Jeremy Libang
Graduate Division
Second Year
I am excited to submit my candidacy for the position of GPSA President. During my time as a student at UCSF, I have had the honor of serving as the Vice President of Internal Affairs for GPSA. This experience has shown me how student government acts as a bridge between student needs and school administration. In my role as IVP, I have gained valuable experience in event planning, budgeting, and student advocacy. Critically, I have listened intently to the needs of students so that I could advocate and actively discuss their needs such as improving the Parnassus gym hours and funding for various RCO events. This past year, I successfully planned the UCSF winter formal and participated in the selection committee of the UC Student Regent. Prior to my time as a graduate student, I was a lab manager here at UCSF. In undergrad, I was a resident assistant and a leader in numerous student organizations. In these diverse experiences, I have learned to work collaboratively with both university officials and other student leaders to address complex problems. I believe in fostering a work environment with open communication where all perspectives are valued. As President, I will continue to serve as an advocate for the diverse needs of our fellow students and ensure that these needs are addressed so that we can become best version of health professionals and/or scientists that we have set out to become. I would be so honored to serve as the intermediatory between the students at UCSF and the university administration. I am eager to listen to our fellow students so that I can amplify your concerns and make changes. My central goals for my presidency if elected as GPSA President are to: - Support and host more interprofessional opportunities.
- Advocate for a freeze in annual UCSF housing increases for students.
- Increase the number of outreach activities that UCSF does with the SF community.
I look forward to the opportunity to serve our student body as GPSA president! Thank you for your consideration! |
Gabriel Avillion
Graduate Division
Second Year
My name is Gabe, and I am a second-year PhD student in the Developmental and Stem Cell Biology program. I am running for Vice President (VP) of Internal Affairs to build on the work I started over the last year as the VP of External Affairs by continuing to advance the needs of our diverse student body and shifting my focus toward issues that affect students day to day and where I can have the most direct impact. In this role, I would elevate students' voices in meetings with our university leaders, solve campus problems by overseeing campus-wide committees, and strengthen our community by working more closely with the many vital student organizations and school-specific governments at UCSF. In my first year on GPSA, I focused largely on external advocacy at the UC system level, but many of the most pressing issues I heard from students were local ones. In response to concerns from many peers about how federal funding cuts would impact students at UCSF, I worked with our Vice Chancellor of Research, Dr. Harold Collard, to organize a fireside chat where students from research and medicine could learn about these changes and directly question our administration about how we are responding to these challenges. This event revealed a significant gap in communication between our administrators and our students. I believe that GPSA is uniquely positioned to fill this gap, and strengthening the relationship between students and university leadership is one of my central goals as VP of Internal Affairs. In my role as the VP of External Affairs, I served as a board member on the UC-wide Graduate and Professional Council (UCGPC), where I attended monthly meetings with leaders from the other UCs to address system-wide issues. I helped develop a UC Student Advocates program to collect stories from students whose research has been impacted by funding cuts. Our board wrote letters to state and federal lawmakers in support of SB 607 (authorizing state funding for research) and H.R.6718 (expanding the definition of professional degrees). We also worked directly with UC President James Milliken to build support for these initiatives. Additionally, I served as a representative on the UC-wide and the local UCSF Healthcare Committee, where I advocated for expanding UCSHIP coverage and accessibility. As VP of Internal Affairs, I plan to bring this same approach to local advocacy by identifying relevant issues and delivering impactful solutions. Specifically, I want to audit student representation across UCSF committees to identify gaps where student voices are absent or underrepresented, and work to fill those seats with engaged students. I also plan to continue bridging the gap between students and administrators by working more closely with student organizations and school-specific governments, such as ASSM and ASGD, to ensure that student voices across campus reach university administration. Thank you for your consideration, and I look forward to working together. |
Eden Chun
Graduate Division
First Year
I am excited to submit my candidacy for the Graduate & Professional Student Association’s (GPSA) Vice President of Internal Affairs! I am driven by a desire to strengthen how GPSA operates at a systems level and ensure that our structures are effective and transparent. My background sits at the intersection of science, operations, and organizational infrastructure. Prior to UCSF, I served as the inaugural Director of Internal Affairs for the Biology+Business (LSBE) Program at UC Berkeley, where I focused on building internal structures, coordinating programming, and improving how information and opportunities were shared with students. In this role, I secured funding, organized externships and speaker events, and developed systems to connect students with academic and industry opportunities. I later expanded this operational focus as a Program Manager at Amazon, where I designed and launched internal programs impacting over 1 million employees across North