Harold S. Luft Mentoring Award

"Dr. Mangurian has provided me and numerous other underrepresented scholars the much needed support, platform, and resources to enhance our research skills, expand our networks, and work on creative interdisciplinary projects that meaningfully impact the health of minoritized populations. She is relentless in her commitment to provide her mentees with whatever she can to ensure our success." - nominating letter

Christina Mangurian, MD, MAS is the Vice Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs in the UCSF School of Medicine and a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and a Lynne and Marc Benioff Endowed Chair in Psychiatry. She is also core faculty at the Center for Vulnerable Populations at ZSFG, and affiliate faculty in the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy studies. Dr. Mangurian is a national leader in health services research focusing on improving medical care for people with serious mental illness (e.g., schizophrenia and bipolar disorder). As a Latina physician scientist, she also has first-hand experience understanding the opportunity gaps in academic medicine for historically excluded faculty. She has become nationally recognized for her research and leadership in promoting equity in the academic medicine workforce, publishing her work in high-impact journals like NEJM, JAMA, Nature. Her work has been supported through diverse funding sources, including federal (NIH, NSF, DOD), foundations, county/state contracts, and philanthropy. She is the founded multiple programs at UCSF including UCSF WARM Hearts at ZSFG and the UCSF Public Psychiatry Fellowship, and most recently became founding Director of the UCSF ARCHES Program (Advancing the Research Careers of Historically Excluded Scholars). She has mentored numerous students, trainees, and faculty, primarily those who are historically excluded in medicine. In addition to being a member of the inaugural John A Watson Scholars, she has received numerous awards including the UCSF Chancellor’s award for the Advancement of Women and the UCSF Academic Senate Distinction in Mentoring Award.

Previous Winners

2023: Renee Hsia, MD, MSc, Professor of Medicine and Health Policy, UCSF, Department of Emergency Medicine, Associate Chaire of Health Services Research in the Department of Emergency Medicine.

2022: Urmimala Sarkar, MD, MPH, Professor of Medicine, UCSF, DIvision of General Internal Medicine, Associate Director, UCSF Center for Vulnerable Populations

2021: Pamela Ling, MD, Professor of Medicine and Director, Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, UCSF

2020: Mary Whooley, MD Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology & Biostatistics, and Director of the Center for Healthcare Improvement and Medical Effectiveness (CHIME) at the San Francisco VA and UCSF

2019: Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, PhD, MD, MAS Professor and Vice Dean for Population Health and Health Equity, UCSF School of Medicine

2018: Margot Kushel, MD Professor and Director of UCSF's Center for Vulnerable Populations

2017: Mary-Margaret (Meg) Chren, MD, Professor, Department of Dermatology at UCSF

2016: Andrew Bindman, MD, Professor, Medicine, Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies, UCSF School of Medicine

2016: Dean Schillinger, MD, Professor of Medicine and Chief of the UCSF Division of General Internal Medicine at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital

2015: Ken Covinsky, MD, Clinician-Researcher, Division of Geriatrics, UCSF School of Medicine

2014: Wendy Max, PhD, Professor and Director, Institute for Health & Aging, Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, UCSF School of Nursing

2013: Edward H. Yelin, PhD, Professor, UCSF Department of Medicine’s Division of Rheumatology and the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies

2011: Ruth E. Malone, PhD, MS, RN, Professor and Chair, Department of Social & Behavioral Sciences, UCSF School of Nursing

2010:  Michael D. Cabana, MD, MPH, Professor and Director, Division of General Pediatrics, UCSF School of Medicine

2009: Lisa A. Bero, PhD, Professor and Vice Chair for Research, Department of Clinical Pharmacy, UCSF School of Pharmacy (currently Professor in Pharmacy and the Charles Perkins Center at the University of Sydney, Australia)

Health services and health policy research covers a range of topics, including how social factors, financing processes, health technologies, laws and regulations, and personal behaviors, among other factors, affect access to health care, the quality and cost of health care, and ultimately, our health and well-being. The main goals of this research are to identify the most effective ways to organize, finance, and deliver high-quality care; reduce medical errors; and improve patient safety.

Eligibility

UCSF senior faculty, at Associate or Full Professor rank, with research/teaching interests in health policy and/or health services research (HP/HSR). Nomination letters should demonstrate that nominees have made significant or sustained impact on the professional development of individuals they have mentored.

Criteria

1. Inspire and stimulate mentees to do their best and most creative work in HP/HSR.
2. Expand mentees’ ways of thinking by fostering appreciation of different points of view.
3. Develop career opportunities for mentees.
4. Create communities of learners and maintain life-long contact with mentees.
5. Serve as a role model in leadership, professionalism, integrity and life balance that goes beyond the scope of their individual job responsibilities.

Nominator must be a current or past mentee of nominee and be involved in health policy and/or health services research.

Nominations 

Nomination should include one primary and two supporting letters (no longer than 2 pages each) describing how the nominee meets the above criteria.  Specific, but brief examples or anecdotes are helpful.  Please include the nominee's recent CV with a list of the nominee’s mentees (noting, if possible, their current positions).

The nomination process is now closed. Please check back in early 2025 for the next cycle.

Award Selection Committee includes representatives from the four UCSF schools. 

Award – a framed certificate will be presented to the award recipient. The individual's name will appear on a permanent plaque at the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies, and the individual’s profile will be posted on the Institute’s website.

About Hal Luft

Harold (Hal) Luft, PhD, joined the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies and UCSF in 1978 after five years at Stanford University as a faculty member and Associate Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program. He became Associate Director of the Institute in 1986, became Acting Director in 1993, and was named Director in 1995. Since its inception in 1972, the Institute has been extremely fortunate to have leaders with broad vision, exceptional standards of excellence, and clarity of purpose. As the Institute's second director, Dr. Luft contributed to and exemplified the Institute’s legacy of leadership and service.

That legacy includes the training and mentoring of future health services research and health policy leaders. Dr. Luft often refers to himself as a 40+ years' postdoc because he has been involved in teaching and mentoring graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, and interns for more than 30 years and has also advised junior faculty. He himself has been an exemplary teacher, mentor, and role model, and under Dr. Luft's directorship, the Institute, which is an organized research unit, continued and enhanced its leadership role in interdisciplinary training.

Dr. Luft was named Director of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute (PAMFRI) in July 2008, but he maintains an Emeritus Professor title at UCSF. He continues his dedication to training future leaders in health services research and health policy, and he continues to serve as a mentor to postdoctoral fellows and junior faculty.