K12 Program
Current and Incoming Scholars
Julius Oatts, MD
Assistant Professor
Screening for Preventable Blindness in Children
Dr. Julius Oatts is a pediatric ophthalmologist and pediatric glaucoma specialist who specializes in the medical and surgical treatment of children with common eye diseases as well as glaucoma, a rare condition in children. His research focuses on the evaluation of childhood vision screening instruments and diagnostics in childhood glaucoma. He is also involved with the UCSF ophthalmology residency as associate residency program director where he organizes the surgical and classroom curricula.
Gerami Seitzman, MD
Professor
Infectious Eye Diseases and Dry Eye Conditions
Dr. Seitzman's research focuses on infectious eye diseases and dry eye conditions. In particular, she is interested in how modern DNA sequencing techniques and advanced imaging methods can improve the diagnosis and treatment of potentially blinding corneal infections.
Past Scholars
Seth Blumberg, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor
Data-Driven Computational Models of Infectious Disease Transmission
Seth Blumberg is a physician-scientist who attends on the hospitalist service and as an infectious disease consults. His research focuses on developing and applying data-driven computational models of infectious disease transmission. A key goal has been to evaluate disease elimination programs, elucidate risk factors for disease emergence and quantify the impact of patient-specific or population-wide control interventions. He has worked with trachoma, measles, smallpox, monkeypox, MERS and SARS-CoV-2. His involvement in direct patient care provides a practical perspective of the investigations and measurable metrics that can have immediate impact on clinical guidelines and public health. The aims of his K12 award are to use mathematical models to facilitate identification and control of trachoma transmission-hotspots.
Neel Pasricha, MD
Assistant Professor
Ocular Surface Electrophysiology
Dr. Neel Pasricha’s research program focuses on applying ocular surface electrophysiology to advance novel dry eye disease therapeutics that promote tear fluid secretion by targeting ion transport proteins on epithelial cells lining the ocular surface. This research utilizes a novel ocular surface potential difference (OSPD) method introduced in animal studies and advanced for use in humans during Dr. Pasricha's residency at UCSF. OSPD measures the electrical potential difference generated across epithelia from apical and basal membrane ion transporters.
Tyson Kim, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor
Advanced Optical Methods for Studying Eye Disease
Dr. Kim is a clinician-scientist with a background in biological and optical engineering, vascular development, and ophthalmology. He is passionate about innovation and his research centers on studying cellular-level dynamics and physiology in intact tissues with an emphasis on developmental and vascular diseases of the eye. The complex interaction of tissues in these diseases can be challenging or impossible to understand through traditional assays such as cell or organ tissue culture. The Kim lab therefore develops advanced optical and analytical methods, and merges these with genetic tools to observe and alter the cellular and physiological mechanisms driving disease longitudinally over time in intact living organisms. The Kim lab is also passionate in developing and translating optical technologies to improve ophthalmic care for patients.
Cathy Sun, MD
Assistant Professor
Diagnosis and Treatment of Glaucoma
Dr. Sun is a glaucoma specialist whose research focuses on big data and pragmatic clinical trials to enhance the diagnosis and treatment of glaucoma and other ocular conditions. Her interests involve utilizing electronic health records and natural language processing to study clinical outcomes, building and implementing clinical decision support software, and prediction modeling of ocular diseases. She has previously worked with the Proctor Foundation on the Mycotic Ulcer Treatment Trial. In fellowship, she received a Heed Foundation award to pursue her research interests in glaucoma clinical trials.
