Jaileessa Casimir

Jaileessa is a rising third-year medical student at the CUNY School of Medicine. She completed her Bachelor’s degree with a concentration in Black Studies and in Biomedical Sciences at the City College of New York. Upon graduating, she was the recipient of the Marie Maynard Daly Award for Excellence in Science. Through her roles as the former Mentoring Director in the Health Professional Recruitment Program (HPREP), and former President of City College’s National Association of Colored People (NAACP), she has channeled her passion for integrating activism and medical education. She was an SMA intern in 2020, assisting in a study on the extent of social mission within health professionals accreditation documents. In the future, she plans to raise awareness on the impact of socioeconomic disparities, implicit biases, as well as historical and present-day institutional racism rooted within the medical field.