Meet the Team

Our Story

Ora started as Ryan's personal study system at UCSF when he saw classmates drowning in scattered resources and wasting time making their own. His method worked—he scored in the 100th percentile on the USMLE—and wanted to help others do the same.

Ryan teamed up with childhood best friends Kevin, a former Square engineer, and Jake, a healthcare UX designer, to build Ora. In the summer of 2023, the team joined Y Combinator to help bring Ora to students across the US.

Now the team is working on a single goal: to create a unified gold standard for medical education.

Ora Team

Founders

Ryan Phelps, CEO

Ryan Phelps, MD

CEO, Head of Content

Former Stanford neurosurgery resident and UCSF medical student, with a background in learning psychology and NBME-style question-writing.

Jacob Caccamo, COO

Jacob Caccamo

COO, Head of Design

UX designer and front-end engineer specialized in building EdTech platforms in medicine. Previously at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Kevin Bastoul, CTO

Kevin Bastoul

CTO, Head of Engineering

Full stack software engineer specialized in AI and EdTech, having built AI-powered educational products used by tens of thousands of students. Previous roles at Square and Veeva Systems.

Physician & Professor Advisory Board

Jessica Valdez, MD, MPH

Jessica Valdez, MD, MPH

UCSF Obstetrics & Gynecology, UCSF School of Medicine
General Advisor

Derek Harmon, PhD

Derek Harmon, PhD

Associate Professor
Clinical, Division of Anatomy

Sophie Yu, MD

Sophie Yu, MD

UCSF Otolaryngology, Harvard School of Medicine
Surgical Subspecialty Advisor

Donald Keating III, DO

Donald Keating III, DO

Duke Anesthesiology, KCU College of Osteopathic Medicine
COMLEX Strategy Advisor

Hadley Leatherman, MD

Hadley Leatherman, MD

University of Washington School of Medicine
General Advisor

Luis Freitas, MD

Luis Freitas, MD

Universidade Federal do Paraná
IMG Success Advisor

Medical Student Advisory Board

Sunitha Konatham

Sunitha Konatham

Texas A&M College of Medicine (MS4)
Growth & Strategy Advisor

Alex Zhou

Alex Zhou

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (MS4)
Clinical Content & Strategy Advisor

Henry Nguyen

Henry Nguyen

Stanford School of Medicine (MS4)
Preclinical Content Advisor

Gurasees Bajaj

Gurasees Bajaj

Northwestern School of Medicine (MS3)
Inclusive Education Advisor

Tejas Sekhar

Tejas Sekhar

Rush Medical College (MS3)
General Advisor

Karthika Venugopalan

Karthika Venugopalan

DeBusk College of Osteopathic Medicine (OMS3)
COMLEX Content Advisor

Kor Akiti

Kor Akiti

University of Pennsylvania (MS3)
Growth & Strategy Advisor

Bryan Colasacco

Bryan Colasacco

Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine (OMS3)
Growth & Strategy Advisor

Andrew Ma

Andrew Ma

NYU School of Medicine (MS3)
Research & Data Science Advisor

Christina Stylianou

Christina Stylianou

UNC School of Medicine (MS3)
Growth & Strategy Advisor

Aliya Shabbir

Aliya Shabbir

Harvard Medical School (MS2)
Clinical Education & Clerkship Content Advisor

Robert Tran

Robert Tran

UC Irvine (MS2)
Research & Data Science Advisor

Nikolai Rogalinski

Nikolai Rogalinski

UConn School of Medicine (MS2)
Content & Curriculum Advisor