Directors’ Welcome

Olujimi Ajijola, MD, PhD
Olujimi Ajijola, MD, PhD
David Dawson, MD, PhD
David Dawson, MD, PhD

Welcome to the UCLA-Caltech MSTP website! We are now in our 39th year of consecutive NIH funding and therefore, we are proud to direct a program with a history of training outstanding physician scientists. We believe that the clinical and research enterprises at our institution are ideal for combined MD-PhD training. Since its opening in 1955, the UCLA Medical Center (now the UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Center) has been committed to bench to bedside research and has fostered a pervasive culture of collaborative, interdisciplinary science. This is reflected in the architecture of the campus, with the Hospital, Medical Center and Health Sciences complex all within walking distance of the College of Letters and Sciences, School of Engineering, and nine other professional schools on a single, beautiful campus in West Los Angeles. The breadth and excellence of research at both UCLA and Caltech allows us to offer rigorous training in a wide array of disciplines relevant to improving human health and medicine, ranging from basic sciences to engineering to social sciences and health policy.

We recruit and support students who display a passion for scientific knowledge and a life-long commitment to research and leadership. We are additionally committed to the recruitment and training of students from disadvantaged backgrounds and ethnic groups that are under-represented in the sciences, and students with disabilities. Our students complete their medical training at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and their PhD in one of many graduate training programs at the university. Each year, two students pursue their graduate training at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where they can draw from the strengths of its dynamic faculty and research community. As program directors, we are committed to guiding our students throughout all phases of their MD-PhD training. We hope that our website gives you more insight into what makes our program unique, from its collaborative and interdisciplinary environment to its commitment to mentorship. If you have further questions that are not addressed on the website, please contact the MSTP office.

We look forward to seeing you at UCLA!

Olujimi Ajijola & David Dawson