Gina Solomon, M.D., M.P.H. is the WSPEHSU’s Principal Investigator. She is also Chief of the Division of Occupational, Environmental and Climate Medicine at UCSF. In this role she oversees clinical occupational and environmental health at UCSF Health, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and the San Francisco Veterans Administration Medical Center. She is also the Program Director of the UCSF Occupational and Environmental Medicine Residency program, teaches medical and nursing students, and leads the research efforts in the Division.
Before coming to UCSF, Dr. Solomon founded and directed the Achieving Resilient Communities program at the Public Health Institute, where she worked from 2018-2023. From 2012-2018 she was appointed by Governor Brown as the Deputy Secretary for Science and Health at the California Environmental Protection Agency. Dr. Solomon previously served as the director of the occupational and environmental medicine residency program at UCSF from 2008-2012, the associate director of the UCSF Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit from 2003-2009, and as a Senior Scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) from 1996-2012.
Dr. Solomon’s research has encompassed cumulative impacts of environmental and social stressors in disadvantaged communities, environmental justice, farmworker health, new approach methodologies in toxicology and risk assessment, drinking water quality, air pollution, endocrine disrupting chemicals, pesticides, environmental contaminants in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and in communities after wildfires, the health implications of the 2010 Gulf oil spill, and the health effects of climate change. Currently, Dr. Solomon is Chair of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District Advisory Council.