Catherine Dunn, a 2026 Pisacano Scholar, is a fourth-year medical student at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, where she is pursuing the Global Health Track with a concentration in medical education. She graduated from Georgetown University with a Bachelor of Science in Human Science.

Catherine’s path to family medicine began before medical school, in the back of an ambulance. At fifteen, she was accepted as a junior cadet by the Summit Volunteer First Aid Squad in her New Jersey hometown, and she spent the next seven years as a volunteer EMT — first in Summit, then as a Crew Chief with Georgetown Emergency Response Medical Services (GERMS). Call after call, Catherine kept arriving at the same conclusion: the moments that mattered most weren’t the crises she responded to, but everything that had gone unaddressed for years beforehand. That realization drew her toward primary care, where long-term, trust-based relationships make it possible to intervene long before crisis, not just after.

Community-focused research has been a consistent thread throughout Catherine’s academic career. As an undergraduate researcher at Georgetown’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, she led a study on disordered eating screening among adolescent girls, published in the Journal of Primary Care & Community Health, and awarded Excellence in Poster Presentation at Georgetown’s Undergraduate Research Conference. In medical school, her Mentored Scholarly Activity turned to migrant and refugee children, examining how the COVID-19 pandemic affected their health and wellbeing, reflecting her broader interest in health equity.

Catherine’s leadership centers on CU Street Medicine (CUSM), a student-run program caring for people experiencing homelessness in Denver. She has served the organization at every level, from volunteer, to volunteer coordinator, to vice president, and now president, twice earning CU SOM’s Scholarly Service Award for building new clinical infrastructure from scratch: first a Footcare Clinic, then a Skin Health Initiative for unhoused patients. As president, she is now leading the effort to implement a new electronic medical record system to strengthen continuity of care across CUSM’s outreach sites. She was nominated to the Gold Humanism Honor Society in recognition of this work.

Catherine has also taken on several roles as teacher and mentor. As an LIC (Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship) Ambassador, she guides second-year students through clerkship year; through the BLOOM Initiative, she mentors a local high school student; and at Kenton Elementary, she teaches health education to first graders. Across every setting, she sees teaching as an extension of the same commitment to community that drives her clinical work.

Catherine’s curiosity expands well beyond medicine, from studying comparative healthcare systems in Copenhagen to a Spanish immersion program in Salamanca, Spain. She is also, unapologetically, a Jersey girl who loves the beach and the NY Giants.

Looking ahead, Catherine plans to continue practicing street medicine and building her career around the communities she serves, with growing involvement in local health policy. She is honored to join the Pisacano Leadership Foundation and looks forward to growing alongside a cohort of scholars equally committed to a more equitable, patient-centered healthcare system.