Blog

with Steven Garcia, M.D. of Kaiser Permanente, San Rafael

Wednesday, April 17th, 2024 – 7:30-8:30 pm – Innovation Hub at Terra Linda High School, San Rafael

Description: An Emergency Medicine doctor thrives in the chaotic, bustling environment of the ER. Join Dr. Steve Garcia as he offers a glimpse into his non-traditional path to becoming a physician. He will describe the training of Emergency Physicians and how they diagnose and treat all patients in the Emergency Room, as there are differences as compared to other specialties. There will also be discussion of a day in the life in the ER and shortcomings of today’s emergency care system.

Bio: Dr. Steve Garcia’s journey to becoming a physician took a non-traditional route. Born and raised in Michigan, Dr. Garcia attended the University of Michigan earning degrees in Engineering Physics and Biomedical Engineering. He later moved to the Bay Area where he was a software engineer for seven years. But he really wanted to be a physician. Despite being rejected from medical school twice, he didn’t give up! In 2010 he earned his medical degree at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, IL, and in 2014 he graduated from the Cornell/Columbia residency program in Emergency Medicine in New York City. He is married with two teenage boys who both attended Terra Linda High School. He enjoys stock and option trading, the Grateful Dead, playing pickleball, and hiking.

with Karrina Mock CRNA and Derrick Duarte CRNA of the VA Medical Center San Francisco

Wednesday, March 20th, 2024 ~ 7:30 – 8:30 pm at Terra Linda High School’s Innovation Hub

Description: After a short presentation on the use of simulator technology, basic life support, and team dynamics in healthcare simulation, we will dive right into a simulated scenario to work as a team and save a life!

Bios: Karrina is a Simulation Instructor and Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center. She received her BSN at the University of California, Irvine followed by an MSN at Samuel Merritt University. She has worked at multiple hospitals, including Stanford Hospital, UC Irvine Medical Center, Kaiser Permanente facilities and the San Francisco VA Health Care Services. Simulation in healthcare has allowed her to combine her passion of anesthesia, innovation and education into an advanced learning environment for the new generation of learners.

Derrick is a Nurse Anesthetist at the San Francisco VA Medical Center. He grew up in San Diego where he obtained a BS in Biochemistry & Cell Biology form UC San Diego. He worked in cancer research and biotech before obtaining his Masters in Nursing degree from University of San Diego. He obtained his MSN and anesthesia degree at Samuel Merritt University in Oakland and has been working as a CRNA in the operating room and simulation lab at the San Francisco VAMC and serving as Advanced Pharmacology instructor at USD since 2018. On his off time, Derrick enjoys cooking, providing anesthesia on medical mission trips, hiking, backpacking, running trails, and rock climbing.

Links:

• VA SimLearn
• SF VA Medical Center

with Abby Smith Ph.D. of NORC, University of Chicago

Wednesday, February 28th, 2024 7:30 – 8:30 pm at Terra Linda High School’s Innovation Hub

Description: Entity resolution, or deduplication, is sorting out duplicates in social networks. Picture cleaning up your friend list by comparing names and ages of potential duplicates (e.g. Abigail Smith vs. Abby Smith) . New methods group similar entities together, using friends’ connections to help. But here’s the thing: it’s not perfect, especially without a perfect list to compare to. Abby’s research looks into how good our sorting is, how to tweak the settings, and how these affect the bigger picture of the network. She tested this on real-world groups in Kentucky and Chicago, making sure sorting didn’t distort overall network inferences. In this presentation she will share how this work can be used for social good. Questions welcome!

Bio: Abby Smith recently received her Ph.D. in Statistics from Northwestern (2023) and is currently a statistician at NORC, working to improve entity resolution in big national opinion surveys. With a BS in Mathematics (2016) and an MS in Statistics (2017) from Carnegie Mellon, she’s driven by data science for social impact. As a 2022 DSSG fellow at CMU, Abby collaborated on a homelessness prevention project with Allegheny County DHS. Outside of stats, she enjoys running, backpacking, and has explored all 50 US states.(Fun fact! Abby and Alfia met through Postcrossing!)

