Julia Neri

UConn School of Medicine

I was born and raised in Wallingford, Connecticut. I graduated in 2020 from the University of Connecticut with a B.S. in biological sciences and Spanish and a minor in Latino Studies.

As an undergraduate student, I was involved in the Collegiate Health Service Corps, providing health and wellness lessons to local medically underserved communities at the Willimantic Covenant Soup Kitchen and Prides Corner Farm. In 2019, I was accepted for the Migrant Farmworker Clinic Fellowship as a clinic student coordinator, overseeing, scheduling, and training volunteers for the clinic’s vitals station. During the 2020 clinic season, following the conclusion of my fellowship, I returned as a student coordinator to assist in adjusting the traditional clinic setting and organizing volunteers for COVID-19 testing sites. I currently work as a night patient care technician at Middlesex Hospital on the telemetry unit.

I sought involvement in the Urban Service Track/AHEC Scholars (UST/AS) Program to equip myself to advocate for various populations and to elicit change in the quality of care by better understanding cultural and social determinants of health across populations. I plan to pursue a career as a primary care pediatric physician. Children can’t control the neighborhood, the household environment, or the socioeconomic status they grow up in. As a future primary care physician, I will strive to understand the systematic inequalities which, alongside personal histories, drive health disparities. I want to give a voice to children and advocate for their highest quality of care.