Our Team
Co-Directors
Grant Riew
Grant is a 3rd year medical student at Harvard Medical School and cellist. He graduated with a degree in Human Evolutionary Biology & Economics from Harvard College in 2019. He is very excited to be a part of this project and hopes VBC’s can continue to bring music and meaningful conversations to patients! In his free time, Grant enjoys playing tennis, going on long walks, and hanging out with family and friends.
Kanika Kamal
Kanika is 4th year medical student at HMS and avid, self-taught electric guitar and bass player. At Tufts University, Kanika served as Co-Chair for the Tufts Concert Board, where she managed 50 general members and 5 Production Assistants to put on several community-building live music events, including Battle of the Bands, Battle of the DJs, “Cage Rage,” and lastly Spring Fling, the most anticipated university-wide event of the year. She is passionate about the intersection of music and the human brain and psyche, specifically music’s ability to foster community and fundamentally improve lives. When Kanika isn’t jamming to the latest pop punk songs with her band, you can find her cooking way-too-elaborate home feasts, planning her next weekend getaways, and tending to her Animal Crossing island.
Jason Wang
Jason is a neuroscience researcher, medical volunteer, creative educator, and performing artist who brings people together with conviction, thoughtfulness, and a touch of smile. In recent years, Jason has served as President of the Columbia Science Review and worked as an affective neuroscience researcher at the crossroads of music and the mind. Jason received his B.A. in Neuroscience and Behavior from Columbia University in 2022.
Jenny Yu Wang
Jenny Yu Wang is a flutist and senior at Harvard College, pursuing a joint concentration in neurobiology and music. She is currently the President of the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra and is passionate about bringing music into the community through orchestra outreach and working with VBC. At Harvard, Jenny is completing a senior thesis studying the effects of music exposure on development and anxiety reduction, and plans to pursue a career in medicine. Outside of music and medicine, she enjoys skateboarding, baking, and punk rock.
Assistant Directors
Isabella Palacpac
Rachel Chau
Digital Content Specialists
Claire Yoo
Nicole Fang
Additional Team
Stephen Tang
Karen Jang
Christine Lee
Annette Wang
Hueyjong Shih
Jonathan Altman
Sebastian Begg
Advisors
Kathy May Tran, M.D.
Dr. Tran is a hospital medicine physician at the Massachusetts General Hospital and teaching faculty at Harvard Medical School. With a priority of healthcare worker well-being and resilience, as well as patient experience and health, Dr. Tran directs the Happiness Committee of the MGH Hospital Medicine Unit, is on the Advisory Board of the MGH Center for Physician Well-Being, and is a steering committee member of Boston Hope Music. She is also an amateur musician and plays the violin and viola.
Enchi Chang, M.D.
Enchi Chang is a first year resident in ophthalmology at Massachusetts Eye and Ear . She has been playing violin since age 4 and has performed internationally in over 10 countries in world-renowned concert halls such as the Gewandhaus in Leipzig and Royal Albert Hall in London for BBC Proms. She is a co-founder of Virtual Bedside Concerts and spearheaded the program expansion outside of Boston, developing the framework for establishing the program and an automated matching system for musicians and healthcare workers. In her free time, Enchi enjoys exploring new restaurants or recipes, traveling, practicing yoga, and singing karaoke.
Lisa Wong, M.D.
Dr. Lisa Wong is a musician, arts education advocate, and pediatrician dedicated to healing the community through music. She is an assistant professor of pediatrics and associate co-director of the Arts and Humanities Initiative at Harvard Medical School. She serves on several nonprofit boards and was President of Longwood Symphony Orchestra for over twenty years Dr. Wong is a co-founder of Boston Hope Music project, an initiative started in April 2020 in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Kay Negishi, M.D.
Dr. Negishi is thrilled to be part of the Virtual Bedside Concerts team as one of the healthcare worker contacts at Massachusetts General Hospital, where she practices as an inpatient general medicine doctor. One of her greatest life achievements was learning how to play one of Bach’s two-part inventions on the piano. Three decades later, she still finds great joy playing the piano and loves sharing this joy with her patients through the virtual concerts.
Adith Sekaran, M.D.
Dr. Sekaran is a hospital medicine physician at MGH and teaching faculty at Harvard Medical School. “My passionate is thoughtful, compassionate care for patients in their most vulnerable times. For this, provider resilience is of paramount importance as well. Music nourishes the soul and is healing and I have always used to it when I need a break. While I don’t have great musical talents, I would love nothing more than to bring music to all healers and the healing.”
Andrew Janss (Project Music Heals Us)
The New York Times has hailed cellist Andrew Janss for his "glowing tone", "insightful musicianship", and "sumptuous elegance”. Janss has collaborated onstage with iconic artists such as Itzhak Perlman and Bruce Springstein, and has performed for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Marlboro Music Festival. He serves as Executive Director of Project: Music Heals Us, a nationwide non-profit organization that brings healing and inspiration through music to people and communities with little or no access to live performing arts. For this work, he was recognized as a 2020-21 Emerson Collective Fellow.
Maheetha Bharadwaj
During her undergraduate career at Stanford University, Maheetha founded a student group called Stanford Music and Medicine (SMAM), an organization that recruited Stanford students to use music as a form of therapy for nursing home residents and cancer patients. As a part of SMAM, Maheetha also organized research symposiums focused on the relationship between music and cognitive functions. A pianist herself, Maheetha and her team at SMAM also recorded Resonance, an album which featured musical works from Stanford students; about 300 copies of Resonance was subsequently donated to Life Care Centers for America. Graduating college a bachelor's in biology and a master’s in biomedical informatics, Maheetha entered Harvard Medical School with a desire to work at the intersection of genomics, public health, and ethics. At HMS, Maheetha has been a coordinator for Virtual Bedside Concerts soon after its inception in 2020. A recipient of the Joseph Collins Scholarship, Maheetha is passionate about combining music and medicine in her journey as a physician. She hopes to pursue a career that combines medicine and surgery with a focus on serving those most in need. In her free time, Maheetha loves playing the piano, singing, dancing, hiking, and "trolling" her sister.
Nikolai Renedo, M.D.
Nikolai Renedo is a first year medical resident lifelong cellist, pursuing a career in family medicine. Originally from Maine, he has called Boston home for almost 10 years now, becoming deeply involved in chamber music before starting medical school as a member of the chamber orchestra Palaver Strings. He saw virtual bedside concerts as an amazing opportunity to bring together his communities of music and medicine during a time when both are facing unprecedented challenges.
Christine Xu
Christine is a 4th year medical student at Harvard Medical School and pianist. She is classically trained and previously studied with professors at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Yale School of Music. She is passionate about the intersection of music with medicine and healing, and plans to integrate music and arts and humanities into her career as a physician. Currently, she is co-president of the Harvard Medical School Chamber Music Society. She also likes to sing, previously was one of the musical directors of her a cappella group in college, and now is a board member and singer in Longwood Chorus, a group dedicated to promoting wellness in the medical community and reducing burnout. During her first year, she was co-director of the FABRIC first-year show, one of her favorite memories from medical school. She enjoys volunteering with Virtual Bedside Concerts because of the opportunities to play music for patients and get to know patients and families, contributing to a different aspect of their healing. Besides music, her hobbies include running and baking, particularly pies and chocolate chip cookies.