Dr. Scharschmidt is an Associate Professor and the Vice Chair of Research in the Department of Dermatology at the University of California, San Francisco. She obtained her M.D. from UCSF, during which time she trained as an HHMI-NIH Research Scholar with Julia Segre, PhD, a leader in the skin microbiome field. Following her medical internship at Stanford, she joined UCSF's Dermatology Physician-Scientist Training Program and completed her postdoc under the combined mentorship of Michael Rosenblum, Michael Fischbach and Abul Abbas. Dr. Scharschmidt's laboratory investigates early life interactions between skin bacteria, the epidermis, and the cutaneous immune system, with a long-term goal of developing new therapeutic approaches based on this knowledge. Her work has illustrated a key role for early life colonization in establishment of immune tolerance to skin commensal bacteria as well as fundamental mechanisms enabling preferential generation of commensal-specific regulatory T cells during this window. 

Dr. Scharschmidt is the author of numerous high impact publications and her research excellence has been recognized by uninterrupted NIH and foundation support as well as honors including the NIH Director's New Innovator Award, the Young Investigator Award from the American Academy of Dermatology, the Doris Duke Clinical Scientist Award, the Burroughs Wellcome Career Award for Medical Scientists and the Sun Pharma Mid-Career Investigator Award from the Dermatology Foundation. In the clinic, Dr. Scharschmidt contributes to care of patients with complex inflammatory skin disease. Through her mentorship and leadership roles, Dr. Scharschmidt is passionate about promoting diversity, equity, inclusion and anti-rascism in biomedical research.