Awardees

Alma A. Lopez, M.D.

2025 Robert D. Sparks, M.D., Leadership Award

The Robert D. Sparks, M.D., Leadership Award was established in 1997 in honor of Robert D. Sparks, M.D., PHC’s first President and CEO. The award honors an individual or organization that has demonstrated outstanding dedication to the health of communities in a manner consistent with PHC’s mission to champion community health, health equity, and diversity in the physician workforce in partnership with leaders in medicine, related health professions and the community.

Alma A. Lopez, M.D., (she/her) is a dedicated physician, educator and leader in family medicine. She currently serves as a family physician at Kaiser Permanente Mission Hills and as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Systems Science in the Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine (KPSOM) in Pasadena. She is currently a course director for the Service-Learning Course at KPSOM. 

Dr. Lopez earned her B.S. in physiological science from UCLA in 2001 and went on to receive her M.D. from the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA in 2006. She completed her residency at the White Memorial Family Medicine Residency Program in Boyle Heights, where she was appointed chief resident. 

Her career is defined by a strong commitment to both clinical care and education. Dr. Lopez enhanced her expertise with a Teaching and Learning Faculty Development Fellowship at USC and has held leadership roles, including Family Medicine Clerkship Director at White Memorial and Associate Clinical Instructor at USC. She has also served as Faculty Advisor for the Latino Medical Student Association and as chair of the Latine/o/x Faculty and Staff Community Group, promoting diversity and inclusion. 

In clinical practice, she has been a partner physician at Southern California Permanente Medical Group since 2015, where she has been dedicated to serving the community of the North East San Fernando Valley. Dr. Lopez has contributed significantly to committees focused on family violence prevention, statin adherence and physician wellness. 

Dr. Lopez is board-certified in family medicine and has received numerous honors, including the Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award and the KP Physician Excellence in Collegiality Award. She is also deeply involved in mentoring, and is one of the founders of MiMentor, a local non-profit organization that encourages students to pursue health care careers. 

The daughter of Mexican immigrants, Dr. Lopez was born and raised in the San Fernando Valley and is proud to serve the community where she grew up.

Through her teaching, mentorship and committee work, Dr. Lopez is dedicated to improving health care, advancing diversity and contributing to medical education.  

Lindsay Mazotti, M.D., FACPS

2025 Adarsh S. Mahal, M.D., Access to Health Care and Disparities Award

The Adarsh S. Mahal, M.D., Access to Health Care and Disparities Award was established by 2007 CMA President Anmol S. Mahal, M.D., and his wife, Surjit K. Mahal, M.D., in honor of Dr. Mahal’s father, Adarsh S. Mahal, M.D., who spent his career working to improve access to mental health care in India. The purpose of the award is to honor an individual or organization that has shown extraordinary interest and demonstrated efforts leading to a significant contribution toward improving access to health care or reducing disparities in health care in California.

Lindsay Mazotti, M.D., FACP, (she/her) is a nationally recognized leader in medical education and workforce development. As Chief Medical Officer for Medical Education and Science at Sutter Health, a large care delivery system serving over 3 million patients in Northern California, she drives system-wide strategy for expanding undergraduate and graduate medical education, advancing faculty development, fostering inclusion and belonging, and accelerating medical research. In 2025, Dr. Mazotti was named as one of Reuters’ Trailblazing Women in Healthcare. She forges partnerships across academia, industry and health care to build robust physician career pipelines and enhance equitable access to high-quality care.  

Dr. Mazotti earned her B.A. in human biology from Stanford University and her M.D. from UC San Francisco, where she also completed her residency in internal medicine. She is board-certified in internal medicine and palliative care. Previously, Dr. Mazotti held key leadership roles at UC San Francisco and the Permanente Medical Group, where she pioneered innovative medical training programs, including longitudinal integrated clerkships (LICs) that have influenced national models for medical education.

