Class of 2026

Reshem Agarwal, MD
University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine
Post Pediatric Portal Program

Hi there! I have worked as a primary care pediatrician and hospitalist in various community healthcare settings over the last six years. My clinical experience has focused on serving newly arrived immigrant populations from culturally diverse backgrounds. As a daughter of Indian immigrants who was born and raised in California, I have an ever-evolving relationship with my own multicultural identity and am passionate about exploring the relationship between identity and health. I am interested in people’s stories and understanding what drives behavior. This has brought me to an exciting juncture in my career as I begin training in psychiatry. I look forward to focusing on behavioral health and applying this lens to public health issues. Outside of work, I enjoy practicing yoga, getting outdoors, and exploring music and arts.

Phillip Bradshaw, MD
Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

My path to psychiatry emerged from a passion for languages. Early on, I participated in several exchange programs in Spanish, German and Russian speaking countries. Later, I majored in Linguistics and Russian at Georgetown University. While assisting in aphasia research, I discovered the overlap between medicine and linguistics. On a Fulbright Fellowship in Germany, I further explored the field of psycholinguistics and quickly realized that as a physician, I could pair expertise in communication and medicine to support the health and wellbeing of patients. After a couple years of international adventures, I returned to the US, completed post-baccalaureate premedical studies at Goucher College, and matriculated into the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Faculty mentorship, research opportunities and fulfilling encounters with patients contributed to my decision to specialize in psychiatry at Penn. Between medical school and residency, I consulted for a mental health tech company in the development a natural language processing tool for psychotherapy. I also traveled abundantly and developed my hobbies in gardening and yoga. 

Elizabeth Duthinh, MD, MPH
Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

I grew up in western Maryland and studied public policy in undergrad at Brown University. After graduation, I moved to Philadelphia and worked in legal services at a nonprofit serving low-income immigrants and refugees. I completed the premedical postbaccalaureate program at Bryn Mawr College and attended medical school at Penn. I took a winding road through medical education, including pursuing an MPH and spending a year teaching high school biology and chemistry. The ongoing warmth and supportiveness of the faculty and residents at Penn psychiatry made the decision to stay here for residency an easy one. I care deeply about my LGBTQ community, health access and equity, and psychiatry and reproductive health.

QeeQee Gao, MD
University of Kansas School of Medicine Kansas City

Hi, I’m QeeQee (pronounced “Chee-Chee”)! I was born in China and grew up in the Little Apple AKA Manhattan, Kansas. From living and dying to neurons and networks, and everything in between, I am excited and inspired by all things human. I majored in biology at MIT, where I discovered the great joys of humanities and social sciences. After two gap years of teaching and serving coffee, I began medical school at the University of Kansas to become a surgeon. Little did I know that I would gravitate to the unassuming pursuit of human connection and meaning that is psychiatry! I hope to combine my love for art and science with policy and innovation to reimagine the social landscape. I am interested in the interdisciplinary crossovers of community and cultural psychiatry, psychodynamic psychotherapy, and medical humanities. In my downtime, you can find me listening to podcasts, binging Netflix reality tv, trying (and failing) to win the love of my cats, and occasionally writing a thing or two.

Trish Ike-Omotowa, MD
Medical College of Wisconsin

Hey everyone! I was born and raised in Manassas, Virginia. I went to Duke University where I majored in Evolutionary Anthropology, minored in Sociology, and obtained a certificate in Human Development. While at Duke, I became very involved in service-learning initiatives and developed a passion for engaging with the community. I furthered this interest after graduating from college when I served as a volunteer in the AIDS United AmeriCorps Program in Washington, D.C. I then found my way to Wisconsin where I went to the Medical College of Wisconsin and fell in love with psychiatry after completing an addiction rotation with veterans where I discovered my passion for connecting with others and supporting individuals with complex personal histories. Currently, my interests in psychiatry are broad and range from mood disorders, child/adolescent psychiatry, lifestyle psychiatry, and wellness. On the weekends, you can find me exploring the wonderful food scene here in Philly, cycling, exploring history museums, or binge watching my favorite reality tv shows.

Alise Peckjian, MD
Drexel University College of Medicine
Post Pediatric Portal Program

I was born and raised in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. I earned both my Bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering and my Medical degree at Drexel University. Throughout medical school, I volunteered at the Eliza Shirley House for Women and Children, where I realized the importance of child and family care as well as mental health medicine in disadvantaged communities. This led me to pursue my pediatric residency at St Christopher’s Hospital for Children. During my residency, I had the opportunity to care for children in diverse settings for their medical and behavioral health care, from outpatient clinics to the PICU. As I continued my work, the recurring theme of mental health in patient care guided me to collaborate with the Behavioral Health Committee at my hospital in developing new policies for psychiatric patients in the inpatient and emergency departments. These experiences culminated in my matriculation into the Post Pediatric Portal Fellowship! My personal interests outside of work include painting, cooking, exploring the food scene in Philadelphia, and racking up steps in the city and our local state parks!

Zachary Rosenthal, MD, PhD
Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine
Research Track

Hey there! I grew up in the suburbs of New Jersey, just outside NYC. From there I headed to Haverford College, where I majored in chemistry and found my passion for research during my senior thesis studying molecular regulation of protein aggregation in Huntington’s Disease. In pursuit of a mixed career as a physician-scientist, I went on to the MD/PhD program at WashU in St. Louis, where my PhD work explored how focal cortical injury and stimulation change brain network dynamics, using neuroimaging and electrophysiology in mouse models. I then returned to the wards and discovered my love of psychiatry, and became particularly interested in interventional neuromodulation therapies like ECT, TMS, and ketamine. At Penn I’m planning to explore my clinical interests in interventional psychiatry as well as use my postdoctoral research to investigate the physiological mechanisms of clinical brain stimulation using neural recordings in animal models. In the psychiatry world, I’m also interested in addiction, LGBTQ populations, and consult liaison psychiatry. In my free time, I enjoy cooking, home fermentation, hiking with my partner Bryan, and petting my cats Otto and Wayne.

