People

The Center faculty come from all four UCSF schools and conduct research and teaching in every aspect of tobacco control, from efforts by the tobacco industry to manipulate international politics to the molecular biology of nicotine addiction.

 

Vira Pravosud, PhD

Assistant Research Scientist, San Francisco VA Medical Center
Cardiovascular Research Inst

Vira Pravosud, PhD, received her doctorate in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from the University of Kentucky. Having obtained an undergraduate degree in Social Work & Sociology and a Master’s degree in Healthcare Management and Administration from the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Kyiv, Dr. Pravosud came to the U.S. in 2014 as a Fulbright Scholar from Ukraine pursuing more expertise in public health research.

Danielle Ramo-Larios, PhD

Associate Professor
Psychiatry

Dr. Danielle Ramo is Associate Professor in Residence and licensed psychologist in the Department of Psychiatry and the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center at UCSF. She directs the Research on Addictions and Digital Interventions lab (readi.ucsf.edu), and co-directs the Psychiatry Digital Health Core (http://psychdhc.ucsf.edu). Her research program focuses on using digital media to understand and address risky drug and alcohol use. Dr.

Poonam Rao, MD

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M_MED-CORE-CARD

Poonam Rao, MD, graduated as a MBBS from Pt. B.D Sharma Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Rohtak, India in 2016. After graduation, she worked for some time as a General Physician in rural India. She moved to the United States in 2017 to pursue higher education as a physician-scientist, and complete clinical observerships in Jackson Health System, Miami, and Cleveland Clinic, Florida. As she wants to stay at the boundary between research and clinical practice in the long term, after some clinical training, she pivoted towards research.

Rita Redberg, MD, MS

Professor
Medicine

Dr. Rita Redberg is a cardiologist, and directs women’s cardiovascular services and the UCSF Flight Attendant Clinic. Her research interests are in the effects of secondhand smoke and other work related conditions (radiation) on flight attendants, as well as in technology assessment and preventive cardiology. Rita Redberg is a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Cardiology at the UCSF School of Medicine and is also Director of Women’s Cardiovascular Services. She is the Editor of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Sujatha Sankaran, MD

Associate Professor
Medicine

Sujatha Sankaran is a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hospital Medicine. She received her medical degree from the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine and subsequently completed her training in Internal Medicine at the Georgetown Universty/Washington Hospital Center program in June 2005. She then worked as an Academic Hospitalist at Columbia University before joining an outpatient medical practice for five years and then joining the Division of Hospital Medicine as an Assistant Clinical Professor in 2011.

Jason Satterfield, PhD

Dir of Behavioral Medicine
Medicine

Jason M. Satterfield is past Academy Endowed Chair for Innovation in Teaching, Director of Behavioral Medicine and Professor of Clinical Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine at the University of California San Francisco. He received his B.S. in brain sciences from MIT and his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. Dr.

Suzaynn Schick, PhD

Associate Professor
Medicine

I study the health effects of air pollution in human subjects. I focus on the chemistry and toxicity of smoke and on how exposure to tobacco or cannabis smoke can cause heart and lung disease. My analysis of tobacco industry research showed that sidestream cigarette smoke (the primary constituent of secondhand cigarette smoke) is more toxic than the smoke that smokers inhale and that secondhand smoke becomes more toxic as it ages.

Laura Schmidt, PhD, MSW, MPH

Professor in Residence
Institute for Health Policy Studies

Laura A. Schmidt, PhD, is a Professor of Health Policy in the School of Medicine at the University of California at San Francisco. She holds a joint appointment in the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies and the Department of Anthropology, History and Social Medicine. Dr. Schmidt is also Co-Director of the Community Engagement and Health Policy Program for UCSF’s Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute.

Steve Schroeder, MD

Professor
Medicine

Dr. Schroeder is Distinguished Professor of Health and Health Care, Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, UCSF, where he also heads the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center. The Center, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Truth Initiative, works with leaders of more than 80 American health professional organizations and health care institutions to increase the cessation rate for smokers.

Mark Schumacher, MD, PhD

Professor
Anesthesia

Dr. Schumacher is Professor and Chief of the Division of Pain Medicine in the Department of Anesthesia and Perioperative Care, University of California, San Francisco. He has a clinical, research and educational focus on pain medicine with an emphasis on the development of evidence – based pain care into general clinical practice that utilize non-addictive modalities to improve both the quality and safety of analgesic care. Dr.

Joel Simon, MD, MPH

Professor Emeritus
Medicine

Research has centered on hospital-based and out-patient clinical trials of smoking cessation. Completed studies include: Transdermal Nicotine Therapy for Hospitalized Smokers and Bupropion for Hospital-Based Smoking Cessation.    Dr.

Neiloy Sircar, JD, LLM

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M_Cardiovascular Research Inst

Neil Sircar, JD, LLM is a human rights lawyer specializing in global and public health, global governance, and health in humanitarian crises. He recently concluded a Fogarty Global Health Fellowship with the National Institutes for Health through the Northern Pacific Global Health Consortium at the University of Washington. He is principal investigator on a study for assessing the implementation of human rights-based approaches to HIV testing and notification in Kenya with the prominent Kenyan non-governmental organization Kenya Legal and Ethical Issues Network.

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