Postdoc, Academic and Staff Spotlights
Ashley Cristal, MD
As a college student at New York University, Ashley Cristal, MD, volunteered to organize art projects and parties for hospitalized children. “That cemented my decision to go to med school, and I wanted to become a pediatrician,” he said.
As a medical student at the University of Santo Tomas in the Philippines, Dr. Cristal found himself drawn to many different areas of medicine, including internal medicine, radiology, ophthalmology, and in particular, neurology. “I think for most medical students, there is a process of discovering what one is interested in and enjoys doing, as well as the realities of each specialty,” he said. In his case, he found that in addition to caring for patients, he was drawn to the rigor of academic medicine as well as teaching patients and helping them become more engaged in their health care.
Luca Cristin, MD
“I’m not afraid to try new things,” said Luca Cristin, MD, a postdoctoral scholar in the lab of echocardiographer Francesca Nesta Delling, MD, MPH. “I’d be way more scared to have everything planned out for the next 30 years of my life.”
That spirit of adventure has led Dr. Cristin far from his hometown of Padua, Italy. His interest in medicine began early, when he was born with a heart defect and received surgical care and a pacemaker to correct the condition. “I’m very grateful to the people who helped me, and I wanted to give back by becoming a doctor and researcher,” he said.
Elisa Fanucchi, RN
Elisa Fanucchi is a Registered Nurse in the UCSF Interventional Cardiology clinic. She is a Bay Area native and has lived here for most of her life. Elisa has worked at UCSF since 2019, where she started as an RN on 10 CVT and transitioned into her current role in the Cardiology clinic in early 2022.
Natasha Goyal, MBBS
As a child, Natasha Goyal, MBBS, loved science and always knew she wanted to become a doctor. After earning her bachelor’s degree in kinesiology and health sciences at York University in her hometown of Toronto, she moved to northern India and earned her medical degree from the Government Medical College and Hospital in Chandigarh.
Dr. Goyal then returned to Toronto and spent several years working as a clinical assistant in a busy family medicine practice. She also studied for her medical licensing exams in preparation for eventually applying to emergency medicine residency programs in the U.S. “I didn’t have any prior research experience and wanted to see what it was all about, so I applied for various research positions,” she said.
Ruth Imru, NP
Ruth Imru is a Nurse Practitioner in the UCSF Electrophysiology clinic. She grew up in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and came to the Bay Area for college, making it her home since then. Eleven years ago, Ruth started her career at UCSF Medical Center as an inpatient nurse on the kidney/liver/pancreas unit. She is an alumnus of the UCSF School of Nursing, where she obtained her master’s degree and Nurse Practitioner training.
Heather Miyashiro, NP
Heather Miyashiro is a Nurse Practitioner in the UCSF Cardiology clinic at Daniel Burnham Court. She grew up in Yuba City, California. Prior to joining the UCSF cardiology team in 2016, Heather worked in a private cardiology practice.
Mina Navabzadeh, PharmD
“It can be really scary, but it’s never too late to start learning something new,” said Mina Navabzadeh, PharmD, assistant specialist in the lab of Matthew Springer, PhD, professor in the UCSF Division of Cardiology.
Dr. Navabzadeh speaks from experience: she grew up in Iran, where many of her extended family members were pharmacists. She earned her doctor of pharmacy degree from Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, then worked in retail and hospital settings. However, as a woman in Iran, she found her educational and work opportunities limited.
Jean Jacques Noubiap Nzeale, MD, PhD
As a medical student in Cameroon, Dr. Noubiap Nzeale led his medical school journal. In his free time, he also wrote satirical short stories in French about culture, societal issues, and the difficulties that university students face. This passion for writing partly explains his incredible productivity. He has co-authored more than 340 peer-reviewed publications to date, and was ranked among the top 2 percent of most-cited global scientists in 2024. Many of his papers focus on cardiovascular risk factors in Africa and globally.
Diana Oguntala
Growing up in London, Diana Oguntala loved paging through an encyclopedia of animals and reading about each one’s superpowers. “Birds are the descendants of flying dinosaurs, and not only can newts regenerate their tails, but they can live on both water and land,” said Ms. Oguntala, who currently works as a junior specialist in the laboratory of Jeffrey Olgin, MD, chief of the UCSF Division of Cardiology and Ernest Gallo-Kanu Chatterjee Distinguished Professor in Clinical Cardiology. “I’ve always had an obsession with and passion for animals, and learning about their novel capabilities.”
Hongmei Ruan, MD, PhD
Hongmei Ruan, MD, PhD, wanted to become a doctor to help people with cardiovascular disease, but her career path led her in a slightly different direction.
Born in China, she earned her medical degree from North China Institute of Science and Technology. “We had one year of clinical rotations in the hospital, and I realized that it was really hard to get a good outcome from [existing] treatments for some diseases,” said Dr. Ruan. “That was kind of disappointing, and made me want to focus on research so maybe I could help improve those outcomes.”
Emily Wilson
“When I was starting out in this field, the most important thing was being humble and asking questions,” said Emily Wilson, lab manager for Jeffrey Olgin, MD, who is chief of the UCSF Division of Cardiology and Ernest Gallo-Kanu Chatterjee Distinguished Professor in Clinical Cardiology. “Nowadays you can Google things, but I’ve always watched what other people are doing – that’s how learning works for me. I get in there and figure it out.”