Eugenia Saiegh, MD
Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

Hi! I was born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina and spent the second half of my life in New Jersey. I stayed in New Jersey for college, where I studied biology and nutrition at Rutgers University. As a first-generation Latina immigrant, I have volunteered in Spanish clinics throughout college and medical school to help improve medical care within the Latinx community. In medical school I co-founded the first Culinary Medicine Interest Group at Penn with a mission to improve nutrition and culinary literacy in medical education and patient care. I discovered my passion for psychiatry during my clerkship rotation at the Veterans Affair hospital, and I’m excited to be staying at Penn for residency. Throughout residency I hope to explore my interests in the gut-brain axis, Latinx mental health, and child/adolescent psychiatry. Outside of the hospital, I enjoy rock climbing, training Jiu-Jitsu, cooking vegan recipes, camping/hiking, and being a Philly sports fan!

Kirsten Sandgren, MD
Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

I grew up outside of Milwaukee, WI and moved to Washington, DC for my undergraduate at Georgetown University. I explored my fascination with human resilience and the experiences that shape and reshape our minds through my double major in psychology and history. I knew that I wanted to build my career in the field of mental health and pursued a Masters in Social Work at the University of Washington in Seattle, where I had the opportunity to work with patients involved in the criminal justice system, soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with the Warrior Transition Battalion at Joint Base Lewis-McChord and finally as an interventionist in a clinical research trial seeking to identify and mitigate the development of PTSD in acutely injured trauma survivors. Throughout my time as a social worker, I was humbled and honored to work with patients during some of the most trying moments of their lives, hear their stories and lend support where I was able. I was privileged to work with superb psychiatrists and as time and was inspired to attend Perelman School of Medicine and become a psychiatrist myself. I have a particular interest in trauma disorders, perinatal mental health, narrative medicine and the role of physicians as allies and advocates in advancing social justice. Outside of my time at the hospital, I fill every moment I can spending time exploring parks with my partner and our young daughters, trying out overly ambitious baking projects and playing board games.

Mila Tamminga, MD
Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

I was born and raised in Central Pennsylvania. I stuck around to complete my undergraduate degree in microbiology at Penn State, where I also worked in an adult basic literacy program and did research in neuroregeneration. As a medical student at Penn, I fell in love with psychiatry while studying novel therapeutics for addiction and working at a free community clinic. I also developed interests in well-being and the medical humanities, running a course at the Philadelphia Museum of Art about medical bias and completing mixed-methods research on medical students’ experience seeking psychiatric care. I am thrilled to be joining Penn’s warm, expansive program for residency. Within psychiatry, I am interested in collaborative/integrated care, addiction psychiatry, medical education, and well-being. I spend my free time trying new restaurants, walking in Philly’s many beautiful parks, and hanging out with my husband and cats.

Mikiko Thelwell, MD, MPH
UCLA/Drew Medical Education Program

Growing up in the South (shoutout to Atlanta) as a first-generation Jamaican American and queer woman of color, I decided to pursue medicine after taking cultural psychiatry at my alma mater, Barnard College. By connecting mental health with social justice, I found my passion. I attended medical school at the Charles R. Drew University (CDU) of Medicine and Science and the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. As the only historically Black medical school on the west coast, CDU’s medical education program was designed specifically towards serving patients in under-resourced settings. In my first year, I began working with my mentor and psychiatrist Dr. Eraka on her sexual and reproductive health program for youth impacted by commercial sexual exploitation (CSE). After learning more about her use of community-based participatory research, I decided to pursue my master’s in public health at UCLA in community health sciences. For my thesis, I was honored to help create lessons that challenged cis-normative/binary assumptions around sexual and reproductive health and to use critically informed psychoeducation with young people of color. In my final year of medical school, I continued engaging with multidisciplinary and intersectional mental health care. I completed the first Sub-I in the UCLA STAR clinic and EMPWR program for youth who identify as LGBTQ+ and families navigating complex experiences of trauma. I then translated these experiences through co-authorship of the first Kaplan and Sadock textbook chapter on mental health needs for LGBTQIA+ youth. I hope to continue this work at Penn, practicing psychiatry with an emphasis on public health programming for marginalized communities. Outside of work, I spend time singing, traveling, and doing hot yoga!

Eric Wagner, MD
University of Colorado School of Medicine

I am a native of Colorado and was born and raised on the south side of Colorado Springs. I started my educational journey thinking I would play linebacker for the Adams State Grizzlies before an injury and large transition lead me back home to complete my undergraduate degree at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs. I became the first person in my family to graduate from college with a degree in biomedical science and became interested about dialogue around mental health within minority communities and how policy shapes health outcomes for those on the margins of society. Two years following undergraduate I entered medical school at CU with tunnel vision focused on a career in psychiatry with a particular passion around patient advocacy. I am ecstatic to finally leave my home base and come to out to a completely different world in Philly where there will be much necessary personal and professional growth. In my free time, I enjoy weightlifting, exploring restaurants, brewing up incredible coffees from the homeland of Panama, and suffering on Sundays when watching my favorite team, the Washington Commanders.