2025
8:30 am - 7:30 pm
Saturday Sat
Alumni Day 2025
Join us for Alumni Day! The Stanford Medicine Alumni Association welcomes you back to campus to celebrate with our vibrant alumni community. Reconnect with classmates, meet new colleagues, and enjoy inspiring faculty presentations exploring this year’s theme—Changing Minds.
Hear from leading experts in the fields of neuroscience, psychiatry, and behavioral sciences as they reveal how innovative scientific breakthroughs are revolutionizing mental health care, challenging preconceptions, and improving countless lives.
We’ll conclude the day’s activities with our themed dinner reception, Timeless Connections. We invite you to wear attire from the decade in which you attended Stanford or from any decade of your choice. Enjoy mingling with fellow alumni over dinner, strengthening the bonds that keep us connected as Stanford alumni.
This year’s reunion includes all School of Medicine alumni from classes ending in 5’s and 0’s from 1955 to 2020, including MDs, PhDs, MSPAs, residents, postdocs, and fellows.
Keynote Speaker
Anna Lembke, MD ’95, Resident ’99, Fellow ’01
Medical Director, Addiction Medicine
Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Pain, Pleasure, and the Addictive Chase for Dopamine
Drugs, food, alcohol, news, gambling, shopping, sex, gaming, texting, social media. In a world of never-ending high-dopamine stimuli, how do we enjoy pleasure without it turning into an all-consuming addiction? Anna Lembke, MD, explains the neuroscience fueling our pursuit of pleasure in a world of unprecedented access to high-reward experiences and how it can lead to pain and addiction. Dr. Lembke will discuss the biology and psychology behind addiction and the crucial role of dopamine and provide science-informed approaches to addressing compulsive overconsumption, offering hope for finding contentment and connectedness in our hyper-stimulated world.
Micro Lectures
Neir Eshel, MD, PhD, Resident ’20
Assistant Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Neural Circuits of Frustration
Feelings of frustration vary wildly, from clenched jaws to racing hearts to violent outbursts. What’s happening in the brain in these moments remains a mystery. Learn how Dr. Eshel is working to reveal the neural circuits underlying frustration and aggression, inspiring treatments for autism, PTSD, and other disorders where low frustration tolerance and heightened aggression are major clinical concerns.
Sheila Lahijani, MD
Clinical Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Cancer and Mental Health: Psychosocial Oncology
Many individuals living with cancer receive therapies that primarily focus on the physical aspects of the disease, often overlooking mental health conditions that can arise during cancer treatment, such as depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress. Hear how Dr. Lahijani integrates mental health care into a comprehensive treatment plan, focusing on the psychological aspects of caring for the whole person, not just the disease.
Shebani Sethi, MD, Resident ’17
Clinical Associate Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Metabolic Psychiatry: Metabolism and Mental Health
Metabolic dysfunction, such as high blood sugar, insulin resistance, and obesity, play a role in psychiatric diseases. Dr. Sethi discusses how nutritional interventions complement pharmacological treatments to create a more robust mental—and metabolic—health treatment strategy.
Seminars
Steven Adelsheim, MD
Clinical Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
The Youth Mental Health Imperative
Learn how the Stanford Center for Youth Mental Health and Wellbeing is addressing the ongoing youth mental health crisis by integrating early intervention services across the continuum from schools to specialized programs like allcove, focusing on incorporating youth voices and involvement of those with lived experiences.
F. Vankee Lin, PhD
Associate Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Precision Approaches to Aging-Related Mental Health
Hear how pioneering research methods—AI, behavioral neuroscience, and human-machine interfaces—are revolutionizing our understanding of the relationship between aging brains and mental health, paving the way for innovative interventions to promote cognitive wellness in older adults.
Douglas Noordsy, MD
Clinical Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
The Integration of Well-Being and Mental Health
Discover how daily choices such as exercise, sleep, nutrition, and mindfulness influence your brain health and function. By employing elements of lifestyle psychiatry, you will gain practical strategies to improve your mental well-being and enhance your athletic performance for a lifetime.
Dean's Remarks
Lloyd B. Minor, MD
Carl and Elizabeth Naumann Dean, School of Medicine
Vice President for Medical Affairs, Stanford University
Dean Minor is a scientist, surgeon, and academic leader. He has served as dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine since December 2012. In addition, he is a professor of otolaryngology–head and neck surgery and, by courtesy, of neurobiology and bioengineering at Stanford University. As dean, Dr. Minor plays an integral role in setting strategy for the clinical enterprise of Stanford Medicine. He also oversees the quality of Stanford Medicine’s physician practices and growing clinical networks. With Dr. Minor’s leadership, Stanford Medicine has established a strategic vision to lead the biomedical revolution in precision health.
RISE Award Honoree
Charlotte D. Jacobs, MD, Fellow ’77
Drs. Ben and A. Jess Shenson Professor of Medicine, Emerita
The RISE (Reach, Inspire, Serve, Engage) Award will be presented to Dr. Charlotte D. Jacobs in recognition of her exceptional dedication to nurturing Stanford Medicine and its alumni community through acts of leadership, mentoring, and teaching. For nearly 40 years, Dr. Jacobs engaged in teaching, cancer research, and patient care at Stanford School of Medicine. She also served as senior associate dean for education and student affairs and as director of the Stanford Medicine Cancer Center.
Mid-career, Dr. Jacobs began biography writing, starting with Henry Kaplan and the Story of Hodgkin’s Disease, published in 2010, Jonas Salk: A Life, published in 2015, and 90 Seconds to Midnight: A Hiroshima Survivor’s Nuclear Odyssey to be released in 2025. Jacobs earned her medical degree and did her residency training at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis before completing a postdoctoral fellowship in medical oncology at Stanford in 1977. She spent her entire medical career at Stanford.