As a founding faculty member of the Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine, she played a central role in designing the school’s curriculum and, as an Assistant Dean, led the implementation of transformative medical training programs. An accomplished researcher and national thought leader, Dr. Mazotti has published extensively on LICs, competency-based assessment and aligning GME with health systems science. She has been a co-principal investigator on several grants from the American Medical Association's ChangeMedEd initiative, shaping the future of medical training.  

Chinese Hospital

2025 Frank E. Staggers, Sr., M.D., Outstanding Ethnic Physician Organization Award

The Frank E. Staggers Sr., M.D., Outstanding Ethnic Physician Organization Award was established in honor of Frank Staggers Sr., M.D., co-founder of the Network of Ethnic Physician Organizations. The award honors an ethnic physician organization that has taken significant action toward improving the health of their communities, consistent with the values of Dr. Staggers (an understanding that the health of an individual and the health of the community are always integrally linked and the principle that health care is a right, not a privilege).

Chinese Hospital was established in 1899 as the Tung Wah Dispensary, Chinese Hospital has been a vital source of health care access for San Francisco’s Chinese American community for over a century. What began as a response to systemic discrimination and exclusion from public services has grown into a full-service, community-owned, not-for-profit hospital committed to delivering high-quality, culturally competent care to patients of all backgrounds.

Officially established as Chinese Hospital in 1925, it remains the only independent, Chinese-governed hospital in the United States. Its mission is rooted in providing accessible, affordable and linguistically appropriate health care while honoring the cultural values of the communities it serves. Governed by a voluntary board of trustees reflective of the local community, Chinese Hospital takes a holistic approach to care–addressing both medical needs and the social determinants that affect health outcomes.

The hospital system includes the Chinese Community Health Care Association (CCHCA) and Chinese Community Health Plan (CCHP) and operates a growing network of community clinics in neighborhoods across San Francisco to ensure continued access as the community evolves. With a strong emphasis on prevention, wellness and community partnerships, Chinese Hospital continues to lead as a model for culturally responsive health care delivery.

José Luis González, M.D.

2025 Diverse Physician Leadership Award

Each year, PHC honors a diverse physician for outstanding leadership for diverse communities and in improving public health. The purpose of the Diverse Physician Leadership Award is to honor the individual physician, inspire other physicians and promote leadership, caring and compassion in medicine. This award seeks to reinforce PHC’s mission to improve community health and grow a diverse physician workforce.

José Luis González, M.D., (he/him) is a physician leader committed to advancing health equity through innovative community centered care models. As the Vice President and founding medical director of Healthcare in Action, a nonprofit medical group serving people experiencing homelessness across California, Dr. González oversees clinical strategy and develops systems to ensure quality care reaches society's most marginalized populations. As a board-certified internist and addiction medicine specialist, Dr.  González's leadership bridges mobile medicine, addiction treatment and primary care delivery in unconventional settings, bringing dignity and trust into health care experience for patients often excluded from traditional systems. Under his leadership, the two-team startup has grown to more than 20 teams in six counties across the state. 

Prior to his leadership at Healthcare in Action, Dr. González spent over a decade at USC and LA General Hospital where he served as Associate Program Director for the internal medicine residency program and core faculty in the Adult Primary Care Clinic. There, he cared for a largely Spanish-speaking, low-income population while mentoring residents and leading efforts to improve care. His academic contributions include numerous lectures, publications and curricular innovations focused on addiction medicine, culturally responsive care and stigma reduction. A longtime advocate for language access and representation, Dr. González has been active in mentorship within the Latino Medical Student Association and continues to champion a medical workforce that reflects and serves the communities most impacted by inequality.  

Sarah Ponce

2025 California Medical Student Health Equity Leadership Award

The California Medical Student Health Equity Leadership Award was established in 2023 by Physicians for a Healthy California (PHC) to honor a student whose activities have demonstrated interest and efforts working toward becoming a leader in promoting health equity within the state of California. The purpose of this award is to give a student the opportunity to highlight their work, passions and contributions toward improving health equity consistent with the mission of PHC.

