Physicians for Human Rights Student Program

Rhea Fogla serves as Regional Chapter Mentor to the Mid-Atlantic region. She is currently a second-year medical student at Weill Cornell Medical College and completed a degree in biology at Emory University before attending medical school. At Emory, she worked at a free women's clinic in Clarkston, Georgia, a population with a prominent refugee and asylee population. After working at the clinic, she wanted to become more involved in human rights advocacy and joined the student board for the Weill Cornell Center for Human Rights, where she currently serves as the Education and Curriculum Coordinator. Rhea is interested in improving medical education on human rights and sharing resources to empower physicians and medical students to be stronger advocates for especially vulnerable populations.

Amy Labar serves as Regional Chapter Mentor to the New England and Midwest regions. She is a fourth-year medical student and former Asylum Clinic Director at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. She was born and raised in New York City and graduated from Haverford College, a small liberal arts college outside Philadelphia,
in 2010 with a major in Biology and a minor in African Studies. She then went back to school for a Master’s in Public Health focused on Global Health, during which she interned with MSF/Epicentre and spent a summer in Jordan at a hospital providing reconstructive surgeries to war-wounded patients. For the two years before coming to medical school, she worked with health data at the International Rescue Committee, a non-profit supporting refugees and internally displaced people in the US and abroad. During medical school, she has conducted research about medication adherence in patients with multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis/HIV in South Africa and worked with the 2017-8 Columbia Human Rights Initiative Asylum Clinic board, which helped coordinate over 50 evaluations.

Veena Mehta serves as Regional Chapter Mentor to the South Atlantic and South regions and is a third year medical student at the Medical University of South Carolina. She completed a degree in biology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice before starting medical school. During her time in NYC, she advocated for housing policy reform and led a seminar course on race and human rights. She has also travelled to South India, working on a project to promote health education for tribal communities. After joining medical school, she co-founded the MUSC Asylum Clinic, the first student-led asylum clinic in South Carolina. She has since collaborated with the SC Telehealth Alliance, allowing the asylum clinic to conduct psychological evaluations using telehealth. Veena hopes to advocate for refugee health and immigration policy reform.

Francesco Sergi serves as Regional Chapter Mentor to the West and International regions. He is currently a 3rd year medical student at the UCSF School of Medicine in San Francisco, CA. He was one of the founders of the UCSF Human Right Cooperative, a new student-run initiative at UCSF that offers forensic physical and psychological evaluations for asylum seekers. Francesco received his undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley with a B.A. in Public Health and a minor in Global Poverty and Practice. Prior to medical school, he worked at Planned Parenthood where he counseled patients on pregnancy options, birth control and sexually transmitted infections. Francesco's interests include immigrant justice, asylum and refugee health, addressing structural injustices, and increasing access to culturally humble care for Latinx populations.