Match Day is one of the most anticipated, defining moments in the lives of medical students. Graduating medical students at Johns Hopkins and across the U.S. will find out where they will complete their future residency training. Watch the excitement as school of medicine students open their envelopes on March 15.

Congratulations to the Class of 2024!

Watch the Recording

Match Day Celebration Program

Friday, March 15, 2024
Armstrong Medical Education Building, 2nd Floor Atrium

Slideshow, Class of 2024

11:20 a.m. – Welcome

• Dr. Katherine C. Chretien, Associate Dean for Medical Student Affairs
• Musical Performance, The Synaptic Clefs

11:30 a.m. – Messages for the Class of 2024

11:35 a.m. – Guest Speakers

• Dr. Theodore L. DeWeese, Dean of the Medical Faculty & Chief Executive Officer, Johns Hopkins Medicine
• Dr. Roy C. Ziegelstein, Vice Dean for Education
• Carolina Lopez Silva, Representative for the Class of 2024
• Dr. Katherine C. Chretien, Associate Dean for Medical Student Affairs

11:50 a.m. – Envelope Distribution

11:55 a.m. – Countdown

• Dr. Mitchell Goldstein, Director, Colleges Advisory Program
• Dr. Nancy Hueppchen, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Medical Education
• Dr. Nathan Irvin, Assistant Dean for Medical Student Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
• Dr. Paul O’Rourke, Assistant Dean for Medical Student Affairs
• Dr. Silka Patel, Assistant Dean for Medical Student Affairs
• Dr. Barry Solomon, Assistant Dean for Medical Student Affairs
• Dr. Katherine C. Chretien, Associate Dean for Medical Student Affairs

Meet Our Students

Meet some of our outstanding medical students as they eagerly await news of where they will match:

Oscar Reyes Gaido 

Where is your hometown? 

Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

What made you want to enter the medical field? 

Growing up in Honduras exposed me to the impact that improved health care can have within a community. This experience made me passionate about addressing two crucial challenges: lack of therapeutic modalities for conditions that affect underserved communities and lack of access to these drugs. Medicine became the perfect path to address both goals, and throughout my career as a physician-scientist, I strive to not only develop new therapies, but also to ensure that these become accessible to my patients.

Why did you choose the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine?

I obtained my undergraduate degree at JHU, and during this time, I fell in love with the ethos of discovery and service that the university embodies. I also became keenly aware of the health care needs of many Baltimore subpopulations, especially immigrant and refugee communities. By staying at JHUSOM, I was able to pursue my dual mission to discover new mechanisms of disease that could inspire therapies and also bolster our therapeutic partnerships within the community.

What is your focus area of study?

Throughout my M.D./Ph.D. program, I studied an enzyme called CaMKII. This enzyme is known to drive inflammation, cardiac disease and cancer, but has no clinically approved drugs against it. By creating a new method to directly visualize CaMKII activity, I was able to identify new molecules that can block it and thus prevent disease.

What has been your best/most memorable experience while at Johns Hopkins?

My most memorable experience was the day we identified our most potent inhibitor against CaMKII. This compound, called ruxolitinib, is an FDA-approved drug currently used in dermatology and oncology, which raises the possibility of its rapid repurposing as a CaMKII inhibitor.

What would you most like to be remembered for?

I take great pride in my role as a mentor. I have been fortunate to help create several mentorship programs, and have personally mentored dozens of aspiring physicians and scientists. I would love to be remembered by the impact I have on these students, whose dream is to pursue this path. Ultimately, I want to make this career more accessible and welcoming for all.

What are your plans for the future?

I am applying for dermatology residency programs, where I will continue my training as a physician-scientist. I am excited about continuing my scientific work in drug discovery against inflammatory and oncologic diseases, while striving to make dermatology care more accessible for patients.

Tell us something interesting about yourself that makes you unique.

I have done photography as a hobby for some time, but one particularly challenging subject is the night sky — also known as astrophotography. This subgenre has proven difficult yet extremely rewarding. To get the perfect shot, the stars have to align (pun intended!) because conditions such as the moon cycle, cloud coverage, light pollution and subject composition all have to be accounted for and planned ahead of time. This makes a successful shoot feel all the more special.

Oscar matched at Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Mass General Brigham.

Mattea Miller

Where is your hometown?

