Salomeh Keyhani, MD, MPH
3DI Director
Professor of Medicine, UCSF
Primary Care Provider and Investigator, SFVA Health Care System
Dr. Salomeh Keyhani is a Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. She is the Director of the Center for Data to Discovery and Delivery Innovation, a VA-funded Center of Innovation focused on improving health and health care delivery. The Center brings together 27 UCSF investigators engaged in Health Systems Research (HSR) and supports research and training that advances patient centered health behavior change. A primary focus of the Center is the novel application of data science to improve identification of patients who would benefit from behavioral intervention. The Center also focuses on developing, testing, and implementing innovative models of evidence-based care that promote positive health-related behavior change.
Dr. Keyhani is an NIH and VA funded investigator with expertise in both health services and clinical outcomes research. She has an active research program focused on the health effects of cannabis use and is leading multiple prospective cohort studies examining the health effects of cannabis. She also has an active research program in health care quality and health policy. She has conducted comparative effectiveness research (e.g., management of carotid disease), predictive modeling studies, and hospital profiling studies of 30-day readmission using VA national and electronic health record data, and conducted numerous national surveys examining physicians’ views on health care reform. To view Dr. Keyhani's complete UCSF profile, click here.
Carrie Gibson, PhD, MPH
3DI Associate Director
Associate Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, UCSF
Psychologist Clinician Investigator, SFVA Health Care System
Dr. Gibson is a clinical psychologist with research focused on women Veterans’ health and health care, mental health in the menopause transition, the impact of interpersonal trauma and military exposures on menopause- and aging-related health, medical use of cannabis among midlife and older women, and complementary and integrative health approaches to improving health for women across the lifespan.
To view Dr. Gibson's complete UCSF profile, please click here.
Amy Byers, PhD, MPH
3DI Mentoring and Career Development Core Co-Lead
Research Career Scientist, SFVA Health Care System
Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and Medicine, Division of Geriatrics, University of California, San Francisco
Dr. Amy Byers is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and a Research Health Science Specialist at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Health Care System (SFVAHCS). Dr. Byers is a clinical epidemiologist with a strong background in aging research and mathematical epidemiology. In particular, she has expertise in the evaluation of large, epidemiologic and administrative datasets [e.g., national probability samples, VA data, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services data, and national all-cause and cause-specific mortality data]. She joined the faculty at UCSF and the mental health research group at SFVAHCS in 2009; moving from a faculty position at Weill Cornell Medical College where she conducted research through the Weill-Cornell Institute of Geriatric Psychiatry. Since joining the UCSF/SFVAHCS faculty, Dr. Byers has largely devoted her career to the determination of nationally representative estimates related to psychiatric disorders, suicide and suicidal behavior, and health care utilization among older adults, with the goal of reducing the burden of late-life mental health and suicide. She has been funded by several agencies, including NIH (i.e., NIMH and NIMHD), Department of Defense, and VA. Her work on late-life suicide in U.S. veterans has become more and more extensive, including her ongoing role as PI on the first VA R01-level grant longitudinally investigating suicide and suicidal behavior at a national level in older veterans and a NIMH R01 to study precursors of suicide in older veterans transitioning from prison to community. To view Dr. Byer's complete UCSF profile, please click here.
Beth Cohen, MD, MA
3DI Mentoring and Career Development Core Co-Lead,
BE-Well Network Co-Lead
Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco
Primary Care Provider and Clinical Investigator, SFVA Health Care System
Dr. Cohen is an internist and clinical investigator whose research focuses on health outcomes in patients with posttraumatic stress disorder. She is Principal Investigator of the Mind Your Heart Study, a prospective cohort study designed to examine the effects of posttraumatic stress disorder on cardiovascular health. To view Dr. Cohen's complete UCSF profile, please click here.
Katherine Hoggatt, PhD, MPH
Quantitative Data Core Lead
Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco
Research Health Scientist, Co-lead Research Data Core, SFVA Health Care System
Dr. Hoggatt is a Research Health Science Specialist at the San Francisco VA Health Care System (SFVAHCS) and an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. In her previous position, Dr. Hoggatt served as a Research Health Scientist at the VA HSR&D Center for the Study of Healthcare Innovation, Implementation & Policy at VA Greater Los Angeles and an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Fielding School of Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Hoggatt's research focuses on understanding and ameliorating disparities in healthcare access and quality, improving care for women Veterans with substance use disorders (SUD), describing the epidemiology of SUD and related behavioral and mental health conditions in military and Veteran populations, and improving measurement of SUD care to enhance care quality and promote accountability. To view Dr. Hoggatt's complete UCSF profile, please click here.