America. A core part of my work involved writing and maintaining internal documentation, including program proposals, operational guidelines, and process documents, to ensure clarity, alignment, and scalability across teams. Across these experiences, I have consistently built systems that improve coordination, documentation, and accountability across groups. I approach leadership with a focus on clarity, accessibility, and creating structures that make organizations more responsive to the people they serve. If elected as Vice President of Internal Affairs, I will focus on strengthening organizational transparency and documentation. I will ensure that meeting minutes, attendance, and decisions are consistently recorded and accessible, supporting stronger institutional memory and accountability. I aim to develop more structured and transparent processes for committee formation and student appointments, while improving coordination across Registered Campus Organizations through clearer communication and better alignment of events and initiatives. I also hope to streamline how updates are shared across campus, make information more centralized and accessible, and confirm that GPSA elections are organized, transparent, and easy for students to engage with. My vision is for GPSA to not only be representative, but operationally effective; strong internal systems are what enable meaningful advocacy, programming, and student impact. I would be honored to contribute my experience as both a program manager and graduate student to strengthen GPSA’s impact at UCSF. Thank you for your consideration! |
Gavin Shu
School of Medicine
Third Year
I would like to announce my candidacy for the position of VP of Finance with GPSA. With a strong background in financial management and a passion for enhancing our student experience, I am eager to bring my expertise to this crucial role. My goal for my tenure is to improve our experience both during and after our time at UCSF. In my past career in management, I honed my resource allocation and budgeting skills, managing complex financial responsibilities with precision. My role involved overseeing operational budgets, ensuring financial efficiency, and implementing strategic plans. Some of my achievements include reaching a 160% annual bonus for my team and upgraded f lights for international travel through fund allocations. This experience has equipped me with the knowledge and skills to effectively manage the GPSA budget, maintain accurate f inancial records, and oversee the reimbursement process for all expenditures. In this role, I became adept at engaging in productive and respectful discussions and deliberations. My approach focuses on collaboration and finding mutually beneficial solutions, ensuring that our entire student body’s perspectives on key institutional financial issues will be recognized, approved, and acted upon. These experiences have prepared me to handle the f inancial oversight required for GPSA and to explore new funding opportunities to support our initiatives. Over the last year and a half as the VP of Finance, I have been able to help with student service fees, facilitating meetings, and performing the expected duties of the VP of Finance. The program that I am most proud to be part of is the initiation of a financial literacy curriculum (FLC) for UCSF students. We have successfully completed two annual book programs, and I look forward to continuing this effort and completing the FLC by 2028. Additionally, during my tenure, GPSA has successfully increased our RCO funds from red to black, reduced quarterly student fees, and established new protocols for handling funding exceptions. With a commitment to financial transparency and a proactive approach to budgeting, I am dedicated to ensuring that our student fees are managed responsibly and effectively. I look forward to the opportunity to serve as the VP of Finance and contribute to the continued success of our entire student body. Thank you for your consideration. |
Vivian Lee
School of Pharmacy
Second Year
I am honored to submit my candidacy for Vice President of Diversity Affairs on the GPSA executive council. I believe that diversity and inclusion are crucial to creating a sense of belonging for students so that they feel welcome and represented. In my senior year at Johns Hopkins University, I served as the Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion for PharmHop, an organization that provides networking opportunities within the biopharma industry. In addition to helping plan events such as resume workshops and speaker events with companies like Pfizer and Merck, I focused on recruiting female students and students in underrepresented groups. At UCSF, I am the Director of Records for the Translational Medicine Organization (TMO), an interprofessional GPSA organization that seeks to bridge the gap between the industry and clinical pharmacy. TMO was established in August of 2025, and as a founding member, I have worked diligently with the other board members to build our organization from the ground up. Among other tasks, this includes planning and executing events, forging relationships with mentors and companies, and recruiting students to become members. As such, I have honed the interpersonal skills I would need to succeed as VP of Diversity Affairs, including collaboration, effective communication, and flexibility. Furthermore, I believe that as future healthcare providers who will be serving patients from all backgrounds, surrounding ourselves with a diverse community of people and those with different lived experiences will foster cultural competence and humility. Therefore, I have spent much of my student career learning how to best serve diverse patient populations. In my first year of pharmacy school, I attended a 10-week elective class called Provision of Pharmacy Services in a Homeless Clinic. Throughout that course, we learned about and discussed topics such as harm reduction, prescribing considerations in the unhoused population, and street medicine. After completing this elective, I