Golden, Colorado

What made you want to enter the medical field?
I came to medical school so that I could advocate for the health and well-being of people and the community I am a part of. Truly, advocating for others is a central mission of my life. Identifying the barriers patients face, refining our understanding of patients’ disease experiences, and improving our approaches to treatment delivery are key aspects of advocating for the health of our communities, and physicians are uniquely positioned to accomplish all three.

Why did you choose the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine?

I came to Johns Hopkins SOM because of the endless opportunities I knew I would have here. Whether that be in research, community advocacy and policy, or learning how to be a medical educator, I knew that I could find people at JHUSOM who were involved in all of these things and who would be willing to mentor me as a medical student interested in these areas. I can honestly say that I have accomplished everything I hoped to in medical school, and I think in large part that is due to where I chose to go to medical school!

What is your focus area of study?

I applied into otolaryngology–head and neck surgery.

What has been your best/most memorable experience while at Johns Hopkins?

Being involved on the Medical Student Senate! I have a keen interest in medical education and policy, which spurred me to join the Medical Student Senate, first as a general body member and subsequently in elected leadership roles. I finished my time at Hopkins as the student body co-president, and am proud of all the advocacy efforts I have played a role in during my four years at JHUSOM. This role has allowed me to connect with my peers, hear out their concerns and dreams for what medical education could be, and figure out how I can partner with school administration to make strides toward these goals.

What would you most like to be remembered for?

I will be the first in my family to become a doctor, and I feel a great sense of pride, accomplishment and responsibility as a result. I hope to be remembered as an enthusiastic clinician who advocates fiercely for her patients, and who always seeks to uplift and educate her peers. I am driven by a desire to connect with people, ensure that they are heard and improve their health outcomes. If I can manage to keep these core values central to everything I pursue throughout my career, I would consider that a job well done.

What are your plans for the future?

After residency, I hope to stay in academic medicine so that I can continue to be involved in educating the future generation of physicians and surgeons.

Tell us something interesting about yourself that makes you unique.

I fell in love with pottery in high school! My heart was instantly captured by the feeling of clay, its messy yet precise methodology, and the ability to experiment with technique. Throwing clay on the wheel is a meditative process. It facilitates introspection, allowing me to express my thoughts and emotions through clay. There’s always room for improvement, certain steps that can’t be changed, and others that when tweaked, result in an exquisite piece. Much like life, there is an element of surprise in pottery, the unpredictable chemistry of glazing, hidden from view in a kiln. I never know what awaits each time I open that door, and that is the beauty of this art form, the uncertainty.

Mattea matched at University of Colorado School of Medicine.

Divya Manoharan 

Where is your hometown?

I moved around every few years growing up, but consider Bangalore, India, to be home.

What made you want to enter the medical field? 

Before medical school, I worked in community organizing and advocacy. These experiences helped me understand that all forms of structural oppression and inequity affect people’s health. I pursued medical training to learn how to address negative health outcomes in patients affected most by injustice and to use my voice as a physician to advocate for meaningful policy change preventing future harms.  

Why did you choose the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine?

I wanted to train somewhere where my interests in both clinical medicine and advocacy would be supported and encouraged. Johns Hopkins has a record of training physicians who advocate for patients at the local, state and federal levels, and I wanted to continue that tradition. Additionally, I wanted to go to medical school in a city with a strong community organizing presence, and have spent the last four years learning a lot from Baltimore’s wonderful people. 

What is your focus area of study?

Internal medicine. 

What has been your best/most memorable experience while at Johns Hopkins?

My internal medicine rotation! I loved working closely with patients to understand their health goals and to help provide resources and strategies to achieve them. In the earlier years of training, it’s easy to get lost in the minutiae of medicine; I enjoyed being on the wards and holding myself to the responsibility and privilege of empowering patients and meeting their needs. I remember working with a patient who was understandably frustrated about how long he had been in the hospital. I asked him what his goals for his hospital stay were — a question he hadn’t yet been asked. He wanted to be able to do a full loop around the medical unit before leaving, and didn’t feel he’d been making any progress. Every day, we walked a bit together. He taught me to always center patients’ goals in my work.  

What would you most like to be remembered for?

I’d like to be remembered for working hard to help patients live a just and healthy life. I see primary care as a layer of support that enables patients to thrive in a social structure that often denies them that opportunity. I hope I always have the humility to learn from my patients, and that I can work with them to build a healthy community both inside and outside the clinic.

