Georgetown was perhaps an obvious choice. Her studies focused on the influence of society and culture on art and infrastructure. When the closure of DC General Hospital caused a public outcry during Alia’s junior year, she devoted her senior thesis to understanding the hospital’s significance to DC’s Black community and the importance of culturally-competent health care. Sitting in on meetings with the mayor, health officials, legislators, and economists sparked her interest in health policy and public health. After college, she returned to her native San Francisco Bay Area to attend the UC Berkeley School of Public Health for her master’s degree. Berkeley helped her appreciate that an inclusive community and delicious, fresh food are vital components of a healthy society, and this experience planted a seed that would blossom into a dedication to primary care during medical school. With her MPH, Alia helped develop a public health media campaign to extend public transit hours of operation in order to combat drunk driving, partnered with department of health epidemiologists to translate research on breast cancer risk factors into language that was meaningful to concerned community groups, and worked on several large scale Meningococcal vaccine and pneumonia clinical trials. Alia began her tenure at Mount Sinai in the Department of Health Policy studying disparities in breast cancer treatment amongst minority women. Having been wooed by New York City, Alia stayed on at Mount Sinai for medical school, where she pursued research in female sexual dysfunction and was social chair of her class all four years (marquee ski trips, fabulous formals, and record-breaking fundraisers). During her fourth year, she was honored to be inducted into the Gold Humanism Honor Society, an organization that recognizes leadership, service, and humanistic medicine.

While Alia knew in med school she was destined to become a family physician, she waited a year to apply to residency in order to couples match with her husband, a future radiologist. During her year off, Alia joined the faculty of Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, mentoring a group of 30 first year medical students in a course on the social and ethical issues in medicine. Alia’s interests include women’s sexual health, food advocacy, health care access, and medical education. Outside of medicine, she loves arts and crafts (she once tie-dyed her couches), event planning, hula hoop dancing, gardening, and playing with her Puggle, Laila.

Lauren Hoogewerff

Lauren grew up with her parents and younger brother in Rocky Hill, Connecticut, home of locally renowned Dinosaur State Park. She graduated high school as salutatorian of her class, and participated in many school activities, ranging from the softball team to the marching band, school newspaper, and even math league. Lauren matriculated to the University of Connecticut, where she graduated magna cum laude with a B.S. with Honors in Molecular and Cell Biology, and a minor in Physics.  She was initially interested in pursuing a PhD in the biological sciences, but several years of laboratory research, medical shadowing, volunteering at a nursing home, and public health jobs convinced Lauren that she was more interested and better-suited to pursue a career as a physician. Outside of academics, Lauren spent her first year at UConn rowing for the crew team, often waking up for early morning practice at times when many of her friends were just going to bed for the night. Although she enjoyed rowing and was recognized as a Scholar-Athlete, she left the team to more rigorously pursue academics and other extracurricular interests, particularly community service. She spent a very rewarding week in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, gutting water-damaged houses and facilitating the rebuilding process for many families.  She was an active participant in intramural sports, Campus Crusade for Christ, and the Mortar Board Honor Society. Her summer jobs included running a program to combat childhood obesity in Hartford public schools and at Camp Courant, and co-authoring a health information booklet for the disabled. At UConn, Lauren also met a wonderful man named David, whom she married after her first year of medical school.  Lauren attended Tufts University School of Medicine, where she served as president of the Christian Medical and Dental Association, publicity co-coordinator for The Sharewood Project, a governing council delegate for the Massachusetts Medical Society and a voting delegate at several national meetings of the American Medical Association – Medical Student Section. Lauren’s particular interests include underserved medicine, global and public health, advocacy, and preventive medicine. Outside of medicine, she is an active member of Redemption Hill Church and enjoys running, biking, swing dancing, traveling, and spending time with family and friends.

