Who We Are
We are a group of students, residents, and faculty who are promoting the Penn Global Surgery Group mission through education, collaboration, and research.
Students
Ha-Neul Yu
Co-President
ha-neul.yu@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Ha-Neul Yu is Co-President of the Penn Global Surgery Group. She is from Korea and graduated from New York University Abu Dhabi with a major in Biology and a minor in Psychology, before earning her master’s degree in Neuroscience at the University of Oxford. Her passion for global surgery stems from extensive volunteer experiences across diverse healthcare settings in Mongolia, Korea, the UAE, the UK, and the US, where she witnessed stark disparities in healthcare access and outcomes. These experiences have shaped her goal of contributing to sustainable solutions for improving global surgical care through collaboration and innovation.
Sadia Laisa
Co-President
sadia.laisa@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Sadia Laisa is Co-President of PGSG. Born in Chittagong, Bangladesh, she is a first generation immigrant raised in Queens, New York City. With extensive ties to family in Bangladesh, and first-hand experiences with the healthcare system in the global south, Sadia is incredibly passionate about equity and progress in the context of global health and surgery. In 2023, she graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology from Harvard College and a secondary in Ethnicity, Migration, and Rights. Sadia is dedicated to working towards increasing healthcare access and improving surgical health outcomes for underresourced communities in Bangladesh and globally.
Bayan Galal
Symposium Coordinator
bayan.galal@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Bayan is a first year medical student at the University of Pennsylvania. She previously pursued her Master's in Population Health Sciences at the University of Cambridge and her Bachelor's Degree in Molecular Biology and Global Affairs at Yale University. She is deeply interested in the intersection between global health and clinical medicine, inspired by her and her family's experiences in Egypt.
Michelle Kwon
Symposium Coordinator
michelle.kwon@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Michelle serves as a Symposium Coordinator for PGSG. Raised in New Jersey and South Korea, she has a BS in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania. Her interest for global health stems from her experiences abroad where she witnessed the disparities of health care in low-resource environments. She is also interested in how health care systems develop and grow in unique cultural contexts. As a future physician, she hopes to provide equitable care globally and culturally competent care locally.
Jamal Magoti
Lunch Talk Coordinator
jamal.magoti@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Jamal Magoti is a Lunch Talk Coordinator for PGSG. Born and raised in Tanzania, he grew up witnessing first-hand the inadequacies in the healthcare system there especially in surgical care provision. This sparked not only his interest in a medical career but also a passion for addressing inequities in access to care. As an aspiring physician, Jamal is committed to actively integrate public health and clinical medicine to address systemic disparities in healthcare access at the global level by utilizing culturally sensitive and locally informed strategies to enact meaningful change.
Alvin Yu
Research and Relations Coordinator
alvin.yu@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Alvin Yu serves as the Research and Relations Coordinator for PGSG. Born and raised in Los Angeles, he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a major in Biology and minors in Chemistry and Fine Arts. His interest in global surgery stems from his experiences as a public health and community development intern in rural Uganda, where he witnessed significant disparities in healthcare access and outcomes. Alvin is particularly interested in how factors such as surgical equipment, infrastructure, and training can improve surgical outcomes in under-resourced and underdeveloped regions. He is committed to exploring sustainable and collaborative solutions to expand surgical access and provide culturally competent care.
Faculty
David A. Spiegel, MD
Faculty Advisor
spiegeld@email.chop.edu
Dr. David Spiegel works as a pediatric orthopaedic surgeon at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, specializing in neuromuscular diseases, trauma, and spinal deformities and is a Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and a PENN Center for Global Health (CGH) Scholar. He holds the Denis S. Drummond endowed chair in pediatric orthopaedics. Has is a member of the PENN chapter of the AOA honor society. He attended Duke University for college, medical school, and orthopaedic surgical residency training, and then completed both research and clinical fellowships in pediatric orthopaedics at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He has served as an Honorary Consultant in Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation at the Hospital & Rehabilitation Centre for Disabled Children in Banepa, Nepal, for 27 years and is an Honorary Professor at the University of Basrah, Iraq. He has served on many national committees including Children’s Orthopaedics in Underdeveloped Regions of the Pediatric Orthopaedic Society of North America (POSNA), the Bone and Joint Decade committee (POSNA), the Global Courses Committee (POSNA), and the International Committee of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons where he directed the international scholars program. He has been on the Advisory Board of Orthopaedics Overseas, Global-HELP, the Ponseti International Association, Miracle Feet, and the Global Clubfoot Initiative. He was awarded the President's Call to Service Award (2006), by the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation, for 4000 hours of community service, the Golden Apple Award by Health Volunteers Overseas (2009), and an AAOS achievement award (2014). He received the Humanitarian Award from the Pediatric Orthopaedic Society of North America (2013) the Walter P. Blount Humanitarian award from the Scoliosis Research Society (2016), and the humanitarian award from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (2017). He has served as a consultant for the World Health Organization in Mongolia and Somalia and was on the steering committee for the WHO’s Global Initiative for Emergency and Essential Surgical Care. He has delivered more than 450 invited lectures, mostly at international venues including Nepal, Iran, Iraq, China, Pakistan, Tanzania, Mongolia and Somalia. He has also co-edited a textbook entitled “Global Orthopaedics: Caring for Musculoskeletal Conditions and Injuries in Austere Settings”.
