Liana Gefter, MD graduated from Rice University 1999 with a B.A. in the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality.  After graduation, she served as a Teach for America corps member teaching elementary and middle school in East Palo Alto, CA for three years prior to attending Stanford Medical School.  While a medical student, she created and coordinated a two-way pipeline program: one direction brought medical students to teach in East Palo Alto; the other brought students from East Palo Alto to the medical school.

After graduating from Stanford Medical School in 2008, she worked as a consultant in the field of child advocacy and began her work as a Research Associate at Stanford.  Today, she works in Stanford’s Center for Research and Education in Family and Community Medicine and is the research coordinator for the Stanford Youth Diabetes Coaches Program.  She created the curriculum for that program by combining evidence-based strategies for meeting the needs of underserved students with principles from proven models of chronic disease self-management for adults.

Beyond her work at Stanford, Dr. Gefter is also the national director of the Health Career Collaborative, with chapters in eleven cities, including Houston.  The Mission of the Health Career Collaborative is to provide high school students from low-income, underrepresented minority communities with mentorship, engaging health curriculum, and exposure to health careers.

For more on the Stanford Youth Diabetes Coaches Program, visit http://med.stanford.edu/stanfordyouthcoaching.html.
For more on Health Career Collaborative, visit http://healthcareeracademy.com/