The UCSF Graduate Division is the

graduate school Postgraduate or graduate education refers to academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications pursued by post-secondary students who have earned an undergraduate (bachelor's) degree. The organization and st ...

of the

University of California, San Francisco The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life science. It co ...

, and is located in San Francisco. It is recognized as one of the premier biomedical graduate schools in the United States. It offers 19 PhD programs, 11 MS programs, two certificates and a physical therapy program.

History

In the 1960s, UCSF (then called the Medical Department of the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Fran ...

) gained more independence from the UC system. It started to be regarded as a campus in its own right instead of the medical center of the UC system. The four departments (

Medicine Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, and Health promotion ...

Pharmacy Pharmacy is the science and practice of discovering, producing, preparing, dispensing, reviewing and monitoring medications, aiming to ensure the safe, effective, and affordable use of medication, medicines. It is a miscellaneous science as it ...

Dentistry Dentistry, also known as dental medicine and oral medicine, is the branch of medicine focused on the teeth, gums, and mouth. It consists of the study, diagnosis, prevention, management, and treatment of diseases, disorders, and conditions ...

, and

Nursing Nursing is a profession within the health care sector focused on the care of individuals, families, and communities so they may attain, maintain, or recover optimal health and quality of life. Nurses may be differentiated from other health ...

) were renamed as "school of", and the Graduate Division was founded in 1961. The UC Regents began to decentralize graduate education, which had been previously concentrated at the Berkeley, and UCSF received a graduate dean and council in its own right. The first dean, Harold Harper, had been a staunch advocate of graduate studies independence, and the recognition of graduate activities in general and basic sciences in particular. He was crucial in transferring the graduate programs from the Berkeley campus to the UCSF campus. At the time of its creation, the UCSF Graduate Division offered graduate programs in

anatomy Anatomy () is the branch of biology concerned with the study of the structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having its ...

biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology ...

, comparative biochemistry,

biophysics Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations. ...

dental surgery Dental surgery is any of a number of medical procedures that involve artificially modifying dentition; in other words, surgery of the teeth, gums and jaw bones. Types Some of the more common are: * Endodontic (surgery involving the pulp or r ...

dentistry Dentistry, also known as dental medicine and oral medicine, is the branch of medicine focused on the teeth, gums, and mouth. It consists of the study, diagnosis, prevention, management, and treatment of diseases, disorders, and conditions ...

endocrinology Endocrinology (from ''endocrine'' + '' -ology'') is a branch of biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field ...

history of medicine The history of medicine is both a study of medicine throughout history as well as a multidisciplinary field of study that seeks to explore and understand medical practices, both past and present, throughout human societies. More than just hist ...

medical physics Medical physics deals with the application of the concepts and methods of physics to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of human diseases with a specific goal of improving human health and well-being. Since 2008, medical physics has been incl ...

, microbiology, nursing, nutrition, pathology, comparative pathology, pharmaceutical chemistry, pharmacology, comparative pharmacology and toxicology, physiology, and animal physiology. More programs were added in 1966, as degrees in oral biology, nursing science, and psychology. In 1969, the School of Medicine and the Graduate Division sponsored the creation of the

Medical Scientist Training Program The Medical Scientist Training Programs (MSTPs) are dual-degree training programs that streamline the education towards both clinical (typically MD) and research doctoral degrees. MSTPs are offered by some United States medical schools, who are aw ...

(MSTP). This program, funded by the

US Public Health Service The United States Public Health Service (USPHS or PHS) is a collection of agencies of the Department of Health and Human Services concerned with public health, containing nine out of the department's twelve operating divisions. The Assistant ...

, offers a special stipend to students to pursue graduate work along with a medical degree, in order to address the lack of research training in physicians. After Harper's 20 year-long leadership, he was followed in 1981 by professor of

Microbiology Microbiology () is the scientific study of microorganisms, those being unicellular (single cell), multicellular (cell colony), or acellular (lacking cells). Microbiology encompasses numerous sub-disciplines including virology, bacteriology, ...

and

Immunology Immunology is a branch of medicineImmunology for Medical Students, Roderick Nairn, Matthew Helbert, Mosby, 2007 and biology that covers the medical study of immune systems in humans, animals, plants and sapient species. In such we can see ther ...

Lloyd Kozloff, who served until 1991. Under his leadership, the Program in Biological Sciences (PIBS) and the Biomedical Sciences (BMS) was developed at the Parnassus campus, and the Graduate Division started exponentially growing its numbers of postdoctoral students in biological, physical, and social sciences.

Graduate Programs

The programs offered by the UCSF Graduate Division include: Basic and Biomedical Sciences * Tetrad (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Genetics) * Bioengineering (joint with UC Berkeley) * Biological and Medical Informatics (BMI) * Biomedical Sciences (BMS) * Biophysics * Chemistry and Chemical Biology (CCB) * Developmental and Stem Cell Biology (DSCB) * Epidemiology and Translational Science * Genetic Counseling * Neuroscience * Oral and Craniofacial Sciences * Pharmaceutical Sciences and Pharmacogenomics (PSPG) * Rehabilitation Science Social and Populational Sciences * Global Health Sciences * History of Health Sciences * Medical Anthropology * Nursing * Sociology

List of deans

* Howard A. Harper, Ph.D. (1961-1980) * Lloyd Kozloff, Ph.D. (1981-1991) * C. Clifford Attkisson, Ph.D. (1991-2005) * Patricia Calarco, Ph.D. (2005-2011) * Elizabeth Watkins, Ph.D. (2012–2021) * Nicquet Blake, Ph.D. (2021-Present)

References

External links

* {{UCSF University of California, San Francisco