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.

Jeffrey 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.

Bianca Obiakor, BA
Bianca Obiakor is a medical student at UCSF. Her interests within dermatology include promoting UV-protective behaviors in communities of color and establishing best practices for treatment of natural and textured hair.  Bianca received grant funding for her 2022 summer project in our group, focused on deep variants of morphea, which is an autoimmune sclerosing skin condition.

Maha Kazmi, BS
Maha Kazmi is a medical student at the University of California, Davis who is studying autoimmune connective tissue diseases affecting the skin. Maha draws from her prior research experience involving genetic cutaneous diseases in approaching her research year. She is currently completing a clinical research fellowship with UCSF Dermatology, driving several patient facing studies on lupus and dermatomyositis while also completing formal research methodology coursework.The findings of Maha’s research have been featured in several abstract presentations, most recently at the RDS Annual Meeting 2022. Maha is also passionate about immigrant justice and is working to improve health inequities involving access and quality of care to refugees, asylees, and other vulnerable populations.

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.

Rebecca Jacobson, BM
Rebecca Jacobson recently completed her premedical postbacc at Goucher College.  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.

Richard Kim, BS
Richard Kim is a medical student at UCSF.  He is working on a research project in our group focused on diagnostic test accuracy studies for invasive fungal diseases involving the skin.  The preliminary findings of this research project were featured in an abstract at the 2022 meeting of the Society of Dermatology Hospitalists.

Rodrigo Gutierrez, BS
Rodrigo Gutierrez is a medical student at UCSF.  He is currently finishing up a research project in our group focused on diagnostic test accuracy studies for invasive fungal diseases involving the skin.  In addition, Rodrigo is collaborating with team members on several other projects focused on infectious disease dermatology including studies of cutaneous tuberculosis and dermatologic complications of the treatment thereof.  Rodrigo has previously done research within our broader Department with an emphasis on medical dermatology topics, including itch.  Rodrigo looks forward to focusing his Deep Explore project in our group on autoimmune connective tissue disease this upcoming academic year.  The findings of Rodrigo’s research have been featured in several abstract presentations, most recently at the DRESS Syndrome 2022 Global Conference.

Winnie Fan, BS
Winnie Fan is a medical student at UCSF.   Winnie received grant funding for her 2021 summer project in our group, which focused on head variants of morphea, which is a sclerosing autoimmune skin disease.  During her summer research block, Winnie set up a retrospective morphea database which has subsequently served as a platform for several additional projects in our group.  The findings of her summer research project were featured in an abstract at the 2022 meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology.

Heidi Vaughan, MD - University of Virginia Department of Pathology
Heidi Vaughan is now a Pathology Resident at the University of Virginia.  Heidi’s efforts over several years were critical in getting multiple early projects up and running in our research group, with a particular focus on studies of diagnostic test accuracy in autoimmune dermatology.

Lily Guo, BS
Lily Guo is a medical student at Chicago Medical School who completed a summer research block with our group in the summer of 2021.  Lily’s research project focused on histopathologic methods for diagnosing bullous pemphigoid.