S. Andrew Josephson, MD, a master clinician and educator who has led UC San Francisco’s top-ranked Department of Neurology since 2017, has been named the next dean of the UCSF School of Medicine and vice chancellor for clinical affairs.
“I could not be more honored and thrilled to help lead the School of Medicine during this time of tremendous challenge and unprecedented opportunity,” Josephson said. “UCSF’s commitment to discovery and bringing innovations and advances to our patients is only matched by the incredible community of people who are dedicated to helping improve health in the Bay Area and worldwide.”
Since arriving at UCSF in 2001 for his internship and neurology residency, Josephson has built a rich and varied career across the university’s four missions of research, education, patient care, and public service. In the area of clinical care and innovation, he helped launch the neurohospitalist model of care, which became a national model.
Andy has incredible energy and optimism, and a deep knowledge of the university in all of its missions, including research.
UCSF Chancellor Sam Hawgood
In the research arena, he has cultivated vital collaborations and overseen the creation of critical infrastructure to support trainees, early-career investigators, and faculty alike. He is currently the principal investigator of an NIH-sponsored R25/UE5 award to support the training of physician-scientists across multiple departments. Josephson also serves as editor-in-chief of JAMA Neurology, one of the field’s leading journals.
Under his leadership, the department has consistently been the top recipient of neurology research funding from the National Institutes of Health, receiving nearly $120 million in 2025 for a wide range of fundamental and translational neuroscience grants, as well as clinical trials.
Josephson oversaw the creation of multiple partnerships, including the Weill Institute for Neurosciences and cross-collaborations with other universities and industry partners around neurologic diseases. He has also helped garner major gifts, such as a recent $100 million for the Edward and Pearl Fein Memory and Aging Center, the first time a division at UCSF received a naming gift. The Department of Neurology now has more than 80 endowed professorships to support faculty working across all missions.
As an educator, Josephson has won nearly every accolade offered at UCSF. For almost two decades, he has led the popular Brain, Mind, and Behavior course required of all medical students, who have selected him as their commencement speaker twice.
“I think he shows a lot of respect for our students and really engages them very actively,” said Karen Hauer, MD, PhD, vice dean for education in the School of Medicine. “He has an amazing ability to make neuroscience, which is such a hard topic for students, accessible. He expects a lot of the students and teaches so clearly, they rise to the occasion.”
Josephson remains deeply involved in clinical care, still serving as an attending physician on the neurology stroke, consult, and neurohospitalist services at UCSF Helen Diller Medical Center at Parnassus Heights, as well as in the neurointensive care unit at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital.
“Andy has incredible energy and optimism, and a deep knowledge of the university in all of its missions, including research,” said Chancellor Sam Hawgood, MBBS. “He’s built the strongest research department in the country in neurology. He can articulate a vision that inspires people, and he has deep knowledge of the health system and how it relates to the faculty who work there and on core academic missions.”
Josephson is a co-chair of the finance committee for UCSF Health and has built strong relationships across the health system, including co-chairing the development of UCSF Health’s strategic plan, which provides a roadmap for advancing UCSF Health’s clinical and academic impact on the communities it serves.
“Andy is widely respected as a leader who acts out of collaboration and shared vision around the value of a truly academic health system,” said Suresh Gunasekaran, president and chief executive officer of UCSF Health. “He has been a consistent advocate for building a system of care that allows our faculty to practice world-class medicine and supports our teams in delivering the best possible experience for all our patients. I look forward to continuing to deepen the vital partnership between the School of Medicine and UCSF Health as we work together to bring the best of UCSF to the patients and communities we serve.”
Midwestern roots
... He is one of the most natural teachers I’ve met in my life.
Robert Wachter, MD, Chair of the Department of Medicine
Josephson grew up in Indiana and is often described as a friendly Midwesterner. After college at Stanford University, he received his MD at Washington University in St. Louis before coming to UCSF for his internship and residency.
“He’s about the most likable person in the world,” said Robert Wachter, MD, who chairs the Department of Medicine at UCSF. “He connects with people incredibly well, no matter who they are. And he is one of the most natural teachers I’ve met in my life.”
Wachter recalled running a conference 20 years ago of hospitalists, a field he founded. “The speakers were virtually all prominent full professors, mostly at UCSF. And then I had a fellow speak — it was Andy — and he got by far the highest ratings of any speaker.”
“He just has an incredible ability to connect with people,” Wachter added. “And that turns out to be useful, not only in giving a lecture or running a small group, but also in running a department or a school.”
Wachter said part of Josephson’s appeal lies in his warm, playful sense of humor. “It’s yet another of his attributes that makes him totally relatable.”
Always on call
An innate optimist, Josephson sees the potential benefits of emerging technologies, including AI, that are rapidly transforming teaching, research, and clinical care. “Being at the forefront of advances as a School of Medicine needs to be a major focus,” he said. But he sees his day-to-day job as being about connecting to people.
“Andy finds his calling in serving others,” said Dan Lowenstein, MD, Distinguished Professor in Neurology Education and a long-time friend and colleague who previously led Brain, Mind, and Behavior with Josephson. “He just quietly works to identify what’s needed to help — and then does it.”
These qualities have served Josephson well in tough times.
UCSF is such a special place ... and I am enormously proud to continue to be a part of it.
S. Andrew Josephson, MD
“Andy brings a sense of common purpose to the work of moving things in a better direction,” Lowenstein said. “He does that with equanimity — acknowledging the challenges, connecting with people about what they’re going through, whether they’re staff, faculty, or students. But he always brings optimism and a clear vision for the path forward.”
Josephson has demonstrated the value of cooperation in getting big things done. He has been instrumental in building the collaboration between the departments of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry at UCSF that has led to such breakthroughs as personalized deep brain stimulation for conditions like depression.
“My department and the field of psychiatry have benefited enormously,” said Matthew State, MD, PhD, the chair of Psychiatry. “We have an extraordinarily strong set of collaborations across the clinical and basic neurosciences that we really believe have the potential to transform the future for patients with serious mental illness. And Andy has played a central role in that.”
A special place
Josephson stood out among an exceptionally competitive field of candidates for the position of UCSF School of Medicine dean.
“We conducted a national search and received more than three dozen applications from people whose current positions include chairs of Medicine, deans of medical schools, and presidents of health professions organizations and foundations,” said Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Catherine Lucey, MD, who chaired the search committee. “It was an incredibly talented pool, and Andy rose to the top.”
Josephson’s appointment this month coincides with his 25th anniversary at UCSF.
“I’ve been fortunate to have been an intern, resident, fellow, faculty member, and chair at UCSF,” he said. “UCSF is such a special place in general, and such a special place to me. We are so fortunate to have this wonderful mix of truly outstanding research, education, and clinical care that are all intertwined. Coupled with our deep commitment to helping all patients, regardless of background — our public mission — I just don’t think there’s a more special place in the country, and I am enormously proud to continue to be a part of it.”