Nicholas Holder, PhD
BE-Well Network Co-Lead
Assistant Professor, Psychiatry
Dr. Holder is a clinical psychologist, PTSD treatment specialist, and health services researcher. He is a Clinical Research Psychologist at the San Francisco VA Health Care System and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Holder received his PhD in Clinical Psychology from and completed his Psychology Internship at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. He completed his Advanced Research Postdoctoral Fellowship focusing on PTSD Treatment through the Sierra Pacific Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center at the San Francisco VA Health Care System. His research focuses on improving the quality and effectiveness of mental health treatment for Veterans with PTSD, particularly through understanding how to most effectively combine and sequence PTSD treatments. Dr. Holder's VA HSR&D Career Development Award is focused on understanding transitions between PTSD treatments and facilitating timely transition to evidence-based psychotherapy for PTSD. To view Dr. Holders complete UCSF profile, please click here.
Francesca Nicosia, PhD, C-IAYT
3DI Veteran Engagement Core Lead
Associate Professor, Institute for Health and Aging, UCSF
Health Systems Specialist, SFVA Health Care System
National Integrative Health Coordinating Center Champion, Office of Patient Centered Care & Cultural Transformation, VHA, US Department of VA
Dr. Nicosia is a medical anthropologist and certified yoga therapist with a program of research focused on improving pain, function, and quality of life outcomes for older adults, women, and Veterans through nonpharmacologic and complementary and integrative health interventions and care models. To view Dr. Nicosia's complete UCSF profile, please click here.
Natalie Purcell, PhD, MPA
3DI Qualitative Lead
Associate Professor of Social Behavioral Sciences, UCSF
Whole Health Program Director, SFVA Health Care System
Dr. Purcell is a sociologist focused on understanding the impact of violence and combat trauma in the lives of US military veterans, identifying and evaluating care interventions to address violence-related trauma and pain among veterans, and identifying ways to reduce violence against healthcare workers, and transformation of the institutional culture to promote organizational health and patient centered care. To view Dr. Purcell's complete UCSF profile, please click here.
Alison Rustagi, MD, PhD
BE-Well Network Co-Lead
Assistant Adjunct Professor, UCSF
Dr. Rustagi is a primary care physician at the San Francisco VA with a PhD in Epidemiology. Her overarching goal is to advance precision prevention; that is, to apply the lens of precision medicine to preventive interventions and ensure that patients most likely to benefit are most likely to be screened. She aims to provide high-quality evidence to predict who will benefit most from a preventive intervention to inform national practice guidelines and enable patients to make individualized health decisions
Her current focus is on screening for lung cancer, a disease which disproportionately affects Veterans. Dr. Rustagi seeks to identify those most likely to benefit from lung cancer screening using a variety of health metrics. Since joining the UCSF faculty in 2021, she has become a national thought leader in lung cancer screening, as recognized in the Annals of Internal Medicine (PMID: 36877963). She is now conducting one of the first real-world studies of the effectiveness of lung cancer screening using advanced causal inference methods. Her research program is funded by the Department of Veterans Affairs, the National Institutes of Health, and others.
Dr. Rustagi also seeks to train future leaders in medicine and population health, and has been recognized for her mentorship with a 2025 Long-Term Mentoring Award by the UCSF’s School of Medicine. To view Dr. Rustagi's complete UCSF profile, please click here.
Karen Seal, MD, MPH
3DI CESF Advisor and Meeting Chair
Professor of Medicine, and Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, UCSF
Chief, Integrative Health Service, SFVA Health Care System
Dr. Seal is an internist with research focused on pragmatic trials of complementary and integrative health interventions to improve chronic pain, opioid dependence, and posttraumatic stress disorder in veterans, as well as the implementation and evaluation of novel biopsychosocial clinical models to address complex chronic conditions and needs of rural veterans. To view Dr. Seal's complete UCSF profile, click here.