Faculty Search Diversity LENS Advocates

LEADS TO EQUITABLY NAVIGATING SEARCHES

Faculty LENS Advocates

Aruna Subramanian, MD

Clinical Professor of Medicine

Clinical Focus: Chief, Immunocompromised Host Infectious Diseases 
 
This includes the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of Infections in patients who are immunosuppressed because of:

  • Solid Organ Transplantation (Kidney, Pancreas, Liver, Heart, Lung, Small Bowel) More
  • Hematologic Malignancies
  • Chemotherapy for Solid Tumors 
  • HIV who receive Chemotherapy
  • Solid Organ or Bone Marrow Transplants 
  • Immunomodulators for Auto-Immune Diseases

 Less 

Kiran Khush, MD

Professor of Medicine

Dr. Khush is Professor of Medicine and Director of Heart Transplant Research in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at Stanford University Medical Center and Director of the Advanced Heart Failure Transplant Cardiology Fellowship Program at Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Khush is a clinical and translational investigator whose research More focuses on donor selection for heart transplantation; risk factors and mechanisms of primary graft dysfunction after heart transplantation; development and clinical utility of non-invasive transplant biomarkers; and prevention of long-term complications after heart transplantation, including cardiac allograft vasculopathy (a form of chronic rejection) and malignancies. She has received funding from the National Institutes of Health and is an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation. Dr. Khush is the Deputy Editor of the Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation and incoming Program Chair of the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation annual scientific sessions (Boston, MA, April 2025). Through her collaborative clinical and research programs, she has experienced the great benefits arising from working with teams that are diverse in terms of background and life experiences. Dr. Khush hopes to bring this perspective to faculty searches and hires at Stanford Medicine.

 Less 

Malathi Srinivasan, MD

Clinical Professor of Medicine

Dr. Srinivasan is a Clinical Professor of Medicine at Stanford University, Associate Director at the Stanford Center for Asian Healthcare Research and Education (Stanford CARE), Fellow at the Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health (CIGH), board member at the Stanford Clinical Teaching Seminar Series, and member of the Stanford Teaching and More research program in amyloidosis, cardiac complications of cancer therapy, and sarcoidosis. Dr. Witteles is the recipient of a host of clinical teaching awards, and housestaff education is his greatest passion.

Mentoring Academy (TMA). She is co-Director of the One Health Teaching Scholars Faculty Development Program, an international program focusing on faculty development for health professions education around the world. She is a contributor to CBS-KPIX “Medical Mondays”. Dr. Srinivasan brings her skills as an educator, physician, health services researcher, and entrepreneur to considering how scalable technologies can improve health care. Her work in Virtual Health/telemedicine and new patient engagement models has been published in the NEJM Catalyst – a leading healthcare innovation journal.

Previously, Dr. Srinivasan was a Master Clinical Educator and Professor of Clinical Medicine at the University of California, Davis School of Medicine. She was the Senior Associate Editor and Editorial Fellowship Director for the Journal of General Internal Medicine, and was the Kimitaka Kaga Visiting Professor at the University of Tokyo at the International Research Center for Medical Education. At UC Davis, Dr. Srinivasan was the Director of Practice Based Learning and Improvement and Medical Director of the Clinical Performance Examination for a decade. She is former President of the California-Hawaii Society of General Internal Medicine, and ex-officio National Council Member for SGIM. She was a RWJ Foundation Generalist Physician Faculty Scholar and US Health and Human Service Public Policy Fellow. Dr. Srinivasan has been awarded the California SGIM Educator of the Year Award, and was recognized by her university with the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Education. Her research has focused on improving physician competency around clinical decision-making, through Virtual Health, technology-aided education and reflective practice.

Dr. Srinivasan's vision for having a thriving, vibrant scientific Stanford community, we need academic excellence and a deep diversity of personal experiences.  Faculty search and hire are the major modifiable moments that impact faculty diversity.

 Less 

Lidia Schapira, MD

Professor of Medicine

Dr. Schapira is Professor of Medicine (Oncology) and the Inaugural Director of the Cancer Survivorship Program at Stanford Medicine. Dr. Schapira completed her residency in internal medicine at the Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital and went on to complete a fellowship in hematology and medical oncology at the Brigham and Women's Hospital and a research fellowship at theMore Division on Aging at Harvard Medical School. She was on the faculty at Harvard Medical School and a member of the Breast Oncology Program at the Massachusetts General Hospital from 2002-2016 and then joined the faculty at Stanford in 2016, where she directs a multidisciplinary research and clinical team focused on optimizing health outcomes for cancer survivors through research, clinical care, education and advocacy.

