Anna Haemel, MD
Anna Haemel draws from her background in both internal medicine and dermatology to provide comprehensive, cutting-edge care for patients with autoimmune connective tissue diseases affecting the skin. Treatment for these diseases is still suboptimal, with a high component of toxicity/immunosuppression and related side effects. Her academic interests include promoting a better understanding of these conditions through clinical and translational research and participating in clinical trials to advance the care of these patients.
Jeff P. North, MD
Jeff North is both a dermatologist and a dermatopathologist, and the breadth of this experience provides a clear vantage point for a focus on cutaneous autoimmunity. Jeff’s unique insights illuminate many challenging components of our projects, ranging from methodology selection to clinicopathologic considerations.
CURRENT TEAM:
Brook Abegaze, BS
Brook Abegaze grew up in Dallas, TX where he practiced as a physician assistant for a community clinic in southeast Dallas. In his practice he noted how patients with Medicaid were unable to receive timely referrals to see specialist physicians and opted to receive further training to provide care to these patients. While in medical school, he developed an interest in dermatology and research. He is currently a 4th year medical student at UCSF studying keratinocyte stem cell and committed progenitor division kinetics, psoriasis and the IL-17 axis, and Lupus Panniculitis. In his free time, he enjoys lifting weights as often as possible and running very occasionally.
Kaelin Chatterley, BA
Kaelin Chatterley is an Assistant Clinical Research Coordinator who has supported clinical trials investigating autoimmune skin conditions including cutaneous sarcoidosis, dermatomyositis, and cutaneous lupus erythematosus. She has a background in public health and is particularly interested in how clinical research can improve access to care and outcomes for patients with chronic autoimmune skin conditions.
Stephanie Ezeoke, BS
Stephanie is a second-year medical student at Upstate Medical University with a growing passion for dermatologic care. She is currently working on treatment strategies for resistant vulvar Crohn’s disease and expanded use of JAK inhibitors in novel regimens. She has a strong interest in global dermatology and is committed to serving underserved populations. Stephanie looks forward to further opportunities through the lab to expand her knowledge and clinical interests.
Alina Feng, BS
Alina Feng is a medical student at UCSF originally from the Bay Area. She is currently studying the risk factors for dermatomyositis, with the goal of identifying genetic, systems, and immunological factors that contribute to inflammatory dermatologic conditions.
Matt French, BS
Matt French is a clinical research coordinator at UCSF. He has worked on several industry sponsored clinical trials including studies of dermatomyositis, atopic dermatitis, hidradenitis suppurativa, and androgenetic alopecia. He has also contributed to a dermatomyositis prospective registry study and a retrospective examination of calcinosis cutis in morphea which will be presented at the 2024 RDS conference.
Radhika Gupta, BA
Radhika is a fourth-year medical student at Penn, originally from New Jersey. She received her B.A. in Biology from the University of Pennsylvania and B.S. in Economics from The Wharton School. Her clinical and research interests lie in autoimmune and inflammatory skin diseases, applications of generative AI in dermatology, patient advocacy, and trainee education. In her spare time, she enjoys running, doing reformer Pilates, playing Catan, traveling, checking out the best coffee shops in every city, and spending time with family and friends.
Kaitlyn Hsu, BS
Kaitlyn Hsu is a medical student at UCSF. Her interests lie at the intersections between different systems in medicine, such as is seen in complex conditions and their involvement of dermatologic processes. Currently, she is working on projects that aim to better understand Rowell's syndrome and explore the roles of integrative medicine and lifestyle factors in the management of dermatomyositis.
Rebecca Jacobson, BM
Rebecca Jacobson is a medical student at UC Irvine. Her efforts in our group over the last 2+ years have enabled the infrastructure for prospective research, allowing us to meet target enrollment for our first patient-facing study (focused on clinical features of dermatomyositis). Rebecca’s current project focus relates to infectious disease dermatology, particularly tuberculosis and invasive fungal disease, while she continues to collaborate with our other team members on projects pertaining to lupus, dermatomyositis, and morphea. The findings of Rebecca’s research have been featured at several meetings including the Rheumatologic Dermatology Society Fall meeting in 2020.
Ernesto Llamado, BA, Lab Operations
Ernesto received a communications degree from San Francisco State University. He was formerly in the entertainment business and worked with artists such as N.W.A, Ice Cube, and Seal. Currently, he runs the day-to-day operations for the UCSF Dermatology labs at the Mt. Zion campus. In his spare time, this native San Franciscan likes to climb the hills of SF on his bike and is still trying to learn the fundamentals of golf after 20 years of playing the sport.
Michelle Mintz, MD/PhD
Michelle “Shelly” Mintz is interested in better understanding the pathogenesis of dermatomyositis and how it relates to the immune response to cancer. She is currently working with Dr. Haemel on a translational research project aimed at better identifying immune signatures in Dermatomyositis subgroups including those with underlying malignancy.
ALUMNI:
Winnie Fan, MD
Lily Guo, MD
Rodrigo Gutierrez, MD
Maha Kazmi, MD
Richard Kim, MD
Bianca Obiakor, BA
Heidi Vaughan, MD