Alumni leaders in anesthesia

Harriet W. Hopf, MD

Residency Class of 1991

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Nearly 35 years after completing her UCSF anesthesiology residency, Dr. Harriet Hopf’s career continues to reflect how the lasting influence of UCSF training can shape not just a specialty—but an entire professional philosophy.

After finishing residency in 1991 and spending 14 years on the UCSF faculty, Dr. Hopf built an early national reputation in translational perioperative research, helping redefine how anesthesiologists contribute to surgical outcomes. Her work—supported by multiple NIH-funded collaborative center grants—advanced both the science of wound healing and oxygen delivery and the clinical practice of surgical site infection prevention. As a key investigator and later Associate Director of the UCSF Wound Healing Laboratory, she helped generate foundational evidence linking tissue oxygenation, thermoregulation, and infection risk—work that contributed to major shifts in perioperative care, including the now-standard emphasis on maintaining normothermia and optimizing perfusion.

Her research exemplified a hallmark of UCSF Anesthesia: interdisciplinary collaboration. Working across anesthesiology, surgery, and critical care, Hopf helped position anesthesiologists as central contributors to perioperative outcomes and infection prevention—an idea that was not widely recognized when she began her career.

In 2006, she moved to the University of Utah, where she has now spent nearly two decades expanding her impact beyond research into leadership, policy, and faculty development. Her scholarly work has continued to evolve. As site PI for an NIH-funded trial focused on implementing evidence-based infection prevention strategies, she remains engaged in advancing perioperative safety. At the same time, she has expanded her focus to include the environmental impact of healthcare practices, contributing to national efforts on sustainability in clinical care, including leadership in a landmark initiative on reducing waste from infection control practices.

But Hopf’s career has not stopped at scientific discovery. She currently serves as Executive Director of Faculty Development and Academic Affairs in the Department of Anesthesiology the University of Utah and is a nationally recognized leader in mentoring and coaching.

Her most enduring contribution may be the Utah Coaching and Advancement Network (U-CAN), a program she co-founded and continues to co-direct that now supports hundreds of faculty across career stages. Designed to provide structured coaching—not just for struggling faculty or senior executives, but for anyone seeking growth—U-CAN reflects Hopf’s belief that institutional success depends on investing in people at every level.

That philosophy traces directly back to UCSF.

Hopf describes the Anesthesia Department at UCSF as a “phenomenal place to train,” where a culture of curiosity and high expectations shaped her trajectory. Mentorship played a defining role: surgeon-scientist Dr. T.K. Hunt guided her early research, while anesthesiologist Dr. Mike Cahalan helped her navigate academic career strategy. Learning from faculty members like Drs. Ted Eger, Jeanine Wiener-Kronish, John Severinghaus, and Ron Miller provided a strong foundation, while learning alongside peers like Drs. Renee Navarro, Robin Stackhouse, and Sue Carlisle provided opportunities for scientific collaboration as well as community. The interdisciplinary environment at UCSF also encouraged her to pursue a then-unconventional path—bridging surgery-based wound healing research with anesthesiology—ultimately helping position anesthesiologists as key contributors to infection prevention.

Equally influential was UCSF’s culture of innovation. “Everybody was doing something interesting,” she recalls, describing an environment that normalized exploration across disciplines and career paths. That mindset would later underpin her own approach to career development—encouraging faculty to define unique niches rather than follow established tracks.

Throughout her career, Hopf has remained deeply invested in developing others—from mentoring trainees on NIH T32 programs at UCSF to directing resident research training, leading faculty development initiatives, and teaching national leadership curricula. Her work consistently emphasizes building the “infrastructure” of a successful career: mentorship, sponsorship, coaching, and institutional policies that recognize diverse contributions.

Looking back, Hopf sees her career in two major arcs: first, a 20-year effort to reshape perioperative research, and second, an ongoing mission to “make other people successful” through mentoring, coaching, and policy reform. Her work revising promotion and tenure criteria at Utah—ensuring recognition for clinical, educational, and administrative contributions—reflects her belief that well-designed systems can unlock individual potential.

Today, as she continues to lead faculty development initiatives and expand coaching programs, Hopf remains focused on her core mission: empowering the next generation of academic physicians.

Her journey—from measuring oxygen in wounds at UCSF to building institutional frameworks that support faculty success nationwide—underscores the lasting impact of UCSF Anesthesia training.   

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