Selected Work
Alina Zheng
I build, research, advocate, and tell stories around one question: what keeps medical evidence from becoming accessible care?
This portfolio collects a few projects referenced in my application and shows how they developed beyond the space available in an activities list.
Four Ways I Explore the Question
Build. Research. Advocate. Tell Stories.
Each path started differently, but all returned to the same concern: making health information and care more usable, accessible, and human.
Kidney Buddy
Three years and five major versions of a renal nutrition app, from a rough MIT App Inventor prototype to a cross-platform product.
See the development journey → 02 · ResearchHealth Policy & Pain
Research spanning palliative radiotherapy, opioids, and pain prediction, with a recurring focus on the gap between evidence and access.
Explore selected research → 03 · AdvocatePatient Access
Medical cannabis advocacy that grew from reading and educational materials into outreach, fundraising, and continued experimentation with how to be useful.
Follow the advocacy journey → 04 · Tell StoriesFilm & Communication
Short films and visual storytelling used to communicate patient experiences in ways that research papers and policy arguments sometimes cannot.
View film projects →
Featured Project
3 Years, 5 Versions, 1 Problem
Kidney Buddy began with my grandmother’s difficulty navigating a kidney-friendly diet. It became a multi-year effort to learn what separates a promising prototype from a product people can actually use.
Why this portfolio exists
A little more context than an application can hold.
The pages here are intentionally selective. They focus less on listing accomplishments and more on showing how projects changed: what question started them, where an approach stopped working, and what I tried next.