Noor Al-Alusi, MS is currently a medical student at the UCSF School of Medicine. She was accepted to UCSF with a Regent’s Scholarship after working as a data analyst in the iSTRIVE Research Lab at the UCSD School of Medicine in 2017-2018. As part of the iSTRIVE Team, Noor assisted with research at the intersection of HIV and intimate partner violence in Baltimore and Brazil. What she appreciated the most about her time with iSTRIVE was the opportunity she had to work with researchers so committed to serving vulnerable populations of women worldwide. Under the mentorship of Dr. Jamila Stockman and Dr. Kiyomi Tsuyuki, she also had the opportunity to hone her research skills, refining her ability to conduct data analyses, write academic papers for publication, and prepare research presentations.

Prior to working with the iSTRIVE Research Lab, Noor received her master’s degree in epidemiology from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and bachelor’s degree in biology from UCLA. During her master’s program, she completed a concentration in Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Humanitarian Studies, Ethics, and Human Rights. For her master’s thesis, she used mathematical models to analyze how the timing of Zika virus infection during pregnancy relates to the risk of congenital Zika syndrome. She studied the Zika outbreak in 2016 at the CDC Dengue Branch in Puerto Rico and in 2017 at the University of São Paulo in Brazil. These experiences, coupled with the global public health research she conducted with the iSTRIVE Research Lab, reinforced her commitment to serving marginalized communities worldwide as a future physician and global health researcher.