Co-Editors in Chief
Meera Nagpal
Meera is a third-year medical student in the SELECT program at USF. She graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in Molecular Cell Biology and Data Science and worked as a software engineer last year. She has a variety of interests: gut microbiome, LGBTQ+ health, and narrative medicine. In her free time, she enjoys reading, writing, thrifting, buying excessive amount plants for her apartment.
Sylvia Choo
Sylvia is a third-year medical student in the CORE program at USF. She studied Ancient Greek and Latin as a classics major at Stanford University. She is passionate about bioethics and joined The Pulse to share and shed light on important medical issues. In her free time, she likes figuring out what new ingredients she can throw into her fried rice and bouldering at the local climbing gym.
Outreach Director
Aishwarya Vuppula
Aishwarya is a third-year medical student at USF Health. They like to eat, write, and breath in their spare time. They graduated from UC San Diego and went on to work to make money to support themselves. Now they’re in medical school spending that money. Besides that, they like talking about themselves in the third person.
Treasurer
Ahsan Usmani
Marketing Director
Lynn Nguyen
Lynn Nguyen is a third-year allopathic medical student at the University of South Florida’s Morsani College of Medicine. For her undergraduate education, she attended the University of California at San Diego, where she graduated in 2020 with a B.S. in Human Biology. During her gap year, she worked as a medical transcriptionist in a dermatopathology laboratory, which was connected to a multi-specialty clinic. She also served as a production assistant on a podcast focusing on topics related to diversity, equity, and inclusion in medicine during her gap year. Lynn’s interests include community service, narrative medicine and the humanities, and DEI.
Multimedia Director
Samuel Mendez Araque
Sam is a third-year medical student passionate about the arts, poetry, drama, and dramatic poetry. He joined the pulse to help grow interest in the humanities within medicine, and as a whole. In his free time he enjoys cooking, reading, writing, and painting.
Staff Writers
Kareem Zuhdi
Kareem Zuhdi is a third-year medical student passionate about narrative medicine, quality improvement, and mental and physical well-being. Studying to get his MD at the Morsani College of Medicine, he also works on the side as a volunteer crisis counselor for a suicide and crisis hotline as well as on the Lancet’s Child and Adolescent Health International Youth Advisory Panel. Kareem became involved with The Pulse medical journal in order to promote his vision of making medical knowledge more easily accessible to all people, free from the constraints of medical jargon and academic paywalls.
Wenxin Song
Wenxin is a third-year medical student at USF. She graduated from the University of Florida with a bachelor’s in biology and a certificate in music in medicine. Her interests include writing fiction, reading 19th century literature, playing eight instruments, and sleeping. Wenxin joined the pulse to discuss medicine-related topics in the form of fairytales/short stories, in the hopes that they bring cheer during stressful times.
Roger Rochart
Roger is a third-year medical student in the SELECT Program. He attended the University of San Francisco for his undergraduate education, graduating with a bachelor’s in Biology/neuroscience and Minor in Spanish. He is passionate about understanding how the brain works in many functional capacities. He is interested in Neurology but also has some curiosity in surgery. In his free time, he likes to sleep taking advantage when the opportunity arises to sleep. He joined The Pulse to share relevant research and raise awareness about various topics surrounding medical training/practice.
Madeline Erwich
Madeline is a third-year medical student who enjoys reading, writing, walking in nature, and being an extremely mediocre guitar player. She is from Miami, Florida.
Madeline is a third-year medical student in the CORE program at USF. Through writing for The Pulse, she hopes to cultivate a sense of community by sharing stories that resonate with those who have encountered various aspects of medicine. In her free time, Madeline enjoys reading, writing, nature walks, and attempting to play the acoustic guitar.
Lachlan Shiver
Lachlan is a fourth year student in the CORE program. A previous editor in chief of The Pulse, he worked to develop the staff writers program. He has a passion for narrative medicine, and plans to match into a combined internal medicine/ pediatrics program. When he is not writing, he enjoys running.
Grace Lee
Grace is a first-year medical student in the SELECT program at USF. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with degrees in Neuroscience and Creative Writing in 2019, and has since worked in the consumer health/pharmaceutical industries. She is passionate about exploring the applications of medicine and clinical practice to the larger healthcare industry, and has a growing interest in medical humanities and narrative medicine. In her free time, she enjoys running, cooking, baking, and exploring Tampa with friends.
Rithvic Jupudi
Rithvic is a first-year medical student in the SELECT program at USF. He is from metro Detroit and went to Johns Hopkins for undergrad, where he majored in public health and natural sciences. He is passionate about making healthcare more approachable and accessible, specifically interested in psychiatry and young adult mental health. Outside of school, Rithvic loves plant-based cooking, running, hanging out with friends, and exploring whatever new town he is in.
Kelli Agrawal
Kelli is a second-year Ph.D. student in the College of Public Health at USF. She received her Bachelor of Science in Health Sciences from the University of West Florida, Master of Public Health from the University of Florida, and completed the LGBT Health Policy and Practice graduate program at George Washington University. Her doctoral research focuses on the intersection of communicative resilience, community-engaged research, and suicide prevention. She joined The Pulse to share articles that break down silos and demonstrate that public health is for everyone.
Abigail Weisse
Abigail is a first-year medical student in the SELECT program at USF. She graduated with a degree in Biology and minors in Spanish and Creative Writing from UCF in 2020. In the interim between undergraduate and medical school, she enjoyed teaching English in Spain and then a work-from-home lifestyle in Orlando. Her main writing interests are creative nonfiction and narrative medicine. In her free time, she enjoys eating, reading, and traveling (especially to national parks)!
Faculty Advisors
Dr. Jennifer Caputo-Seidler, MD
Jennifer Caputo-Seidler, MD is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hospital Medicine. Her interests include medical education and narrative medicine. Writing has played a significant role in her self-care as a frontline physician during the COVID pandemic, and she joined The Pulse to mentor medical student writers. In her free time, she enjoys baking and running her corgis’ Instagram.
Dr. Milind Kothari, DO
Dr. Kothari completed his residency training in Neurology and then a fellowship in electrodiagnostic and neuromuscular medicine. Prior to coming to USF in 2019, he held multiple administrative/leadership roles at Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey, Pennsylvania. He and his wife love the sunny Florida weather and they have become hardcore Tampa Bay Lightning and Buccaneers fans since moving to the Tampa area. They both enjoy music and the arts, and love to try out different restaurants in the Tampa Bay area.