Carlos Enciso Lopez, MS3

Chair

Carlos is a third year medical student at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle. His passion for medicine stems from past work with farm-workers, immigrants and low-income families at the local FQHC in Wenatchee, WA. He continues to work with rural communities as a TRUST student and as an advisory board member for the Area Health Education Center for Western WA where he aids in the development of pipeline programs to help guide rural students to a career in medicine. He satisfies his itch for adventure through rock climbing, hiking, mountaineering, skiing, and snowboarding. Carlos is a fan of long multi-pitch alpine climbs, enjoying a cold summit brew, and laughin’ with his buds.

Alex Franke, MS3

Vice Chair

Alex is a 3rd year medical student at Washington State University. Before medical school Alex was lucky enough to work as an EMT in New Orleans, and spend three seasons doing search and rescue in Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. After earning a philosophy degree at the University of Washington he began medical school at WSU, which has allowed him to stay close to the mountains while he’s in school. When he’s not busy with med school he enjoys climbing, biking, eating doughnuts, skiing, playing with dogs, sailing, telling jokes and ultra running (as much as anyone can really enjoy running 50 miles in a day).

Nicholas A. Middleton, MS3

Vice Chair

Nick is a third-year medical student at the UW School of Medicine in Seattle. Originally from New England and with an undergraduate background in literature and philosophy, he discovered his passion for medicine after working on a search and rescue team in Colorado for a number of years. Subsequent conversations with a friend in medicine would eventually turn into mentorship, and those discussions led to a plane ticket to Nepal exploring work with the Himalayan Rescue Association. His interests stand at the intersection of medicine, bioethics, and mountaineering, and he continues to explore the human story of his undergraduate studies by working to define his own through helping patients. Outside of the classroom you can find Nick getting psyched up for the next ski mountaineering objective, learning (slowly) how to not get thrashed on flaring off-width pitches in the Valley, marooned on a street corner trying to puzzle out Seattle’s anti-jaywalking culture, or playing soccer with classmates.

Kate Rodman, MS3

Vice Chair

Kate is a 3rd year medical student at the Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine. A native Oregonian, Kate grew up camping, rafting, and hiking throughout the Pacific Northwest. She developed an interest in wilderness medicine after meeting a wide range of talented SAR personnel, patrollers, and medics through her outdoor adventures. When avoiding medical school responsibilities she can be found skiing, hiking, or camping on Mt. Hood.

Jodi Spangler, MS3

Media & Guest Speaker

Jodi Spangler is a third year medical student at the University of Washington School of Medicine. Jodi’s background is in international disaster response. She was a medical responder after the earthquakes in both Haiti and Nepal. She is founder of a nonprofit running mobile clinics in Cite Soleil, Haiti and runs a skydive program for patients with tough diagnoses. She’s on the leadership team for the Wilderness Medicine Interest Group at UW, was an organizer and the official photographer for the past 3 conferences, and continues to lend invaluable web and marketing support to NWMC and PNWM at large. When not in school, you can find her in her camping in her Westfalia, surfing, hiking, skydiving, or snapping a million pictures.

Doug Goldstein, MS2

Doug is a second-year medical student at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He became interested in medicine while working in San Francisco as an EMT and at an underserved HIV clinic. Currently, he is co-leading the UW WMIG interest group. A native Oregonian, he grew up camping, backpacking, running, skiing, playing pick-up basketball, and road-tripping to National Parks. He started learning how to surf while in college near LA and is looking to get a thick wetsuit for Washington’s weather.

Mike Gross, MS3

Mike Gross is a third year medical student at the University of Washington School of Medicine who has loved the woods and desert since he was young. After completing his bachelor’s degree in Bozeman, Montana, he returned to his hometown of Seattle where he worked as an EMT and search and rescue volunteer. He has since joined their medical committee and also helped lead the Wilderness Medicine Interest Group at UW. His favorite activities include back-country skiing, video production, and tennis. 

Tom Haffner, MS3

Tom is a third year medical student at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He grew up backpacking throughout the Cascades and eastern Washington.He got his first taste of medicine through a wilderness-EMT course with Remote Medical Institute and spent four years working as EMT/Firefighter in both White Center, WA and Walla Walla, WA. He continues to enjoy hiking the I-90 corridor and spending long weekends up in the mountains.

