Faculty/Postdoc/Resident Mentors

Below you will find a few of the UCSF faculty, postdocs and residents from medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, nursing and the graduate academic programs who themselves come from a first generation college background, have successfully navigated careers in the health sciences and are interested in supporting UCSF first generation college students.

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Graduate Division

 
Sue Noworolski PhD (Bioengineering)
Associate Professor, Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging Graduate Group in Bioengineering Masters in Biomedical Imaging
Practice/Research Interest: Translational MRI research of the abdomen and pelvis, with a focus on the metabolic impact of diet on the liver and a focus on prostate cancer
Interesting Fact: "I'm the first in the extended family to get a doctorate and am now faculty. There are pros and cons to the first gen background and things I'm sill learning that I'm happy to share. I'm also the mother of two school aged boys. Navigating family and career time is perhaps more challenging as a first gen, but maybe I'm just biased. :-)

Mark Ansel PhD (Immunology)
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Microbiology & Immunology.
Practice/Research Interest:Research: Immunology, gene expression, microRNAs, asthma/allergy
Interesting Fact: " I missed the deadlines for Stanford and Harvard because I couldn't pull the trigger on deciding to apply to graduate school."
 

School of Dentistry 
 

Diane Barber: PhD (Cell Biology)
Professor and Interim Chair, Department of Cell and Tissue Biology
Practice/Research Interest:: Cell Biology, Signal Transduction, Cytoskeleton Dynamics, Cancer Cell Biology.
Interesting Fact: "I never thought I would be here."
 

School of Medicine

Stacey J. Anderson: PhD (Psychology)
Assistant Adjunct Professor Social and Behavioral Sciences
Practice/Research Interest:Tobacco control, social psychology, health decision making, public policy, post-Keynesian economics.
Interesting Fact: "I'm a first-gen university person; no one in my family had gone to college, much less to grad school. But I knew from age 13 that I would earn a PhD and I never looked back."

Mentor: Claire Brindis: MD, PHD
Director, Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies, Professor of Pediatrics and Health Policy in Department of Pediatrics, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Health Sciences.
Practice and Research Interest: Dr. Brindis conducts policy-relevant research on women’s, adolescents’ and child health, reproductive health services for low income men and women, policy coalitions in environmental health and asthma, and safety net providers, and school-based health services. Her work has two principal methodological thrusts: (1) conducting quantitative and qualitative program evaluations of state and federally funded health programs that are useful to policy makers and managers as they face increasingly more difficult resource allocation decisions, and (2) analyzing and synthesizing available research, testing available data sets, and creating policy-relevant documents that help to provide future directions in research and policy formation.
Interesting Fact: "I'm a first generation immigrant from Argentia."

Dan Ciccarone: MD, MPH
Associate Professor of Clinical Family and Community Medicine
Practice and Research Interest:Public Health, HIV, Substance Abuse, Family Medicine
Interesting Fact: "I took time off after med school to become a baker. I took time off after residency to race in triathlons."

Diane Barber: PhD (Cell Biology)
Professor and Interim Chair, Department of Cell and Tissue Biology.
Practice/Research Interest : Cell Biology, Signal Transduction, Cytoskeleton Dynamics, Cancer Cell Biology
Interesting Fact: "I never thought I would be here."

Jennifer Lucero: MD (Obstetric Anesthesia)
Clinical Instructor
Practice/Research Interest: Women's Health Anesthesia/Pre-eclampsia research
Interesting Fact: "I completed residency in both Ob-Gyn and Anesthesia at UCSF.

Elise Riley: PhD (Infectious Disease Epidemiology)
Associate Professor
Practice/Research Interest: Community-based research that focuses on co-morbidities, overall health status and HIV risk among homeless and unstably housed adults. The goal of this work is to inform health care delivery, social services and HIV prevention programs targeting low-income and vulnerable persons.
Interesting Fact: 'Working as a research assistant during grad school, I once had to buy back my own umbrella from a study participant who took it during an interview and was selling it on a nearby street corner."

Teri Melese, PhD
Associate Professor, Medicine, Director of Research Technologies and Alliances
Practice/Research Interest: My research interests were in the area of model system genetics and protein transport. I am now researching and developing the growing area of industry/academic alliances and their ability to positively affect innovation in therapeutic discovery and development
Interesting Fact: "I was a literature/science double major. My women's vball master's team just took the Gold at Huntsman. 

Theodore Miclau, MD (Orthopaedic Surgery)
Professor, Vice Chair Deptartment of Orthopaedics
Practice/Research Interest: Fracture Repair
Interesting Fact: "I grew up in PR, undergraduate/medical school at Yale University, Fellowship at Baylor College of Medicine in Orthopaedic Trauma."

Ralph Gonzales, MD/MSPH
Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology & Biostatistics, Assoc. Chair for Ambulatory Care and Clinical Innovation
Practice/Research Interest: Health care innovations, quality improvement, patient-facing Information Technology
Interesting Fact: "I grew up in the restaurant business."

Kimberly Topp, PT, PhD
Professor and Chair
Practice/Research Interest: Peripheral neuropathy, Oncology rehabilitation
Interesting Fact "I worked in retail for seven years after high school before entering college. I absolutely LOVE my career."

Carlos Solorzano, PhD (Pharmacology and Toxicology)
Postdoctoral Fellow
Practice/Research: "Studying the role of various lipids in the control of the inflammatory response and investigating novel mediators in pain transduction. I am interested in uncovering molecules important for regulating/causing chronic pain. In the Basbaum lab, investigating the cellular and molecular mechanisms, which lead to chronic pain."
Interesting Fact: "I started out as an engineer, but changed career paths when I studied pharmacology for my doctorate."

School of Pharmacy

Brian Alldredge Pharm.D. (Neurology Therapeutics)
Professor and Associate Dean
Practice/Research Interest: Epilepsy - Clinical Trials, Pharmacogenetics
Interesting Fact: " I worked with my father at a meat packing plant in Los Angeles so that I could pay for my college tuition."
 

School of Nursing

Carol Dawson-Rose: RN, PhD (Nursing and Community Health)
Associate Professor
Practice/Research Interest: Drug Users, HIV
Interesting Fact: "Outside of work, I only read fiction."