After his first undergraduate medical brigade in 2007, Jon founded and served as President of the UC Berkeley Global Medical Brigades Chapter. Upon graduating with Honors from the School of Public Health and Global Poverty Program at UC Berkeley, he was awarded the Judith Lee Stronach Baccalaureate Prize from his university and the Outstanding Commitment Award from the Clinton Global Initiative to lead the design, development, and implementation of the Guardianes de Salud Community Health Worker (CHW) training program with Global Brigades. Together with an “epic” trio of UC Berkeley alumni, including himself Dr. Jon Lee (Dermatology), Dr. Hiral Patel (Internal Medicine), and Dr. Daisy Leon-Martinez (Obstetrics and Gynecology), who, together, became affectionately known as J-H-D, trained 16 CHWs in 2009-10. Global Brigades has since embraced and grown this initiative and now trained >400 CHWs, who actively serve their own communities throughout Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, and Ghana, and have become the cornerstone to healthcare access in the geographically and economically challenged regions. This program has even inspired similar initiatives in communities of need within the United States.
Jon went on to Harvard Medical School, during which time he fell in love with the visual practice and detective work of dermatology and dermatopathology. Upon graduating with his M.D. with Honors from Harvard Medical School, he completed his Internal Medicine training at Mount Auburn Hospital. Currently, he is finishing his final year of Dermatology Residency at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, who he led to a 2nd place finish against >60 dermatology residency programs across the country at the annual DermpathDiagnostics® Dermpath Bowl of the Annual American Academy of Dermatology Meeting in 2018. Next year, he will go on to complete the highly competitive Dermatopathology Fellowship at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School by 2020.
Throughout his rigorous education and training, Jon has published over 22 peer-reviewed journal articles, which have been cited collectively over 140 times, and 3 textbook chapters in the fields of dermatology, pathology, and dermatopathology and has served as reviewer for the Journal of Cutaneous Pathology and Dermatologic Surgery. He has developed expertise in melanoma diagnosis, epigenetics, digital pathology, artificial intelligence, and teledermatology. In addition to an academic career in clinical dermatology, dermatopathology, and medical education, he plans to support efforts to digitize and automate visual diagnostic processes throughout medicine and strengthen healthcare systems globally through telemedicine, in-country partnerships, and community empowerment.
During his spare time, he loves to cook, swim, bike, and run and has completed six marathons (PR, 2:53) and most recently completed two 70.3 half-ironman distance triathlons, finishing in the top 5-10th percentiles of his age group at both races (PR, 4:53). Jon currently serves as the Chairman of our Medical Advisory Board and is pioneering the integration of telemedicine and subspecialty medical interests within Global Medical Brigades, strengthening organizational infrastructure and capacity for clinical and graduate medical education, and spearheading outreach and engagement efforts with the many alumni of the Global Medical Brigades programs.