About Us — Word for Word

What is Word for Word?

In today’s society, the power of spoken word is often underutilized and undervalued. Word for Word strives to change that by catalyzing meaningful conversations about medical and healthcare accessibility. From the lack of sanitation supplies to the spread of viral diseases, the people in Philadelphia and beyond have stories that deserve to be heard.

As an organization, we hope to give underrepresented voices a listening ear; we hope to illuminate the stories of patients and practitioners; and we hope to garner support for the issues that matter most today.

Outside of this scope, Word for Word celebrates the medical humanities through poetry, short stories, abstracts, vignettes, and other creative works that explore the inextricable relationship between medicine and the humanities.

Beyond the Page

We knit word into action.

Word for Word hosts food drives with Philabundance and partners with youth organizations in Philadelphia—and beyond. Through outreach, we bring reading, medicine, and the medical humanities into the community.

We strive to respond to the stories shared with us, and to empower others to do the same.

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Samantha Wu

Co-President

Samantha Wu is a rising junior in the College of Arts and Sciences studying Neuroscience and Anthropology on the pre-medical track. Her interests include intergenerational epigenetics, maternal health, Indigenous rights, emergency medical services, and the molecular mechanisms of cardiovascular disease.

Witnessing medical providers offer compassionate, community-based care through her home church's free health clinics, she hopes to serve as a physician while using art and writing to document the injustices faced by disenfranchised communities. She believes that elevating the voices and stories of oft-silenced individuals has the power to bring about healing on both personal and systemic levels.

In her free time, Samantha enjoys listening to audiobooks and singing musical theater repertoire.

Renee Liu

Co-President

Renee Liu is a senior in Penn Engineering studying Networked and Social Systems Engineering (NETS), on the pre-med track. Her research interests include health policy/social determinants of health, child development, bioengineering, and network analysis.

She believes that medicine is not purely about the science, but also about the stories that make up a person and the institutions that interact with them.

Outside of academics, Renee enjoys exploring new music, learning new languages, and watching bird/cat videos.

Mary Zawalick

Vice President of Internal

Mary Zawalick is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences from San Luis Obispo, California. She studies biochemistry and is minoring in English. She is interested in immunology, oncology, and communication in medicine. At Penn, she conducts research on esophageal diseases and pancreatic cancer, and she works as an emergency medical technician.

She has been a big reader for her whole life and believes that hearing other people’s stories, whether real or fictional, facilitates a greater understanding of yourself and the world.

Outside of academics, she loves going to the beach, trying new foods, or playing with her rescue dachshund Belle.

Ryan Cho

Vice President of External

Ryan Cho is a sophomore in the college studying neuroscience. His research interests span everything related to analyzing noninvasive imaging and data to improve patient outcomes.

He believes that understanding the humanities as well as medicine is essential to understand how to best understand and approach patients.

Outside of Word4Word, he enjoys playing the violin, crying over chemistry, and "trying" to get into running.

Melody Zhang

Design Chair

Melody Zhang is a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences studying Design and Consumer Psychology. Although her work lies outside the medical field, she is fascinated by the ways medicine, art, and storytelling intersect. Through illustrating for Word for Word, she has found an opportunity to learn from subjects she might never have encountered otherwise while helping make them more approachable for readers.

She especially enjoys condensing complex scholarship into illustrations that make an article’s ideas easier to understand without losing their nuance. She believes thoughtful design can make knowledge feel both more accessible and more human.

Outside of the journal, she delights in cowering from horror films and enthusiastically cheering on Godzilla.

Empowering voices
previously unheard