Gianna Sofia Peralta, a 17-year-old freshman at UC Berkeley, has had the honor of being one of 30 students to be chosen out of 400 that applied to participate in the Suitcase Clinic. The Suitcase Clinic is a student- and volunteer-run organization founded by students from the Joint Medical Program and UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health out of a desire to address the unmet needs of the city of Berkeley’s homeless and low-income population. In addition to providing services, the Suitcase Clinic strives to educate students, promote health care access, engage in community organization and support public policy efforts that address the needs of the underserved.

Gianna will be a pre-med major and recently was accepted into the American Medical Student Association, which has a half-century history of medical student activism and is the oldest independent association of physicians-in-training in the United States.

Gianna is a 2009 grad of New Tech High School, where she was ranked No. 1 in her class, as well as valedictorian.

She is the daughter of Kathleen Wimberley-Peralta and the granddaughter of Joe and Ramona Wimberley.