Dr. Schapira cares for adults with breast cancer and her research has focused on the unique needs of young patients with breast cancer and the psychosocial dimensions of cancer care. Dr. Schapira has championed training cancer clinicians in communication skills and empowering patients to better manage chronic health conditions such as cancer. For more than 20 years, Dr. Schapira has worked to reduce health disparities for people with cancer, improve access to cancer clinical trials for members of underrepresented groups including immigrants, and has mentored oncologists from low- and middle-income countries. She served on the Board of Directors of the American Psychosocial Oncology Society and as Chair of the Psychosocial Interest Group of the Multinational Society for Supportive Care in Cancer. Dr. Schapira's advocacy for people with cancer led to her appointment as Editor-in-Chief of the American Society of Clinical Oncology's website for the public Cancer.Net, from 2015 until-2021. She has authored over 150 publications and served as Associate Editor for the Journal of Clinical Oncology from 2013 until 2023. 

 Less 

Mindie H. Nguyen, MD

Professor of Medicine

Dr. Nguyen is Professor of Medicine and Director for the Hepatology Fellowship in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology and Liver Transplant Program at Stanford University Medical Center and Director for the Hepatology Clerkship for Stanford University School of Medicine. She is also a member of the Stanford Cancer Institute, Stanford Bio-X and Stanford More Population Science.

She has a large and comprehensive practice of general liver as well as liver transplant patients at Stanford University Medical Center and weekly outreach clinics in the San Jose and monthly clinics in the San Francisco area. Her research areas include epidemiology, clinical outcomes, translational studies of liver cancer/tumors and other chronic liver diseases as cause of liver cancer such as hepatitis B, hepatitis C, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and liver transplant-related issues. She also conducts therapeutic clinical trials for these diseases. She has mentored over 130 trainees of diverse backgrounds and levels of training. Her research lab includes trainees who are high school students, undergraduate students, medical students, graduate students in the Masters' in Epidemiology or Public Health, PhD students in Epidemiology, interns/residents, gastroenterology/hepatology fellows, junior faculty, and international visiting scholars. She also serves as Pre-Major Academic Advisor for the undergraduate school.

Her research base includes single-center Stanford-based cohorts, multi-center Bay Area consortium, multi-center US consortia as well as collaborative international cohorts.

She is active in community outreach efforts locally and nationally including service as executive board of director for nonprofit organizations. She has served in the Education and Hepatology Associate Committees for the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD), and as member of the Steering Committee for the Hepatobiliary Neoplasia and Hepatitis B Special Interest Group at AASLD. Currently, she is the Chair of the Hepatitis B Special Interest Group, member of the Practice Guideline Committee for the AASLD, member of the Research Award Panel for the AGA, and member of the Practice Management Committee for the ACG.

As Faculty Fellow at the Center for Innovation in Global Health at Stanford University, Dr. Nguyen is active in Global Health with extensive international research collaboration, especially the Asia Pacific region. She has collaborated with local NGOs and Ministries of Health and Sports (Mongolia, Myanmar) to hold major medical education conferences for local physicians. Currently, she also serves in the Governing Council of the International Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (IASL).

 Less 

Latha Palaniappan, MD, MS

Professor of Medicine

Latha Palaniappan MD, MS, is an internist, and clinical and population researcher. Her research has focused on the study of diverse populations, chronic disease and prevention. Dr. Palaniappan specifically seeks to address the gap in knowledge of health in Asian subgroups and other understudied racial/ethnic minorities (PACS 5R01DK081371, CASPER R01HL126172, More and CAUSES R01MD007012). Her current work examines the clinical effectiveness of structured physical activity programs for diabetes management (Initiate and Maintain Physical Activity in Clinics - IMPACT, 5R18DK096394), as well as best exercise regimens for normal-weight diabetics (Strength Training Regimen for Normal Weight Diabetics - STRONG-D, 2R01DK081371). She was recently awarded a Midcareer Investigator Award (K24 HL150476) by the National Institutes of Health to provide mentoring to junior clinical investigators in the conduct of patient oriented research. She is currently working on implementation of evidence based genetic and pharmacogenetic testing in clinical settings. She is the Faculty co-Director of the Stanford Biobank (with Drs. Brooke Howitt and Joachim Hallmayer) designed to accelerate translatable scientific discoveries. She co-founded (with Dr. Bryant Lin) the Center for Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Health Research and Education (CARE) at Stanford in 2018. She recently received a Fulbright Future Scholar Award and will work with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation on implementation of Precision Health in Australia. 

