Parent of Ilan Kalika ’26

Yan was born in Moldova in 1970 to a family of Jewish parents who struggled to raise both he and his sister. In the midst of very anti-Semitic environment, both of his parents were not able to get an education.

Yan grew up playing chess professionally while living in a very rough neighborhood and was the first in his family to get accepted to University.

In 1989 he and his family immigrated to the United States. Shortly after attending community college to learn English he was accepted to UC Berkeley and had to work full time while going to school. He worked at Genentech for a year and later was able to be accepted to Harvard University followed by residency at UCSF.

In San Francisco he took a Jewish leadership course through the Federation and got involved in forming Russian Speaking Jewish Community, serving as a president for many years.

He has served on a few health care companies’ boards as well as UCSF dean’s council, and is hoping to bring all of my experiences into being involved with Jewish Community high school in San Francisco.