Neil Sheth, MD
Faculty Research Advisor
neil.sheth@uphs.upenn.edu
Neil Sheth is Assistant Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania. He obtained his undergraduate degree in Biomedical Engineering with a minor in Finance at the University of Pennsylvania. He then spent 2 years on Wall Street as a Financial Analyst in Solomon Smith Barney's Healthcare Investment banking division prior to attending medical school at the Albany Medical College. Following medical school, he completed a 6 year Orthopaedic Surgery residency at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Following residency, he completed an adult hip and knee reconstruction fellowship at Rush University as well as a 3 month mini-fellowship at the Endo Klinik in Hamburg, Germany focusing on peri-prosthetic infection. Dr. Sheth has now returned to join the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania and focuses his research on bone loss pertaining to revision total hip arthroplasty, peri-prosthetic infection and the role of orthopaedic surgery in global health.
Jordan Swanson, MD, MSc
Faculty Advisor
swansonj@email.chop.edu
Jordan Swanson is an attending surgeon in the Division of Plastic Surgery at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia with special clinical expertise in cleft, craniofacial, and pediatric plastic surgery. His innovation and research initiatives are focused principally on how surgical care can be better adapted to low-resource settings, through design of clinical devices and techniques, locally-driven leadership and team capability strengthening, and reorienting care pathways appropriate to local contexts and resources. In parallel, these initiatives are also generating insight into less-invasive, patient-directed advances for surgical care delivery in tertiary settings. He previously worked and lived in Nicaragua, collaborating with Operation Smile and the Nicaraguan Ministry of Health to build a joint Comprehensive Cleft and Craniofacial program, and is the primary investigator of the Cirugia Para el Pueblo pilot program to advance the access to and impact of rural surgical care in Nicaragua. He also serves as Director of Surgical Innovation at Operation Smile, in which he co-leads development of clinical training programs, surgical research, and clinical program design specific to lower-resource settings, and is a plastic surgeon at the Shriner’s Hospital for Children.
Residents
Omar Ramadan
General Surgery Resident Advisor
omar.ramadan@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Omar Ramadan is a fifth-year general surgery resident at Penn. He was born in Pittsburgh, PA, raised in Kobe, Japan, and has Lebanese roots. He completed his undergraduate studies at Emory University, double-majoring in Biology and Economics. He received his medical degree from the University of Alabama School of Medicine and spent a month in Beirut, Lebanon, with a general surgery service at a community hospital. He has a strong interest in health policy and global surgery, particularly in developing efficient and effective surgical care solutions in low-resource settings.
Founders
Rosaline Zhang, MD, MSTR
Co-Founder
Rosaline graduated from the College at Penn with double majors in urban studies and biology. She is passionate about global surgery and the opportunity to integrate her interests in public health, education, community development and surgery. She served as a research fellow for the CHOP Plastic Surgery division while pursuing a a Masters in Translational Research. Her other interests include promoting women in medicine and student wellness. She graduated from Perelman in 2019 with an MD and MTR.
Rachel Johnson, MD
Co-Founder
Rachel's interest in global surgery began after learning about the disparities in access to surgical care around the world. As a first year medical student, she realized that there was no organization on campus that was specifically dedicated to raising awareness and educating the Penn community about these issues, and started the organization along with Rosaline Zhang and James Friedman. She graduated in 2018.
James Friedman, MD
Co-Founder
Co-Founded the Penn Global Surgery Group during his orthopedic residency at University of Pennsylvania. He has a strong interest in delivering surgical care to underserved communities both domestic and abroad. He completed his residency in 2019 and is currently practicing as a board-certified orthopedic sports surgeon at Alpine Orthopaedics Medical Group in Stockton, California.