Rabira Dosho

Meet Rabira Dosho born in Ethiopia, he moved to the US with his parents. Rabira is dedicated to driving social change, advancing biomedical research, and promoting global health equity. This is evident in his work as a policy intern for Delegate Bonnie Cullison in the Health and Government Operations Committee of the Maryland State Legislature. In this position, Rabira played a key role in advocating for the Access to Care Bill, which aims to expand healthcare access to 200,000 undocumented immigrants and cut back on $150 million of uncompensated fees, in Maryland.

In continuation, he co-founded CompassCare a youth-led organization connecting with historically underserved communities through health screening events and advocating for equitable healthcare access through health screening events serving more than 200 members in the Langley Park community. His efforts have been recognized by the Montgomery County Department of Health and Human Services and the Governor's Office at the May 16th bill signing.

Additionally, he served as a youth representative for the county at the 2024 Children's National Hospital School Health Summit. Rabira originally began his advocacy journey through the Montgomery County Regional(MCR) SGA where he has served as the legislative director for the past two years representing over 55,000 students, leading a team of 10 deputies to draft policies, organize advocacy events, and engage with policymakers at the local, state, and national levels. Rabira also serves as the Chief of Staff for Montgomery County Board of Education member Lynne Harris's internship group, managing a large team of more than 100 interns and ensuring student voices are heard in educational decision-making at the county-wide level.

After serving as a Biology team captain for three years he's worked to provide tutoring support and encourage others to participate in the field through dissections and guest lectures. As a testament to his dedication to the field, he was awarded an honorable mention in the annual United States of America Biology Olympiad. Rabira’s passion for biomedical research has led to significant hands-on experience in the field. Rabira was also selected to participate in the prestigious Hopkins BME ISPEED program, a fully paid residential month-long program where they gained experience in biomedical engineering research and presented their work at a poster session with Hopkins BME staff.

This past summer he was a fellow with the Johns Hopkins Global Health Leadership Conference where he engaged with global health leaders. He’s interned under Dr. Julie Hotopp at the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s Institute for genome sciences where he analyzed 23 genomes of Wolbachia strains using computational tools where 9 showed evidence of 51 putative CRISPR arrays. Rabira presented his research at the summer research symposium. His mentorship extends towards his time as a teacher's assistant for an Honors Chemistry course offered at Blair during his junior year where daily he guided predominantly underclassman students through lesson material, labs, and homework.

Rabira continues to find passion in pursuing the next step of his journey and the opportunities offered at a T1 academic research institution with interdisciplinary opportunities for humanities-focused engagement. He looks forward to engaging with his local community through policy and volunteer efforts and hopes he can pursue similar pathways in the coming years.