What are your plans for the future?

I plan to work as a primary care physician at a federally qualified health center, providing comprehensive care to under-resourced patients. Parallel to my clinical career, I’m committed to continuing my community organizing and advocacy work. I also love teaching, and hope to develop and deliver medical education that helps physicians learn about health justice. 

Tell me something interesting about yourself that makes you unique.

Just before medical school, my grandparents gifted me a sewing machine. I’ve loved building a nonmedical skill, and have made a lot of my clothing and hiking gear from scratch. I’ve spent many weekends in medical school hiking around Shenandoah National Park with only gear I’ve made myself, and can’t wait to make more for my friends and family. 

Divya matched at Brigham & Women’s Hospital.

Michelle Odonkor

Where is your hometown?

Laurel, Maryland

What made you want to enter the medical field?

I’ve always known I wanted to be a physician. My parents are both doctors, and everything about the field clicked with my personality and what I wanted out of my career. I knew that I wanted a service-oriented job that allowed me to work with a diverse set of people while also challenging myself intellectually, and medicine was a perfect fit.

Why did you choose the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine?

It was the strength of the clinical training, the past and present support for and excellence in public health, and the people. I remember leaving the Second Look weekend very excited about coming to Hopkins for medical school. I connected really easily with the Hopkins medical students and other accepted applicants, and I felt like Hopkins offered everything I could want in a medical school. I especially appreciated the opportunity to participate in a service opportunity in Baltimore during the weekend, as I was excited to learn from the Baltimore population. (And it didn’t hurt that going to Hopkins allowed me to be so close to home!)

What is your focus area of study?

I am applying into neurosurgery.

What has been your best/most memorable experience while at Johns Hopkins?

I have been very involved with the Johns Hopkins Center for Global Surgery, and served as one of the program coordinators. Through this role, I led the planning of our annual symposium, which took months of careful preparation and thought. I am passionate about strengthening surgical systems in low-resource settings, and so are a lot of other people at Hopkins. However, many people either don’t know how to get involved or aren’t connected to other individuals in the university working toward similar goals. It was important to me to help break down silos in global health/surgery and facilitate connection across the university, so it was pretty exciting and memorable to see those efforts come to fruition through our annual symposium.

What would you most like to be remembered for?

I want to be remembered for how I treated people and how I made them feel. I hope they felt cared for, encouraged and listened to. I strive to embody those sentiments in both my personal and professional life. I feel very blessed to have the opportunity to pursue a career in medicine and neurosurgery, and I recognize the tremendous responsibility that comes with this job. Patients place their trust in our hands, and it’s very important to me that I do the absolute best for them and their families and that they feel safe in my care.

What are your plans for the future?

I look forward to pursuing a career in academic neurosurgery and synthesizing my interests in neurosurgery, clinical and translational research, and global surgery. This particular combination of interests allows me to scale up my impact by making medical discoveries and strengthening health care systems for patients I may never have the chance to meet directly, in addition to those I work with daily.

Tell us something interesting about yourself that makes you unique.

I love anything that allows me to be in the air — I have enjoyed skydiving, ziplining and paragliding. I really appreciate the chance to take in the beauty of the world from a bird’s-eye view.

Michelle matched at Johns Hopkins Hospital. 

Walker Magrath

Where is your hometown?

Spring Gap, Maryland

What made you want to enter the medical field?

My work doing HIV and STI testing with the Gay Men’s Health Crisis in New York City inspired me to pursue a career in medicine. 

Why did you choose the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine?

I chose Johns Hopkins because of the incredible patients it serves in East Baltimore, and its variety of clinical sites. 

What is your focus area of study?

I am pursuing a psychiatry residency! 

What has been your best/most memorable experience while at Johns Hopkins?

Working with the Institute for the History of Medicine researching medical and LGBTQIA+ history at Johns Hopkins has been my most rewarding experience here.  

What would you most like to be remembered for?

I’d like to be remembered for my empathetic and nonjudgmental patient care. 

What are your plans for the future?

I hope to pursue a career in community psychiatry, focusing on intersections with HIV/AIDS, LGBTQIA+ health equity, consult-liaison and forensic psychiatry, and biomedical engineering. 

Tell us something interesting about yourself that makes you unique.

I play bluegrass music on the fiddle/violin – I’m actually the former Maryland state runner-up.

Walker matched at UC San Diego Medical Center.