Welcome Brenda, Mary, and Erika!

Please join us in welcoming three lovely new staff members to our UCSF Division of Geriatrics!

Brenda Fagan – is our new Program Manager for Dementia Care Aware!  Joining the ever-growing DCA Team, Brenda comes to us with 20 years of experience working with persons living with dementia and their care partners in healthcare and community settings.  Brenda has a Master of Science in Dementia and Aging Studies and a Bachelor of Science in Occupational Therapy.  She is also an Associate Certified Coach and have completed Lean Healthcare Certification Training.  In her most recent role prior to UCSF, Brenda was a Graduate Research Assistant for the Texas State University School of Social Work for The Wellness Dance Project.  Prior to that, she was a Research Program Manager for a research study at USC: “Patient-Centered Fall Prevention Care Processes in Hip Fracture Rehabilitation”.  Brenda brings tons of experience in project development and management, dementia research and care provision, qualitative and mixed methods research, as well as QI, teaching, coaching, and mentoring!  Also noteworthy was Brenda’s role as Adjunct Faculty at the Mindfulness Coaching School – where she taught courses in Mindful Eating, Mindful Life: Emotional Resiliency in Uncertain Times, Body Electric – Mind Body Connection and Somatic Wisdom.  Oh man – I think I spot a voluntold team building event just now.  😉  In Brenda’s new role as Program Manager for DCA, she will liaise with leadership and key stakeholders, support health systems implementations in alignment with strategic and operational plans, lead program evaluation and improvement initiatives, support data collection and research efforts, create program summaries and reports, as well as perform other duties deemed necessary for overall program success.  With all the amazing experience she brings, we can’t wait for Brenda to share all of her successes!

Mary Tran – is our new Administrative Coordinator for the Core Admin Team!  Mary has a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Studies and was most recently a Grant Center Administrative Assistant for UCSF Department of Orthopedic Surgery where she provided important logistical and operational support including events and space planning for her team.  Mary has advanced proficiency in Microsoft (MS) Office, Google Suite, Slack, Box, Zoom and is already familiar with UCSF specific programs including: BearBuy, MyExpense, 25Live, Event Management System, Facilities Portal and Logistics Online Warehouse.  In addition to administrative work, Mary also has experience working as an Intern for the UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, Hopland Research and Extension Center (HREC), and was a Research Assistant at SF State, where she co-authored an article examining the underrepresentation of women in natural resource management bureaucracies published with a diverse team of SFSU Faculty and external staff.  In her free time, Mary enjoys a good true crime series (or comedy about true crimes – such as: Only Murders in the Building).  Maybe some of you might be interested!  😊  In her new role as Admin Coordinator, Mary will be working closely with many of our faculty and staff to support various projects across all our mission areas (research, education and patient care).  In addition to admin projects, Mary is also the Project Coordinator for Dr. Candace Kim & Dr. Michi Yukawa’s Mt Zion Health Fund Transitions of Care project.  Given that Mary seeks to gain professional experience with an efficient and diverse team that supports learning and growth in a highly-collaborative environment, I think she’ll fit right in!  Don’t you?

Erika Higuchi – is our new Clinical Research Coordinator on Dr. Vicky Tang’s research team!  Erika earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Psychobiology from UCLA and was most recently a Clinical Lab Operations, Sample Accessioner for Invitae.  In that role, Erika exceeded the daily metric goal of accessioning 120 diagnostic patient samples per day while specializing in Pre-Implantation Genetic testing samples and also implemented sustainability projects to reduce excessive packaging and lab related waste.  Prior to Invitae, Erika was also a Head Learning Assistant for the Life Sciences 23L-Intro course at UCLA, and a Physical Therapy Aide at Evolution Physical Therapy.  Last but not least, Erika was a Research Assistant for the Advanced Heart Failure Lab at David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA between 2018 and 2020, where she worked on a project focused on frailty assessments on advanced heart failure patients and healthy patients to better understand the mind-body health interactions of those undergoing chronic disease.  In her new role at UCSF as CRC, Erika will be supporting both quantitative and qualitative research projects, patient research engagement, and intervention delivery.  Specifically, Erika will be involved in data collection, management, quality control, and reporting.  We’re very excited for Erika to join Dr. Tang’s research team where she will work closely with Sarah Anvar (CRC) to support the NIH-funded project “Improving Outcomes of Older Adults with Psychosocial Vulnerability Undergoing Major Surgery”, as well as other research projects for Dr. Tang!

Brenda, Mary and Erika can be reached at [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected].  Their onboarding buddies have also been matched: Brenda & Karen, Mary & Paula, and Erika & Katrina.  Thank you (me) for volunteering to help our new staff feel welcome!  Please join us in congratulating our new staff to their new UCSF roles!!