Alumni Day 2021 - A Virtual Program

Arturo Molina,MS '83, MD '83, PD '86, PD '89

President, Stanford Medical Alumni Association

Dr. Molina is Chief Medical Officer at Sutro Biopharma.  Previously, he was Vice President, Oncology Scientific Innovation at Janssen R & D (Johnson and Johnson, JNJ). While at JNJ he was responsible for the clinical development and New Drug Application for abiraterone (Zytiga®), which is now approved for metastatic prostate cancer in more than 100 countries. He was Chief Medical Officer/EVP at Cougar Biotechnology, which was acquired by JNJ in 2009. Arturo also worked at IDEC, then Biogen-IDEC, ultimately becoming Head, Oncology Clinical Development. In collaboration with Genentech, he led the clinical Supplemental Biologics License Application (sBLA) filing activities resulting in FDA approval of Rituxan® in two first-line indications in 2006: follicular lymphoma and diffuse B-cell lymphoma. 

From 1991-2002, Dr. Molina was a faculty physician in Hematology/Bone Marrow Transplantation and Medical Oncology/Therapeutics Research at the City of Hope (COH) Comprehensive Cancer Center, where he became an Adjunct Professor, member of the COH Medical Group Board of Directors and President-Elect of the COH Medical Staff. Arturo received his MD and MS (Physiology) from Stanford University, and completed residency in Internal Medicine and fellowships in Medical Oncology, Biological Science, and Bone Marrow Transplantation, all at Stanford.

Arturo was an undergraduate at the University of Texas at Austin where he received a BS in Zoology (Honors) and BA in Psychology (High Honors).

Daniel Kraft, MD '96, Fellow '01

Faculty Chair for Medicine, Singularity University

Founder and Chair, Exponential Medicine

Daniel Kraft is a Stanford and Harvard trained physician-scientist, entrepreneur, inventor, and innovator with more than 25 years of experience in clinical practice, biomedical research, and health care innovation. He has served as faculty chair for medicine at Singularity University since its inception, and is the founder and chair of Exponential Medicine, a program that explores convergent, rapidly developing technologies and their potential in biomedicine and health care. Daniel is a graduate of Brown University and Stanford University School of Medicine and completed his residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital. He founded RegenMed Systems; has multiple digital health, medical device, immunology, and stem cell related patents; and has served on the faculty at Stanford and UCSF. 

LLOYD B. MINOR, MD 

Carl and Elizabeth Naumann Dean, Stanford University School of Medicine

Lloyd B. Minor is a scientist, surgeon, and academic leader. He has served as dean 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. Dr. Minor plays an integral role in setting strategy for the clinical, research, and teaching missions of Stanford Medicine. He also oversees the quality of Stanford Medicine’s physician practices and growing clinical networks. With his leadership, Stanford Medicine has established a strategic vision to lead the biomedical revolution in Precision Health, a fundamental shift to more proactive and personalized health care.

ODETTE A. HARRIS, MD ’96, RESIDENT ’03, MPH 

Professor of Neurosurgery; Director, Brain Injury 

Vice Chair, Diversity, Department of Neurosurgery, Stanford University School of Medicine

The RISE (Reach, Inspire, Serve, Engage) Award will be presented to Dr. Harris in recognition of her exceptional dedication to nurturing Stanford Medicine and its alumni community through acts of leadership, volunteerism, mentoring, and teaching.

SEEMA YASMIN, MB BChir

Director, Stanford Health Communication Initiative
Clinical Assistant Professor- Medicine

Seema Yasmin is an Emmy Award-winning journalist, poet, medical doctor and author. Yasmin served as an officer in the Epidemic Intelligence Service at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention where she investigated disease outbreaks and was principal investigator on a number of CDC studies. Yasmin trained in journalism at the University of Toronto and in medicine at the University of Cambridge.

Yasmin was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in breaking news in 2017 with a team from The Dallas Morning News and recipient of an Emmy for her reporting on neglected diseases. She received two grants from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. In 2017, Yasmin was a John S. Knight Fellow in Journalism at Stanford University investigating the spread of health misinformation and disinformation during epidemics. Previously she was a science correspondent at The Dallas Morning News, medical analyst for CNN, and professor of public health at the University of Texas at Dallas.

Her writing has earned awards and residencies from the Mid Atlantic Arts Council, Hedgebrook, the Millay Colony for the Arts and others. Her first book, The Impatient Dr. Lange (Johns Hopkins University Press, July 2018) is the biography of an AIDS doctor killed on Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.Her most recent book, VIRAL BS, Medical Myths and Why We Fall for Them was released in January 2021 and is available through major booksellers. Look for If God is A Virus, her book of poems to be released on April 6, 2021.

Yasmin’s unique expertise in medicine, epidemics and journalism has been called upon by The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, the Aspen Institute, Skoll Foundation and others.

Bali Pulendran, PhD

Violetta L. Horton Professor and Professor of Microbiology and Immunology
Stanford University School of Medicine

Dr. Bali Pulendran is Professor of Pathology and of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford School of Medicine. Previously he was a Charles Howard Candler Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, and Director of the Innate Immunity Program, and the NIH U19 Center for Systems Vaccinology, at the Emory Vaccine Center, Emory University in Atlanta. He received his undergraduate degree from Cambridge University, and his PhD from the Walter & Eliza Hall Institute, in Melbourne Australia, under the supervision of Sir Gustav Nossal. He then did his post-doctoral work at Immunex Corporation in Seattle.

Dr. Pulendran’s work focuses on understanding the mechanisms by which the innate immune system regulates adaptive immunity and harnessing such mechanisms in the design of novel vaccines against global pandemics. More recently, he has begun to apply systems biological approaches to predicting the efficacy of vaccines, and deciphering new correlates of protection against infectious diseases. He has been on the forefront of vaccine research and development at Stanford during the Covid19 pandemic.

Dr. Pulendran’s research is published in front line journals such as Nature, Science, Cell, Nature Immunology, and The Journal of Experimental Medicine. He is the recipient of numerous grants from the National Institutes of Health, and from The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, serves on the editorial boards of The Journal of Clinical Investigation and The Journal of Immunology, serves on the Aids Vaccine Research Subcommittee, and is frequently invited to speak in the plenary sessions of many national and international conferences.

Debra Kaysen, PhD, ABPP

Professor
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences,
Stanford University Medical Center

Debra Kaysen received her PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Missouri. She completed an internship at the University of Washington and continued there to study the area of overlap between PTSD and alcohol use disorders. Dr. Kaysen joined the faculty at University of Washington in 2006 in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. While there she founded a program to develop and test more accessible interventions for individuals suffering from mental health symptoms following traumatic events. Dr. Kaysen joined the Stanford faculty in 2019.

Dr. Kaysen’s area of specialty both in research and clinical work is in treatment for those who have experienced traumatic events including treatment of PTSD and related disorders. She has conducted critical studies on treatment of PTSD and/or substance use across a variety of populations (sexual minority women, Native Americans, sexual assault survivors, torture survivors, active duty military) and in a variety of settings (the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, primary care, rural settings). Other research conducted by Dr. Kaysen have focused on increasing our understanding of how PTSD and substance use may influence each other. She is currently the Immediate Past-President of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (www.istss.org).

Dr. Kaysen is currently involved in helping develop and implement coping strategies for healthcare workers dealing with mental health concerns related to COVID-19.