 Less 

Special Advisors

Andrew Hoffman, MD

Professor of Medicine & Vice Chair of Academic Affairs

Dr. Andrew Hoffman is a board certified endocrinologist who specializes in the treatment pituitary and other neuroendocrine diseases, including acromegaly, Cushing syndrome, prolactinomas and other pituitary tumors.

Hannah Valantine, MBBS

Professor of Medicine

Hannah Valantine received her M.B.B.S. degree from London University, cardiology fellowship at Stanford, and Doctor of Medicine from London University. She was appointed Assistant Professor of Medicine, rising to full Professor of Medicine in 2000, and becoming the inaugural Senior Associate Dean for Diversity and Leadership, in 2004. She pursued a data-drivenMore transformative approach to this work, receiving the NIH director’s pathfinder award. Dr. Francis Collins, NIH director, recruited her in 2014 as the inaugural NIH Chief Officer for Scientific Workforce diversity, and as a tenured investigator in the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s intramural research program where she established the laboratory of transplantation genomics. Dr. Valantine is a nationally recognized pioneer in her field, with over 200 peer-reviewed publications, patents, and sustained NIH funding. She was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2020 for both her pioneering research in organ transplantation and workforce diversity.

 Less 

Wendy Caceres, MD

Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine

Wendy Caceres is a Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine in Primary Care and Population Health at Stanford University. She serves as one of the Associate Program Directors for the Stanford Internal Medicine Residency program and had been the Co-Medical Director of Pacific Free Clinic and Cardinal Free Clinics from 2015-2020. From 2020 she has been one of the Associate More Chairs for Diversity and Inclusion for the Department of Medicine.  Her main interests are in diversity in medical education and clinical care of vulnerable populations. Her clinical scholarly activity has been focused on reducing health disparities through quality improvement at the point of care.

 Less 

Sean Wu, MD, PhD

Professor of Medicine

Sean M Wu, MD, PhD is a board certified cardiologist who specializes in treating men and women with cardiac diseases such as coronary artery disease, cardiac valve disorder, rhythm disorders, cardio-oncology/cancer drug toxicity, and cardiac preventive management. More 

Dr. Wu also conduct research in cardiac developmental biology/congenital heart disease, stem cell biology and translation of stem cells into new treatments for congenital heart disease, adult heart failure and rhythm disorders.

In addition to completion of residency program and board certification in internal medicine, Dr. Wu has also completed a 3-year ACGME-accredited fellowship in cardiovascular disease with board certification and additional clinical training in echocardiography at Massachusetts General Hospital and cardiac developmental biology research training at Boston Children's Hospital/Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA.

 Less 

Joseph Wu, MD, PhD

Professor of Medicine

Dr. Wu is the Simon Stertzer Professor of Medicine and Radiology and Director of Stanford Cardiovascular Institute. His research career has been dedicated to making fundamental discoveries in cardiovascular medicine. His lab focuses on (i) disease modeling, (ii) genomics-epigenomics, (iii) pharmacogenomics & drug More discovery, (iv) precision medicine, and (v) regenerative medicine. To date, >35 of his former postdoctoral fellows are now faculty in the US and abroad. Dr. Wu is an elected member of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), Association of University Cardiologists (AUC), American Association of Physicians (AAP), and National Academy of Medicine (NAM).

 Less 

Glenn Chertow, MD

Professor of Medicine

Glenn M. Chertow, MD, MPH, is Professor of Medicine and Chief, Division of Nephrology at Stanford University School of Medicine.  Prior to joining the faculty at Stanford, Dr. Chertow served with distinction on the faculties at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School (1995-98) and the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) (1998-2007).  Dr. Chertow has More established a successful career as a clinical investigator and continues to maintain a productive research program focused on improving care for persons with acute and chronic kidney disease (CKD).  Recent projects include several NIDDK-sponsored initiatives: Acute Renal Failure Trials Network (ATN) Study, the United States Renal Data System (USRDS) Special Studies Center in Nutrition, the Chronic Renal Insufficiency Cohort (CRIC) study and the Frequent Hemodialysis Network (FHN) study. 

Dr. Chertow was elected to the American Society of Clinical Investigation in 2004 and appointed to the Scientific Advisory Board of the National Kidney Foundation in 2007.  He was Vice Chair and member of two workgroups for the Kidney Disease Quality Outcomes Initiative (K/DOQI) and Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology

He will be among the five Co-Editors of the 9th edition of Brenner & Rector’s The Kidney.  Dr. Chertow also received the 2007 National Torchbearer Award from the American Kidney Fund for his career-long contributions toward improving the lives of persons with kidney disease.

