Who We Are
Founded in 2013 by the faculty of the UCSF Division of Geriatrics , the UCSF Pepper Center consists of 5 cores to develop, support, and mentor an interdisciplinary community of investigators whose discoveries have enhanced the understanding of disability and functional decline in older adults.
Leadership & Administration Core (LAC)
Orchestrates research and program initiatives
Research Education Core (REC)
Designs curricula and programs for career development and facilitates mentorship of junior investigators
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Pilot & Exploratory Studies Core (PESC)
Facilitates mentorship in bridging multidisciplinary investigators into aging-related research
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Vulnerable Populations Aging Research Core (VARC)
Facilitates mentorship and provides expert guidance to investigators conducting primary data collection studies that include older adults with medical and social vulnerabilities.
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Data & Analysis Core (DAC)
Facilitates mentorship and specializes in providing expert guidance on research utilizing large secondary data analysis methodologies
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Our Mission
We believe that successful aging encompasses having a good quality of life regardless of one’s medical conditions and functional impairments. We seek to understand the needs of the millions of older persons who need our help right now, whether because of complex medical circumstances or because of adverse social circumstances.
Our Center supports researchers who share our passion for improving the well-being of older persons. We view our resources as venture capital to catalyze the careers and research paths of investigators who will do cutting edge research that advances the care, health, and wellbeing of older persons, both within the UCSF community and nationally.
Ken Covinsky,MD, MPH Center Director | Leadership & Administration Core Leader View Profile
Dr. Covinsky is a clinician-researcher in the UCSF Division of Geriatrics. His work focuses on understanding the determinants and outcomes of disability in older persons. He holds the Edmund G. Brown, Sr Distinguished Professorship in Geriatrics and is Principal Investigator of the UCSF Older Americans Independence Center.
Mike Steinman, MD Center Co-Director | Data Analysis Core Co-leader View Profile
Dr. Steinman is a national leader in identifying and improving the quality of medication prescribing in clinically complex older adults. He devotes most of his time to research, while also maintaining an active clinical practice in the geriatrics clinic and inpatient general medicine service at the San Francisco VA Medical Center. Dr. Steinman's research program focuses on improving how doctors prescribe medications for older adults, and is supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health and other funders. His research interests also include improving evaluation and care for older adults with multiple chronic conditions, and pharmaceutical industry marketing, and he has a strong interest in mentorship and supporting career development for junior investigators.
W. John Boscardin, Ph.D. is a biostatistician with a joint appointment as Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology & Biostatistics. His primary role with the Department of Medicine is as Director of the Statistical Laboratory for the Division of Geriatrics and for SFVAMC Health Services Research. The laboratory is comprised of six Master’s and Ph.D. level statisticians and provides data management, analytic support, and methodological input to more than a dozen principal investigators in geriatrics and health services. He is also one of the biostatistics faculty members for the CTSI K-Scholars Program based out of the Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, serving as statistical mentor to numerous junior investigators over the past several years.
Louise Walter, MD Research & Education Core Co-leader View Profile
Dr. Walter was appointed Chief of the UCSF Division of Geriatrics in July 2013 after serving as interim division chief since August 2012. In addition, Dr. Walter led a series of seminal studies demonstrating decisions to screen older adults for cancer are often dictated more by age than health such that many patients in poor health continue to undergo screening while many healthy older patients fail to get screened. Also, she discovered that cancer screening frequently leads to significant harms without benefit in patients in poor health and developed a taxonomy and quantification of screening harms. This research changed national VA quality indicators and convinced California state auditors to abandon their mandatory mammography policy for health plans that care for frail elders.
Kristine Yaffe, MD Research & Education Core Co-leader View Profile
Kristine Yaffe, MD, is a Professor of Psychiatry, Neurology and Epidemiology, the Roy and Marie Scola Endowed Chair and Vice Chair of Research in Psychiatry at UCSF. Dr. Yaffe is dually trained in neurology and psychiatry and completed postdoctoral training in epidemiology and geriatric psychiatry, all at UCSF. In addition to her positions at UCSF, Dr. Yaffe is the Chief of Neuropsychiatry and the Director of the Memory Disorders Clinic at the San Francisco Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center. In her research, clinical work, and mentoring, she has worked towards improving the care of patients with cognitive disorders and other geriatric neuropsychiatric conditions.
Alex Smith, MD, MS, MPH Pilot & Exploratory Studies Core Co-leader View Profile
Dr. Smith's research is focused on improving quality of life and patient-physician communication for older adults, particularly those with a limited prognosis.
Rebecca Sudore, MD Vulnerable Populations Aging Research Core Co-leader View Profile
Dr. Rebecca Sudore is a geriatrician, palliative medicine physician, and clinician investigator. She also directs the Innovation and Implementation Center in Aging & Palliative Care (I-CAP) and the Vulnerable Populations for Aging Research Core of the NIA-funded Pepper Center.
Krista Harrison, PhD Vulnerable Populations Aging Research Core Co-leader View Profile
Dr. Harrison, PhD, UCSF Assistant (waiting for news of promotion) Professor of Medicine was a former UCSF T32 research fellow and a Pepper Research Education Core (REC) Scholar, with her REC project entitled “Residence & End-of-Life Care among Elders with Dementia: Medical & Social Predictors”. Since then, her leadership has continued to grow. She is also a UCSF Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies Associate Director for Training and an Associate Director for the UCSF Division of Geriatrics T32 Aging Research program. Her expertise includes qualitative and quantitative research methods, health policy ethics, implementation science, and the translation of research to policy. As our new VARC Co-Director, she will be working alongside Dr. Rebecca (VARC Co-Director) to further develop our Center’s initiatives in assisting investigators with the skills and expertise needed to design and execute studies that include older participants with medical or social vulnerability, including enrolling and retaining older adults for a range of study designs.
Brie Williams, MD, MS Pepper-Center for Action Research Center for Health Equity Liaison and Criminal Justice and Policy Consultant View Profile
Dr. Williams, MD, MS, UCSF Professor of Medicine, co-directed the Vulnerable Populations Aging Research Core since its inception. She has extensive expertise in integrating a public health and human rights perspective into criminal justice reform, with a focus on ending solitary confinement; improving compassionate release policies for incarcerated patients with serious illness; and enhancing the response to disability, dementia, and serious illness in correctional settings. She currently directs Amend at UCSF and co-directs the Aging Research in Criminal Justice Health (ARCH) Network. In July 2021, Dr. Williams took a leadership position at the UCSF Action Research Center for Health Equity (ARC) where she will help Dr. Margot Kushel build their Division’s program on policy-driven strategic science. The overarching goal of the CVP is to create actionable research to increase health equity, drive changes in policy and patient care, and partner with and improve communities through discovery, innovation, policy development, and advocacy. Through Dr. Williams’ leadership as our Pepper-ARC Liaison and Criminal Justice and Policy Consultant, we look forward to building greater partnerships between the Division of Geriatrics and the ARC.
Sarah Ngo, MLIS Program Manager | Leadership & Administration Core View Profile
Sarah works closely with the Pepper Center Directors (Drs. Covinsky and Steinman), as well as PIs of our Pepper Pilots and other peripheral programs, to further the Center’s mission of improving the care and well-being of older adults.
Landon Haller Research Programs Coordinator | Leadership & Administration Core View Profile
Landon works closely with the Pepper Center Directors (Drs. Covinsky and Steinman), as well as PIs of our Pepper Pilots and other peripheral programs, to further the Center’s mission of improving the care and well-being of older adults.
