Lauren S. Kang is a third-year medical student at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and will be taking a leave of absence during the 2026-27 school year to earn a Master of Public Health degree (school TBD!). Lauren was born in New York City to Korean immigrants and raised in Portland, Oregon, and she earned her bachelor’s degree in biochemistry at Washington University in St. Louis. She served as General Body Meetings Chair on the inaugural executive board of the WashU Pre-Medical APAMSA chapter, which was also awarded the title of APAMSA’s National Pre-Med Chapter of the Year during her tenure. Working to build the WashU Pre-Med chapter from the ground up with a group of passionate, enthusiastic people impacted Lauren deeply, and she feels that she owes the vast majority of both her love of leadership and leadership skills to that experience. She is thrilled to have been elected as National APAMSA’s newest Pre-Health Director and is incredibly excited to be able to give back to the APAMSA Pre-Health community that was so instrumental to her own personal and professional development.

This is Lauren’s second year on APAMSA National Board. She was most recently a Region VI (now Midwest Region) Director, and she has also previously served on one of APAMSA’s national committees and the board of her medical school’s chapter. Outside of APAMSA, Lauren’s personal and academic interests include disability justice—she recently finished her first term on the national board of MSDCI (Medical Students with Disability and Chronic Illness)—and racial disparities in HIV-related healthcare. She is obsessed with the NYT Crossword and Spelling Bee to an arguably concerning extent and also loves performing and teaching Kpop dance.