FACULTY & STAFF SPOTLIGHTS

Namea Hekekia, our Associate Dean of Student Progress, went into medicine with a desire to care for patients. She grew up in Hawaii, and when she was training to be a family practice physician, her whole desire was to go back to Hawaii and serve her people, which she did.

Adam Sharp is a force for good. Like so many other people who have joined the BYU School of Medicine in the past year and a half, he had been prepared for his role — Associate Dean of Faculty — through decades of education, life experience, and service.

Lesley is a caring, compassionate, and brilliant woman. She had a curriculum leadership role at the Sam Houston School of Medicine. As a pediatrician, she was caring for young patients and their families. She served in her local church congregation and was also helping underserved people in her community. Her family was happy. She was succeeding in every way possible.

Caleb has a great legal career. He worked in the legal department at Intermountain Health for almost nine years, which gave him deep experience in dealing with legal issues related to health care and medicine. More recently, he served as general counsel for a technology start-up.

At the BYU School of Medicine, we have several people who felt inspired to make a major change in their life and career and then acted on that impression with no clear idea of what lay ahead of them. One of them is Felicia Jones, our HR and Finance Business Partner.

As the Senior Associate Dean of Academics, Jeff leads and supports other associate deans over curriculum, admissions, student experience and well-being, student progress, and the department chairs. He also serves as our Faculty Accreditation Lead.

In every organization there’s somebody who brings all the details together. At the BYU School of Medicine, that person is Amy Jacobsen.

In his role as Associate Dean of Admissions, Josh has taken the lead in crafting our admission processes and strategies. Most importantly, he and his team have designed a process to identify the students who are the right fit — those who are aligned with the mission and vision of the BYU School of Medicine.

Kristen Woody is a bundle of energy moving at hyper speed. As both a physician and an educator, she is incredibly dedicated to the work she’s doing to help patients and medical students.