Danielle O’Banion

Danielle hails from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She originally intended to become a medieval historian, until she realized that her interest in the human condition far outweighed her desire to evaluate obscure Latin texts. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Louisiana State University, she worked as a medical assistant at an oncology clinic, which gave her an in-depth education on the importance of compassionate medical care. After studying at Georgetown University, during which she obtained a Masters in Biotechnology, she returned to Louisiana for medical school. New Orleans has a vastly medically-underserved population and she has been passionate about improving access to care for those who need it most. She re-started a defunct student-run clinic for the homeless that provides basic medical care and screening services at a local shelter. It has grown to serve more patients with each successive year of operation. She has also worked to promote wellness in children through a number of outlets. Most recently, she started a mentorship program for a group of 12-16 year old students from a local housing development that was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. The program focused on promoting leadership skills and and interest in medicine through several activities, culminating in a health fair that was conducted almost entirely by mentees. Danielle has also served as a mentor in other venues, working annually as a counselor at a camp for children who have lost a loved one to violence; serving as a Big Buddy to a child with a devastating neurologic disease; and working at a recreation program for children who have disabilities. She served in various leadership capacities at LSU, sitting on the Academic Standards Committee and working for her school’s student feedback organization, the Aesculapian Society. Outside of LSU, Danielle assisted a city-wide evacuation during Hurricane Gustav in 2008. In addition to helping evacuees leave from and return to New Orleans via Evacuteer.org, she also worked at a temporary acute care facility for evacuated patients in nearby Baton Rouge. Her interests center around promoting healthy lifestyles for mothers and children, as well as finding effective, long-term solutions for the alleviation of chronic pain. In her spare time, she is an amateur oenophile and avid reader, and enjoys finding new holes-in-the-wall where delicious food is made. She has come to Tufts’ Family Medicine program to develop a clinical practice that can serve urban underserved populations in an efficient, holistic, and compassionate way.

Jessica Solomon

Jessica grew up in Newton, MA. From a young age she enjoyed helping care for her three younger siblings and by elementary school was telling everyone that she was going to become a doctor. At Tufts University Jessica majored in Biology and minored in English. She also tutored and mentored children from underserved areas and volunteered at the Tufts Floating Hospital for Children. After graduating she remained in Boston to be near friends and family, and to validate her childhood aspirations worked as a clinical research assistant in dry eye research and as an HIV counselor in a study to implement universal HIV screening in the Emergency Department. During this time she also volunteered in a nursing home. These experiences reaffirmed Jessica’s passion for the clinical aspect of medicine and her desire to care for people of all ages and backgrounds. Due to her wonderful experience at Tufts as an undergrad and her love for Boston, she was thrilled when she had the opportunity to attend Tufts for medical school and become a “double jumbo,” and is even more excited to now become a “triple jumbo” as she continues her training at Tufts. Her passions in medicine include pediatrics, adolescent medicine, women’s health, and preventive care. Outside of medicine Jessica loves hiking in the White Mountains, relaxing on the beach, running, baking, reading, listening to live music, and spending time with friends and family.

Lisa Yeung

Lisa was born and raised on the central Jersey shore and was the first in her family to go to college. As an undergraduate at Tufts, she became very involved volunteering at National Student Partnerships (now called LIFT), a non-profit, student-run organization that she now fondly calls a “patient-centered social home.” There, she became enamored with helping the underserved and advocating for individuals in need of various social services. She was lucky enough to shadow a Family Physician early during her college years and subsequently applied for the Tufts School of Medicine Early Acceptance BA/MD Program. At TUSM, her interest in Family Medicine only grew, and she went on to serve as the President of the FM Interest Group.  She also participated in a global health trip to Panama, which opened her eyes to health care in a country with scarce resources. The core values of Family Medicine have always resonated with her and she is ecstatic to join the Tufts/CHA family where she knows she will be surrounded by people passionate about FM! Besides FM, Lisa also loves languages (she speaks Spanish and 2 Chinese dialects), music, singing, dancing, painting, and trying new things.