Kawena Hirayama

Kawena was a student in Community Health and Prevention Research (CHPR) Master's Program at Stanford, where she completed her internship and thesis under the mentorship of Dr. Ranak Trivedi. As a student in the CHPR program, she was able to pursue another avenue to support kuʻu lāhui Hawaiʻi (my Hawaiian nation). Kawena hopes to use my BA in Psych, an MS CHPR, and (hopefully) an MD/PhD, to shape a new health system in Hawaiʻi that better serves her people.

While she is away from home pursuing her dreams, she tries her best to stay connected to her cultures while up on the continent for school (and have fun while doing it).  For Kawena, that means hanging out with other Asian and/or Native students, enjoying Japanese and Hawaiian media, and continuing to do various forms of Polynesian dance.

Fun fact: She once almost grabbed a giant manta ray by accident when she was swimming because she thought it was a trashbag floating around.  Luckily, she noticed before it was too late!