Lionel Jensen, MS1

Lionel is a first year medical student at the University of British Columbia. Previously, Lionel completed a PhD at the University of Alberta in virology studying Respiratory Syncytial Virus. Lionel’s passions are mountain-centric; he enjoys backcountry splitboarding, climbing, mountaineering, scrambling and hiking. From putting first tracks into volcanic craters on Hokkaido to riding dodgy wind hammered couloirs in the Selkirks, Lionel’s happy place is on a split board. 

Jenny Jensen, MS1

Jenny is a first year medical student at the University of Washington Seattle campus and a TRUST student. She grew up in rural Washington, near White Salmon, and moved to Seattle in 2009 for undergrad at UW. She then worked as a clinical research coordinator in pediatric emergency medicine and gastroenterology for six years before entering medical school. During that time she jumped at every opportunity to get outside to climb and discovered a passion for learning about different cultures while climbing and traveling abroad. Jenny saturates her free time with training and self-soothes through Seattle winters by ski touring and with the occasional desert climbing trip.

Katie Leigh Heiss, MS2

Katie is a second year medical student and president of the Wilderness Medicine Club at Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences in Yakima, WA.  She is originally from Ogdensburg, NY, and has since lived in Cimarron, NM and Ely, MN, getting to explore the Adirondacks, St. Lawrence River, Sangre de Cristo Mountains, and Boundary Waters.  Her interest in medicine grew while working at Philmont Scout Ranch in Cimarron, NM as a backpacking guide for 11 seasons. The position included implementing and teaching Wilderness First Aid and Search and Rescue, which led her to earn Wilderness First Responder in 2014.  She is an HPSP student in the US Navy and enjoys skiing, hiking, running, and swimming in her free time.

Andrew Liechty, MS3

Andrew Liechty is a third year medical student at the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine. Having grown up in the PNW, he has always had a great appreciation for the power of the outdoors. After becoming involved with the Mountaineers, he learned the skills necessary to get deep into the outdoors. That is also when he learned how quickly outdoor adventures can go from a great afternoon with friends to needing to perform backcountry medicine. He helped create the Wilderness Medicine Interest Group at the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine and is excited to volunteer with the NWMC this year!

Jared Machado, MS2

Jared is a second year medical student at Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine. Before starting at ICOM, he served 7 years in the Army National Guard as a Korean Linguist and in the Army Reserves training as a Combat Medic. He grew up in Castle Rock, Colorado and received his B.S. in Health and Exercise Science. Jared has a strong passion for health and fitness, which was embodied during his time as a personal trainer and the NCOIC (Non-Commissioned Officer In-Charge) of his unit’s Physical Readiness Program. He loves the outdoors and the mountains, especially hiking Colorado’s many fourteeners. He is commissioning as an Officer in the Army so that he can continue to serve for the United States and provide medical care for its soldiers and their family members, particularly those in combat situations.

Cooper Maloney, MS2

Cooper is a second year medical student at WesternU COMP-NW.  Although he was born in a small town in Northern California, he has wandered from the rivers of Southern Chile to the oceans of Northeastern Australia to find his true home.  He finally came across heaven on earth at the bottom of a bottle of Mezcal in Southern Mexico. Although the suitors made from that sweet agave nectar were near impossible to resist, he left his paradise in order to fulfill his ultimate destiny.  And when that day comes, he will ride off on his unicorn into the Mexican sunset. 

Jake Mele, MS2

Jake Mele is a second year medical student at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He is a Washington man through and through, growing up in Issaquah, WA, going to the University of Washington for undergraduate and sticking around for his graduate studies. He studied general biology and marine biology as an undergraduate, pursuing a career in Veterinary Medicine prior to switching focuses. The PNW and its gorgeous wilderness fuels nearly all his interests, as he spends his free time backpacking, skiing, bouldering, and scuba diving.

Audriana Mooth, MS3

Audriana Mooth is a third year medical student at Western U COMP-NW. Prior to medical school, she had a career in sports medicine as an ATC, covering everything from pee wee football games to Division I NCAA events. Her goal as an aspiring physician is to provide more accessible sports medicine care to patients from all walks of life (and not just elite athletes). Audri was born and raised in the PNW, so she has a deep love for the wilderness of this region. She loves backpacking, boogie boarding, and building one-match fires (in approved campfire locations, of course).