volunteered with the Pharmacy Homeless Clinic x Roving Community Health Initiative collaboration, providing vaccinations to the unhoused community in the Tenderloin District. For the past year and a half, I have also been volunteering with the Cut Hypertension Program, an initiative that aims to eliminate cardiovascular disparities among the Black community. We partner with barbershops and salons to offer free blood pressure readings to customers and provide coaching tips on how to improve heart health. If elected as Vice President of Diversity Affairs, I pledge to champion the diversity, equity, and inclusion built into UCSF’s PRIDE values. I will strengthen RCO collaboration, increase the presence of diversity-related interprofessional organizations within each professional school, and provide a safe space for students to share their concerns regarding campus diversity issues. Thank you for your consideration. |
Bivas Nag
Graduate Division
Second Year
I did not grow up knowing what a PhD was. As a first-generation student from India, the road to graduate school was not handed to me; it had to be built, step by step, across three countries and four institutions. From Mumbai to Munich, then Yale to UCSF, every move required me to start over in an unfamiliar system. I know what it means to navigate visa anxieties, cultural displacement, and institutions that were not designed with people like me in mind. That lived experience is not incidental to this role. It is the heart of it. Because of that path, I mentor. Back in India, I mentored students navigating the early and often invisible steps toward a research career, the students who had the ability but not the access. At UCSF, I volunteer with the Bay Area chapter of STEMPeers, a nonprofit supporting immigrant and international STEM PhDs through peer mentoring and career development across a global network of over 15,000 scientists. I also co-founded UREKA, a student-led initiative that translates scientific discoveries into healthcare solutions. These experiences have taught me that meaningful support requires intentional structure, not just good intentions. If elected, my approach to diversity-related RCOs will go beyond the required quarterly meeting. UCSF’s RCOs BE-STEM, SACNAS, the LGBTQ Student Association, the Graduate and Postdoc Queer Alliance, the Interprofessional Diversity and Equity Alliance, Scientists 4 Diversity, SNMA, and others each serve distinct communities but often operate in silos. I will create a shared diversity calendar mapping every RCO’s signature events across the year, so students discover organizations they did not know existed, collaborations happen organically, and no two major events clash. I will also revive the Student Leadership Forum on Diversity and Inclusion as a campus-wide space where RCO leaders set the agenda, not just attend it. As an international student who has used ISSO services myself, I know how much that experience can differ from a domestic student and how rarely those differences are visible to campus leadership. I will partner closely with ISSO and the Multicultural Resource Center to ensure programming like the First Gen Welcome Dinner reaches students early and repeatedly, not just once at orientation. I will be a consistent advocate for BE-STEM, whose work building community and raising advocacy for Black graduate students and postdocs is among the most vital diversity work on this campus. Supporting their mission is not a checkbox; it reflects a core belief that belonging must be actively built, not assumed. I am not running to represent diversity in the abstract. I am running because I have been the international student who needed a resource and didn’t know where to find it. I have been the first-gen who figured it out alone. I have spent years building communities for people like us in India, across the Bay Area, and here at UCSF. Now I want to do that work from within student government, for every student who deserves to feel they belong here. |
Oscar De La Rosa
School of Medicine
Third Year
Graduate and professional students make decisions every day that are shaped by forces far above their pay grade: accreditation standards, state policy, UC system governance. My goal as Vice President of External Affairs is to make sure UCSF students don't just exist within those systems, but actively shape them. As the son of immigrants from Mexico and a current medical student at UCSF, I've watched institutional decisions determine what opportunities people can access. That experience drives me. But what taught me how to advocate came from serving as a union representative before medical school. In that role, I learned to listen carefully, translate individual concerns into collective demands, and navigate bureaucratic structures that weren't designed with workers in mind, all while maintaining the relationships needed to actually get things done. At UCSF, I've built on that foundation. As Co-President of the Associated Students of the School of Medicine, I work daily at the intersection of student needs and institutional decision-making. As Co-Chair for the LCME Independent Student Analysis, I gathered candid feedback across cohorts on curriculum, wellness, and support, and synthesized it into a coherent picture that could actually move the needle. Both roles have made me comfortable doing the unglamorous work of advocacy: listening broadly, organizing complexity, and communicating with leadership in ways that are honest and strategic. If elected, my priorities are concrete. I want to demystify the external advocacy landscape so that UCGPC trips, Lobby Day, and the Student Regent application aren't just opportunities for students who already know they exist. I want to ensure that the issues we bring to Sacramento and to UC leadership reflect the full range of our student body, particularly those who feel farthest from the table. This position is a bridge role. It requires trust from students and credibility with decision-makers. I've spent years building both, and I'm ready to put them to work for this community. |
