Meet Our Panel

Christine Dehlendorf, MD, MAS, is a Professor and Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, with additional appointments in the Departments of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences and Epidemiology and Biostatistics. She founded and directs the Person-Centered Reproductive Health Program, which aims to advance reproductive autonomy and well-being by conducting research and designing programs that center people’s experiences and preferences for sexual and reproductive health and health care, guided by an attention to the intersecting oppressions and structural injustices that impact people’s lives and health. Her work was honored with the Society of Family Planning’s Beacon of Science Award in 2022. She also provides primary care and reproductive health care at the Family Health Center at San Francisco General Hospital and Planned Parenthood.

Kevin Grumbach, MD is Professor of Family and Community Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. He served as Chair of the UCSF Department of Family and Community Medicine from 2003 to 2022. He is a Founding Director of the UCSF Center for Excellence in Primary Care and Director of the Community Engagement Program for the UCSF Clinical and Translational Science Institute. He served as Vice President for Population Health for the UCSF Health system from 2015-2018. His research and scholarship on the primary care workforce, innovations in the delivery of primary care, racial and ethnic diversity in the health professions, and community health improvement have widely influenced policy and practice. With Tom Bodenheimer, he co-authored the best-selling textbook on health policy, Understanding Health Policy - A Clinical Approach, now in its 8th edition, and the book, Improving Primary Care – Strategies and Tools for a Better Practice, published by McGraw Hill. He received a Generalist Physician Faculty Scholar award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Health Resources and Services Administration Award for Health Workforce Research on Diversity, the Richard E. Cone Award for Excellence and Leadership in Cultivating Community Partnerships in Higher Education, and the UCSF Chancellor’s Public Service Award, and is a member of the National Academy of Medicine.

Dr. Grumbach has been an advisor to Congressional Committees and government agencies on primary care and health reform and a member of the National Advisory Council for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and served on the Steering Committee of San Francisco Health Improvement Partnerships. He was a founding member of the California Physicians Alliance and is a member of Physicians for a National Health Program. He practices family medicine at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and the Lakeshore Family Medicine Center at UCSF Health. Learn more.

Why I became a family physician researcher >>>

Hunter Holt is a board-certified family medicine physician and assistant professor in the UIC Department of Family and Community Medicine. He is focused on researching and implementing solutions that improve patient experiences and health outcomes related to reproductive health and cervical cancer prevention. In medical school, at Rush University, Dr. Holt traveled to China as a NIH Fogarty Global Health Fellow to research cervical cancer prevention in China. Working with the Cancer Institute of China, he investigated cervical cancer screening in Chinese migrant workers and post-menopausal Chinese women. As a family medicine resident at the University of Illinois, Chicago, Dr. Holt was a part of the Global Health Track working in Senegal to implement sustainable solutions for cervical cancer prevention in rural Senegal. As a Primary Care Research Fellow at UCSF, Dr. Holt completed his master’s degree in Clinical and Epidemiological Research and worked to understand the reasons behind disparities in cervical cancer incidence and mortality. Currently he is working to finding solutions to reduce these cervical cancer disparities and promote health equity. Learn more.

Why I became a family physician researcher >>>

Dr. Potter is the director of the San Francisco Bay Area Collaborative Research Network (SFBayCRN) and Associate Director for Practice-Based Research in the CTSI Community Engagement Program. SFBayCRN is UCSF's primary healthcare practice based research network, with participation from the UCSF Schools of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, and Dentistry. SFBayCRN includes a network of over 1,000 clinicians working in over 100 clinical sites in the nine Bay Area counties, and has provided research design consultation and practice recruitment services for multiple federally funded studies in the five years. SFBayCRN has also contributed to the new and growing literature on strategies to increase research participation in PBRN’s. Most recently, SFBay CRN has been working with a subgroup of members to test the feasibility of using electronic health record data for regional collaborative quality improvement initiatives, to identify potentially eligible study participants, and conduct practice-based translational research. My own research has focused on practice-level interventions to increase access to cancer screening and to improve self-management of chronic health conditions. As director of SFBayCRN, my chief role has been to oversee development of our membership and consultation service, and this role will expand over the next five years with our new and evolving agenda in systems-based participatory research within diverse practice settings, and renewed emphasis on translation of evidence-based interventions into widespread clinical practice. Learn more.

Why I became a family physician researcher >>>

Anjana Sharma, MD MAS is Associate Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine. Her work has focused on studying best practices and the impact of representative and ethical patient advisory councils, mixed-methods research, implementation science, quality improvement, community-engaged research, and reproductive health. She is affiliated with the Center for Excellence in Primary Care and the Center for Vulnerable Populations, and serves in the Community Engagement team for the UCSF Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute. She is currently  studying how patients can inform ambulatory patient safety improvement work, the prevalence and impact of patient and community engagement in primary care, and is co-lead on a clinical trial to provide community navigation to enhance access and reduce racial/ethnic disparities in telehealth. She is also involved in residency education regarding community engagement competencies and engaging patients and community partners in residency selection and education. Her mission is to develop research that will transform healthcare delivery structures into participatory, vibrant locations of well-being, healing, and justice. Learn more.

Why I became a family physician researcher >>>