Joanne Engel, M.D., Ph.D.
University of California San Francisco
Joanne Engel, M.D., Ph.D., received her B.S. in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale in 1976, the fifth graduating class of women. After taking a “gap” year to work at the NIH, she completed an M.D.-Ph.D. program at Stanford, where she studied the human actin gene family. She then completed a residency in internal medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, followed by a clinical and postdoctoral fellowship in Infectious Disease at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), where she began her studies of Chlamydia.
Engel was appointed to the faculty of UCSF in 1990 and is currently a professor in the departments of medicine and microbiology/immunology. She has served as the Chief of the Division of Infectious Disease since 2005 and is the founding and current Co-director of the Microbial Pathogenesis and Host Defense Program. She is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians and the American Academy of Microbiology. Engel and her spouse have a grown son, and in her spare time she is an avid cyclist.