Although none of my family were in medicine, science, or academics, my career has been in those three realms. After clinical training, laboratory-based research became my major focus, driven by my clinical experience and interest in tuberculosis. My TB work focuses on building innovative new tools and using them to determine mechanisms that limit the efficacy of CD4 T cell responses to M. tuberculosis infection to inform vaccine design. We have made major contributions to the field, as reflected by the publications listed in my CV. I have made additional contributions to growing infectious diseases research by designing and overseeing eight Biosafety Level 3 facilities (5 at UCSF and 3 at NYU). Those facilities are now used for research on Coccidiomycosis, Histoplasmosis, SARS-CoV-2, and arboviruses, as well as on TB.

Beyond my research, I have served as Division Director of Infectious Diseases and Immunology at NYU and as Chief of Experimental Medicine at UCSF. At NYU I also served as Graduate Advisor and then Program Director of the Immunology and Inflammation graduate program, including guiding the program's trainees after the destruction of NYU facilities by Hurricane Sandy. In national service, I have chaired committees for the American Association of Immunologists, the American Society of Microbiology, and the Infectious Diseases Society of America. I also chaired two full terms on standing NIH Study Sections: Host Interactions with Bacterial Pathogens, and Clinical Research and Field Studies of Infectious Diseases.

My lab's trainees include tenured and tenure-track faculty at the University of Michigan, the University of Minnesota, Memorial Sloan Kettering, Cedars-Sinai, Duke, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Colorado, Case Western Reserve, Temple University, and Stanford, as well as at universities in England, Sweden, Switzerland, and China. One of my former MD fellows (Charles Sawyers) is an HHMI investigator and recipient of a Lasker Award.