Welcome to the New Geriatrics and GeriPal Fellows to the Division of Geriatrics 2026-2027!

Alegra Mendez (she/her)

E-mail: [email protected]

Alegra completed medical school at Tufts University School of Medicine and IM residency at California pacific Medical Center. She is currently a chief resident at CPMC. She is invested in medical education, including building an embedded psychiatry curriculum in the primary care clinic at CPMC. Some of us have met Alegra when she did a rotation with us during residency. She is interested in program building, especially home-based care.

She enjoys camping and cooking/baking, including apple pies and strawberry-rhubarb crisp!

Jaclyn (Jackie) O’Donnell (she/her)

Email: Jaclyn.O'[email protected]

Jaclyn completed medical school at University of Texas Medical Branch John Sealy School of Medicine, and is currently completing Internal Medicine Residency at University of Nevada School of Medicine as a chief resident. She has a nutrition background as a registered dietician and completed a MPH program while in residency. She is actively involved residents’ wellness and quality improvement project on transition of care from hospital back to primary care.

She likes to use food science to perfect recipes!

Zhengfang (Freya) Zhou (she/her)

E-mail: [email protected]

Freya completed medical school at University of South China Faculty of Medicine, and was on the path to become a surgeon. Her experience as a visiting scholar to Boston Children’s Hospital led her to appreciate the holistic approach of care. She found her calling in geriatric medicine while completing internal medicine residency at North East Medical Services in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is the lead in the residency Wellness Committee and a member in the Graduate Medical Education Committee. She is particularly interested in addressing healthcare disparity faced by the older immigrant populations.

Freya enjoys hiking in national parks and gardening!

Danielle (Nina) Escueta (She/Her) 

E-mail: [email protected]

Nina completed medical school at UCSF, and is finishing IM residency at UCLA. She is known to the division from her work on addressing loneliness experienced by older adults while she was a medical student here. She is the founder of the Sand Dollar Project which is a pen-pal letter writing program designed for medical students at UCLA and home-based older adults to promote intergenerational connection and address social isolation and loneliness.  She is a co-curricular chair for the IM residents for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusivity (IM REDI) at UCLA. While in residency, she is completing a narrative medicine certificate program through Columbia University.

Nina enjoys baking cookies and sharing them to spread joy!