Dr. Estrella is a Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and serves as the Renal Section Chief at the San Francisco VA Health Care System (SFVAHCS) and Executive Director of the Kidney Health Research Collaborative (KHRC).  

She obtained her medical degree at the University of Texas Health Science Center – Houston where she first gravitated towards nephrology as she learned of the kidney’s elegant physiology and observed the devastation experienced by patients affected by kidney disease. She completed her clinical training in Internal Medicine and Nephrology at The Johns Hopkins Hospital and obtained a master’s degree in health science at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She was faculty in the Division of Nephrology at Johns Hopkins for 10 years, during which she served as the Associate Fellowship Program Director and Associate Director of the Renal T32 Training Program. She moved to UCSF and SFVAHCS in 2016 to help grow the KHRC.

Her work initially focused on the epidemiology of kidney disease among persons with HIV and has broadened to evaluating the utility kidney health biomarkers in diagnosis, prognosis and treatment monitoring across clinical contexts, identifying gaps in healthcare delivery for individuals at high-risk for or with kidney disease, and developing strategies that leverage health technology and interdisciplinary teams to close those gaps and improve clinical outcomes in kidney disease. Her work has been funded through grants from the NIH and VA Health Services Research and Development.

In addition to patient care and clinical research, some of Dr. Estrella’s most rewarding experiences center upon mentorship of young investigators, particularly those who are underrepresented in medicine. She believes in a team approach to both research and mentorship. She was recognized by the American Society in Nephrology with the Mid-Career Distinguished Mentor Award in 2022.