Jasmine Rah, MS3

Jasmine Rah is a third year medical student at the University of Washington. She’s always loved the wilderness for its ability to generate community and leadership, but it was her experience as a field scientist in the remote Caribbean jungle that inspired her to learn acute care in austere settings. She nurtured her passion for prehospital care through work in crisis intervention and as an EMT. Now, she uses coach-style leadership within a variety of UW organizations to make ongoing improvements to curriculum and culture. Jasmine enjoys backpacking, rock climbing, skiing, hydroponic gardening and singing in the shower.

Chris Rumer, MS1

Chris is a first year medical student at the University of Washington Seattle campus. He grew up in King County Washington near Lake Youngs and moved to Seattle in 2011 for undergrad. He then worked a circuitous route to medicine doing work as an engineer with the Gates foundation, HR software company, farmhand on a ranch, and most recently for research at UW Cardiology. Growing up, he enjoyed escaping the city through hiking, hunting, fishing, and more recently bouldering and scuba diving. With a solid history of injuries on the farm and the trail alike, wilderness medicine was a natural evolution towards self-preservation as he continues pursuing the activities he loves.

Mary Ryan, MS2

Mary Ryan is a second year medical student at OHSU. Before medical school, she rambled about a bit— teaching in Lyon, France for a year, bike guiding in Burgundy and Bordeaux wine-country, and adventuring as much as she could along the way, wrapping up two coast-to-coast bicycling trips across the US and walking through five pairs of shoes on the Pacific Crest Trail last summer. She has kept her toe dipped in the outdoors-world while in medical school as a lead for OHSU’s Wilderness Medicine Interest Group, assistance in last year’s conference, and through work with this spring’s first WA-based MedWAR adventure race.

Woody Sorey, MS2

Woody is a 2nd year medical student at UW in Seattle. As a Seattle native he has always enjoyed paddling and hiking around the beautiful PNW. Before med school he went Full Dirtbag and spent 4 months hiking on the PCT, where he realized that the wilderness will always have to figure prominently in his life. His outdoor specializations include scouting the perfect log for sitting, eating 0.8 L of instant refried beans for dinner, misjudging which nights to do without the rain fly, and always being the last one out of camp.

Kiefer Starks, MS2

Kiefer Starks is a second year medical student at the Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine. He is an Idaho kid born and raised, and was thrilled when he learned he had an opportunity to complete medical school in his home state. His desire to serve the rural and underserved communities of the Pacific Northwest is what drove him to a career in medicine. He is excited to be able to practice medicine in a region he can do his favorite activities of hiking, skiing, camping, and swimming.

Channing Stroud, MS2

Channing is a second year medical student at Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine (ICOM). From Savannah, GA, Channing has volunteered the past five summers serving as the ropes course director for Saint Stephen’s Summer Camp on the edge of the Appalachian mountains in the Carolinas. Although Channing grew up in a beach town doing water sports, he has been enjoying all of the outdoor activities Idaho has to offer, especially snowboarding. As a Health Professions Scholarship Program recipient through the United States Navy, Channing looks forward to serving his country as a military physician when he graduates.

Lavinia Turian, MS3

Lavinia is a third year medical student at Oregon Health and Science University. She is from Romania and then found her way to Oregon where she grew a love for the outdoors and good beer. Her interest in medicine started off by getting injured often and has developed into an interest in acute care medicine and playing around with the ultrasound machine. When she’s not drowning on rotations, she enjoys mountain biking, snowboarding, climbing, backpacking, surfing, paddleboarding, and adventuring with her rad German Shepherd pup.

Jaryd Unangst, MS3

Jaryd is a third year medical student at the University of Washington School of Medicine. A transplant from Wyoming, he grew up hiking, camping, mountaineering and skiing in the Rocky Mountains. He first developed an interest in wilderness medicine after taking a Wilderness First Responder course through the National Outdoor Leadership School at the University of Wyoming (also his first UW). Before living exclusively on loans, he worked as a hunting & fly-fishing guide on a ranch in Wyoming for a year and as an Orthopaedic Technologist for two years. He always wanted to figure out a way to still be in school during his thirties and become the designated first-aid kit porter on any trip – medical school has been that ticket. His main hobbies include procrastinating, disappearing down to Mt. Rainier as often as possible, exploring his newfound appreciation of IPAs, and finding ways to experience type II fun.