Sarah Ponce (she/her) is an M.D./MPH student at Keck School of Medicine of USC (class of 2026) and is passionate about sexual medicine, reconstructive surgery and health equity.  

She has co-authored abstracts for major conferences and has several first author manuscripts in the field of female sexual medicine. Ponce guest lectures at Keck’s Primary Care Program Sexual Health Workshop, is a member of the Hispanic Urological Society and Gold Humanism Honor Society and is a lead community organizer with a patient-led advocacy organization, Tight Lipped, bringing sexual medicine education to residency programs nationwide. She also founded the bilingual Pelvic Health Workshop at LAG-USC, earning the 2023 Keck School Distinction in Community Service Award and support from the Western Region Public Health Training Center in 2024. 

She was born in Ventura County and grew up in the Inland Empire. She received her B.S. in biology and Spanish with a minor in chemistry from the University of Portland, Oregon, then returned to Southern California to receive her medical training in Los Angeles. She will be applying to urology residency programs this year and hopes to continue being involved in community health outreach as an expert advisor in genitourinary and pelvic conditions, ensuring equitable access to health education, bodily autonomy and medical advances.  

Haley Tupper, M.D., M.S., MPH

2025 California Resident Health Equity Leadership Award

The California Resident Health Equity Leadership Award was established in 2023 by PHC to honor a resident who is working diligently to be part of the next generation of physician leaders dedicated to improving health equity among those Californians facing the greatest barriers to care. The purpose of this award is to highlight the exemplary work in advancing health equity in their communities, outside of their residency programs, in alignment with the mission of PHC.

Haley Tupper, M.D., M.S., MPH, (she/her) is a resident general surgery physician at UCLA with a background in health systems who performs lung cancer research within the UCLA, Kaiser Permanente and VHA health systems. After residency, she plans to complete a thoracic surgery fellowship. She is most passionate about ensuring equitable access to high-quality care for all. In addition to her U.S.-based research and clinical work, she has worked internationally with the Cambodian public hospital system and the Armenian Ministry of Health on primary care reform and universal health coverage. She participates in and leads a variety of coalitions to improve equitable access to lung cancer screening and care through policy, advocacy and systems-level change, including the California Dialogue on Cancer's Cancer Plan Advisory Committee , the National Lung Cancer Round Table, the Society of Thoracic Surgeon’s Lung Cancer Policy board, and the newly-formed California Lung Cancer Coalition and its LAC Lung Cancer Coalition chapter. Her research focuses on holistically understanding and identifying systemic solutions to inaccessible and uncoordinated care for lower-income populations, particularly for lung cancer.

Christine Santiago, M.D., MPH

2025 California Young Physician Health Equity Leadership Award

The California Young Physician Health Equity Leadership Award was established in 2023 by PHC to honor a young physician whose work has made a significant contribution to improving access and reducing disparities in health care, improving cultural competency and promoting patient advocacy in California. They also embody PHC’s mission to improve community health, grow a diverse physician workforce and promote health equity.

Christine Santiago, M.D., MPH, (she/her) serves as a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at Stanford University and is dedicated to advancing health equity and enhancing patient care through innovative educational programs and community partnerships. Her work primarily addresses health-related social needs, with a focus on the Food Insecurity Response Team, where she collaborates with multidisciplinary teams to develop and implement strategies that alleviate food insecurity among patients. 
With a robust background in internal medicine and public health, Dr. Santiago has created clinical rotations for underserved populations, including a Street Medicine Clinical Rotation and a Re-entry Medicine Rotation for individuals in the custody system . She is also actively involved in disability education initiatives in partnership with AbilityPath, aimed at raising awareness and understanding of the unique health care needs of individuals with disabilities. Her research interests intersect social determinants of health and patient outcomes, and she is committed to engaging in quality improvement projects that enhance care for vulnerable populations.