 Less 

Tamara Dunn, MD

Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine

Dr. Tamara Dunn is a clinical associate professor in the Division of Hematology at the Stanford University School of Medicine. She is a clinician with a special interest in medical education, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Specifically, she is committed to improving workforce diversity and creating inclusive workplaces. She is currently the Program Director for the Stanford More Heme/Onc Fellowship and one of the Associate Chairs of Diversity and Inclusion for the Department of Medicine at Stanford. She is a member of the inaugural American Society of Hematology (ASH) Ambassador Cohort and serves on the ASH Women in Hematology committee, which she co-chairs. She is on the steering committee and is a mentor for Stanford’s Leadership Education in Advancing Diversity (LEAD) program. She takes pride in treating underserved veterans at the Palo Alto Veterans Hospital, where she sees both classical and malignant hematology. Outside of medicine she enjoys singing, dancing, sports (Go Chiefs! Go Warriors!), board games, movies, and spending time with friends and family including her 3 young children, spouse, and energetic vizsla Casey.

 Less 

Administrators

Gretchen Picache

LENS Advocates Director, Academic Affairs

Melanie Gutierrez

Faculty Affairs Specialist

Melanie Gutierrez is a Faculty Affairs Specialist with the Department of Medicine (DOM). She earned a Bachelor’s degree in Health Science and a minor in Business Organization and Management from San José State University. She began her career with a billing office for an emergency physicians’ medical group before transitioning to higher education at SJSU’s More Student Health Center. She was recruited by Stanford’s Department of Pathology, serving as the Residency and Fellowship Program Coordinator for a few years. She was a Graduate Program Coordinator and then an Administrative Analyst for large academic departments at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. She returned to Stanford in 2021 to support the DOM Professoriate Recruitment Cluster. As an administrative member of the LENS Advocates program, she seeks to cultivate diverse applicant pools. Her goal is to integrate best practices for recruiting exceptional faculty dedicated to the continued development of an inclusive and equitable culture.

 Less 

Cynthia Llanes

Faculty Affairs Manager for Recruitment and Diversity

Cynthia Llanes was born in the Philippines.  She arrived in the United States with her family in 1973.  She received a Bachelor’s Degree in Public Health from UCLA.  She has been at Stanford for 20 years, with appointments in the Division of Literatures, Cultures and Languages as the Administrative Services Manager and as Associate Director of Faculty Affairs and Clinical More Training in the Department of Pathology. After a brief retirement, she was recruited by the Department of Medicine in Oct. 2019 as the Faculty Affairs Manager for Recruitment and Diversity. Her role includes serving as the administrative lead for the LENS Advocate Program. This role is especially important for Cynthia because of her commitment to diversity and inclusion.  She strongly believes that the faculty’s demographics should reflect the diversity of the patient and trainees they serve.

 Less 

Junie Urbano

Faculty Affairs Specialist

Marisha Smith

Academic Affairs Manager

Marisha Smith has been employed at Stanford since 2007, initially with the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine. Over time she took on the role of HR and Faculty Affairs Administrator and eventually transitioned to the Department of Medicine. She has earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology, with emphasis in Social Problems and minor in Africana Studies, More a Master’s degree is in Education with emphasis in Multicultural Counseling as well as a Doctorate in Education with emphasis on Educational Leadership and Management. In her current role as Academic Affairs Manager, Marisha oversees appointments and promotions in the professoriate lines, as well as retirement, emeritus recalls, and leave requests. As a bi-racial Black woman, daughter, sister, wife and mother, Marisha is very much passionate about social justice and committed to the mission of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) for all. In addition to her involvement as an administrative committee member for the LENS Advocates, she is a member of the Department of Medicine’s Staff DEI Committee and on the Equity Leadership Team for the Long Beach Unified School District.

 Less 

Alyssa Albin

Faculty Affairs Administrator

Alyssa is a Faculty Affairs Administrator in the Department of Medicine. She has a BA in Communication, and graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She started her career in the Life Sciences industry where she had the opportunity to support the recruitment process and hiring efforts for biotech and pharma companies. She then More transitioned to higher education and joined the Faculty Affairs team at Stanford University. In addition to her role as an administrative member for the LENS Committee, she helps with the recruitment and appointment/promotion processes for the Department of Medicine. Her goal is to facilitate and empower the recruitment and retention of diverse and talented faculty members who can advance the research, teaching, and clinical missions of the department and the university.

 Less