P.D. Soros Fellowship for New Americans

GRACE LOPEZ is Pediatric Anesthesiologist at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

Grace was born in El Salvador. Two years later her family fled from the civil war, settling in Lancaster, California.

Excelling in the sciences, math, and the humanities at Antelope Valley Junior College, she transferred to University of California, Los Angeles where she graduated magna cum laude with honors in physiological sciences. In 2003 she completed an MA in social policy at the London School of Economics. She also holds an MD from Harvard University, where she served as a mentoring program coordinator for a Hispanic agency in Roxbury, Massachussets.

Grace spent the summer of 2000 in Cuba assessing the impact of economic factors on services for HIV/AIDS patients. She also took a leave of absence during her MD to work as a Congressional Fellow for Rep. Henry A. Waxman.

Grace completed an Internal Medicine residency at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston in 2008 and completed a second residency in Anesthesiology from the Brigham and Women's Hospital in 2011. She will complete her last specialty fellowship training in Pediatric Anesthesiology from Seattle Children's Hospital September 2012.