Tropical Medicine Graduate Students Appointed to Hawaii Immunization Coalition Board of Directors

Francine Azouz, Yukie Lloyd Sato and Rain Li at the Hep Free Hawai‘i film premier.

The Hawaii Immunization Coalition (HIC) is a community-based organization of individuals committed to improving immunization of Hawaii’s families.  Several Tropical Medicine graduate students and faculty have partnered with HIC to engage in vaccination education projects for both health care professionals and the general public.  Recently, two Tropical Medicine graduate students have been appointed to the HIC Board of Directors:

Francine Azouz ((2017-2019)

Francine Azouz is the newest
 addition to the HIC board. Francine is
 pursuing a Masters degree at the
 Department of Tropical Medicine, Medical Microbiology & Pharmacology at 
UH Manoa, where she works towards 
the development of novel therapeutic 
interventions for the clinical
 management of mosquito‐borne
viruses like Zika and West Nile Virus. Francine is also President of the Student Immunization Initiative (SII), an organization led by graduate students advocating for vaccination and disease prevention.

Yukie Lloyd (2017-2019)

Yukie has served on the HIC board since the beginning of 2017 and was appointed as the incoming Secretary for the next year.  Yukie is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Tropical Medicine, Medical Microbiology & Pharmacology at UH Manoa and was the founding President of SII. As a clinical microbiologist, she strongly believes in vaccines for disease prevention and that providing correct information and knowledge on vaccines is essential.