Links:

• Personal website
• NORC at University of Chicago
• LinkedIn

with Mara Reed, Ph.D. candidate at UC Berkeley’s Department of Earth and Planetary Science

Wednesday, February 7th, 2024 * 7:30 – 8:30 pm at Terra Linda High School’s Innovation Hub

Description: Geysers are rare geological features—only ~1000 exist on our planet! Come learn about what geysers are, where they form, and how scientists study them. Then, get acquainted with one of Yellowstone National Park’s star performers: Steamboat Geyser, the tallest active geyser in the world. Using Steamboat as a case study, we’ll investigate why geysers might suddenly come to life after many years without erupting and whether earthquakes can influence geyser activity.

Bio: Mara is a Minnesota-born PhD candidate in the Department of Earth and Planetary Science at UC Berkeley. She loves watching water boil and wants to understand the reasons why geysers start and stop erupting. If Mara isn’t in California, there is a 90% chance she’s in Yellowstone National Park for fieldwork or fun. When not thinking about geysers, Mara likes to explore and photograph caves. She also enjoys hiking and is trying to overcome her fear of climbing by bouldering at Pacific Pipe.

Links:

• MaraReed.com
• UC Berkeley Dept. of Earth & Planetary Science
• Mara’s photos of geysers
• Geyser Times

with Wolfgang Schweigkofler Ph.D. of Dominican University, San Rafael

Wednesday, March 20th, 2024 ~ 7:30 – 8:30 pm at Terra Linda High School’s Innovation Hub

Description:

Invasive organisms are animals, plants or microorganisms, which evolved in a different ecosystem and then were introduced into a new area by human activity. In the new environment, these invasive organisms can express some very negative effects on native biodiversity, e.g. by overgrowing native plants, killing native animals or spreading animal or plant diseases. Our research group at Dominican University studies the effects of tiny microorganisms on our forests in Coastal California. A ‘fungus-like’ pathogen, called Phytophthora ramorum, can infect many tree species (e.g. oaks) and causes a disease called ‘Sudden Oak Death’. We try to better understand the biology of the pathogen and develop methods to control its spread. We use a number of different methods, e.g. microscopic observations, immunotests and DNA-sequencing, to study the disease in our research lab, our research field site and in the natural environment.

Bio: Wolfgang Schweigkofler grew up on a small family winery in Bozano/Bozen (Italy). He holds a master degree in Microbiology from the University of Vienna, Austria, and a PhD in Applied Biology from the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Vienna. Wolfgang was a Postdoctoral fellow first at the Research Center Laimburg, Italy, working on bio-control of soil-dwelling insects, and then at UC Berkeley,US, working on forest pathogens. From 2004-2011 he  worked as a senior plant pathologist at the Research Center Laimburg. He then moved to the USA, working shortly at a biotech start-up before accepting a position at the Dominican University of California in San Rafael. Currently he is a Research Associate Professor and program manager at NORS-DUC, the National Ornamentals Research Site at Dominican University. His research interests include diseases of grapevine, apple and ornamentals, forest pathology, biological control, biodiversity and invasive biology. Wolfgang co-authored two book chapters on fungal biodiversity and published more than 30 scientific and technical papers.

Links:

• Dr. Schweigkofler at Dominican University
• National Ornamentals Research Site

with Art Wallace MD PhD of VAMC SF and UCSF

Wednesday, November 8, 2023 – 7:30-8:30 pm, Terra Linda HS Innovation Hub

Dr. Wallace started out in experimental surgery and radiology studying imaging of the heart using CT scanners. He has worked on a number of devices that originally were built for experimental studies that evolved into clinically useful devices including a cardiac output monitor, the off pump CABG, off pump aneurysm surgery, electronic sedation, and a selective coronary vasodialtor. Dr. Wallace will explain his experiences with the inventive process using examples from both device design and drug development. There will be a brief discussion of the importance of intellectual property, patents, venture capital, FDA approval, and business development in completing the invention process. There will be a demonstration of his recent developmental project on a non-contact, remote patient monitor designed to prevent cardiac arrests.