My interest in asthma stems from caring for patients with uncontrolled and often severe asthma in inner city Chicago hospitals during medical school. Understanding the mechanisms underlying asthma and upper airway disease pathogenesis inspired me to choose allergy and immunology as a specialty and has fueled my career as an independent physician scientist.  My post-doctoral work at La Jolla Institute (LJI) in Dr. Michael Croft’s laboratory led to a novel discovery revealing that TNF family member LIGHT contributes critically to airway remodeling and I first-authored a manuscript published in Nature Medicine in 2011.  I was promoted to the faculty at UC San Diego as an Assistant Professor in 2009 and developed into a successful early-stage independent investigator after support from a NIH K08 award.  Since then, my laboratory has been funded by NIH (K24, R01, U19) and VA merit sources.   In 2022, I was promoted to full Professor and our work in the last decade has led to several novel discoveries including uncovering mechanisms of airway remodeling as well as group 2 innate lymphoid cell (ILC2) and Th2 cell responses.  Our active patient-oriented research (POR) program was the first to show that human ILC2s (1) are increased after nasal challenge in allergic rhinitis patients, (2) are enriched in the eosinophilic nasal polyp endotype, (3) display increased migration to prostaglandin D2 (PGD2) in allergic patients, (4) are increased in active eosinophilic esophagitis tissue, and (5) are recruited to the nasal mucosa in aspirin exacerbated respiratory disease (AERD).  Further, we have 17 years of experience utilizing different animal models of asthma to dissect mechanisms of type 2 and non-type 2 inflammation including the roles of lipid mediators and RNA-binding proteins in activation of ILCs.  I have successfully mentored numerous graduate students, post docs, clinical fellows, and junior faculty members in patient-oriented research projects.  I am also co-director of the UCSD Center for Asthma and Sinus Disease (CASD) which is designated as a World Allergy Organization Center of Excellence.