The Office of Career and Professional Development Team:
- David Blancha, PhD, Assistant Director, PhD Team
- Ray Care, PhD, Program Director, PhD Team
- Sarah Tanase, MA, Program Director, Health Team
- Trish McGrath, BA, Event Planner
- Anna Reeves, MS, Assistant Director, Health Team
- Naledi Saul, MPM, Director, Office of Career and Professional Development
David Blancha, PhD (he/him)
Assistant Director, Researcher Team
[email protected]
David Blancha is Assistant Director for the Researcher Team at UCSF's Office of Career and Professional Development.
He comes most recently from UC Davis, where he developed and launched a system of micro-credentials for graduate student and postdoc professional development. Prior to that, David served as the Assistant Director for Graduate Career Services at the UCLA Career Center, where he worked with Master's and PhD students on all aspects of professional development, developed graduate-level career programming, and managed advanced degree industry relations. Prior to his work at UCLA, David coordinated a Teagle Foundation grant for the Teaching Center at Columbia University, where he finished a PhD in Philosophy. David is a devoted design-focused educator with a particular interest in leveraging technology and gamification to improve access to and enhance the quality of educational opportunities.
Ray Care, PhD (she/they)
Program Director, Researcher Team
[email protected] (415) 502-0239
Ray Care currently serves as Program Director for PhD Career and Professional Development. Her passions are supporting early-stage students to find the training environment that is right for them and broadening awareness of the skillsets involved in scientific training, including evidence-based teaching and inclusive research mentoring. She also leads PhD students and postdocs through preparation, application, interview, and negotiation for faculty jobs. In all of these areas she engages with trainees through one-on-one counseling, live and asynchronous programming, online resources, and tailored outreach.
Ray found her drive to do this work as a graduate student at UCSF. After switching thesis labs and learning about the challenges facing her peers, Ray worked with the graduate student government and Graduate Division leadership to develop and disseminate the results of a Mentorship Climate Survey. She served as a liaison between student, administrator, and faculty groups to use this data to effect campus-wide changes in the student experience. She has also worked as the Intern for Academic Career Development, Program Manager, and Interim Assistant Director in the OCPD.
Ray earned her PhD in Neuroscience from UCSF and holds a Bachelor of Science in Neuroscience from UCLA.
Sarah Tanase, MA, (she/her)
Program Director, Health Team
[email protected]
Sarah is committed to fostering student learning and empowerment, cultivating communities, and advancing educational equity. As the Program Director for the Health Careers Team, Sarah designs and facilitates career and professional development programs, counsels students, and supervises a staff member. She also co-supervises the OCPD's Career Outreach Peers as a part of the Career Peer Leadership Professional Development Program.
Sarah previously worked for Stanford Career Education, similarly developing a career development program curriculum and providing individual counseling to students and alumni. She also served on the Learning Outcomes committee in hopes of increasing the intentionality, accessibility, and effectiveness of learning opportunities provided by her department. In her roles at UCLA Residential Life, Sarah oversaw the residential building housing the Global Health, Pilipinx, and American Indian and Pacific Islander Living Learning Communities. This included supervising a student staff team, serving on an on-call emergency response rotation, advising programming efforts, and adjudicating conduct with an emphasis on restorative justice. She also played a pivotal role in developing her department’s training curriculum for both professional staff and student staff.
Trish McGrath, BA
Event Planner
[email protected] (415) 514-4863
Trish McGrath has over 9 years experience in planning and executing events in corporate, not for profit and university settings. She has managed a wide range of events, including professional workshops and seminars, career fairs, vendor fairs, stakeholder meetings, staff orientations, receptions and company-wide holiday gatherings. She partners with senior leadership to envision, implement and closeout events, including establishing and managing timelines.
Prior to working at UCSF, Trish spent six years at the California Academy of Sciences where she planned and executed both small and keystone events, both professional and social. She earned her Bachelors Degree in English from the University of San Francisco.
Anna Reeves, MS
Assistant Director, Health Team
A[email protected] (415) 476-5772
Anna Reeves has a deep-seated commitment to the holistic career development of health professional students with whom she's worked for over a decade. As the captain at the helm of the Health Careers team, Anna devises, oversees, and implements multi-year specialized career education service strategies for four health professional schools and related departments. These initiatives are tailored to each student population's needs and aligned with faculty and school leadership teams' professional development goals for their students. She designs customized career education courses and resources, counsels students, and trains and manages Health Careers staff. Additionally, she trains and supervises a graduate Career Counseling Intern, founded and co-supervises the Health Professional Career Peer Leadership Professional Development Program, develops marketing and community outreach efforts, and assists the OCPD Director on technology-focused operational projects that impact the larger OCPD team. Her expertise ranges from general and specialized career counseling to instructional design, including spearheading OCPD's adoption of various e-learning, scheduling and career service management tools. She has also cultivated an interest in and implemented an instructional design programming approach based on gamification and incorporating various e-learning technologies into her work. Her ultimate goal is to promote and ensure timely, efficient access to practical, evidence-based, and engaging career services and skill-building resources for health professional students.
Before joining UCSF, Anna supported undergraduate students as one of the Pre-Health Career Counselors at UC Berkeley's Career Center. There, she co-led a campus-wide pre-health advising council, counseled students, edited the Pre-Med Guide and online resources, and co-designed and co-taught career development courses. Previous to her career in academia, Anna worked in the private sector in various roles, including accounting, merchandising, production, administration, and management. Throughout her career counseling career, Anna has dedicated herself to supporting students' career development including assisting with self-assessment and barrier identification, guiding students in strengthening their professional communication skills, discerning and adapting to implicit and explicit workplace norms, and providing opportunities to learn, practice, and refine their self-advocacy and teamwork skills, enabling students to confidently navigate and thrive in academic and professional environments.
Anna holds a Bachelor of Science in Organizational Behavior from the University of San Francisco and earned a Master of Science in Counseling, specializing in career and college, from San Francisco State University.
Naledi Saul, MPM
Director, Office of Career and Professional Development
[email protected] (415) 514-3306
Naledi Saul is the Director of the UCSF Office of Career and Professional Development. She leads the university's efforts to teach clinicians- and scientists-in-training the information, skills and confidence required to navigate their careers successfully.
Her area of expertise involves teaching trainees how to skillfully assess and successfully negotiate educational and professional spaces and situations in the clinic, the lab, and the larger world. From helping trainees position and present themselves professionally, manage power differentials in professional relationships, and develop their ability to inclusively mentor, teach and supervise as new managers and faculty, to communication competencies such as presentation skills and negotiation. The essential thread throughout her work is the focus on strengthening clinicians' and scientists' ability to make decisions and develop strategies informed by their own definitions of professional integrity and personal identity.
Naledi is also deeply interested in supporting institutions in establishing, building and integrating high-functioning career services at the graduate/post-graduate level, as well as teaching the professional development skills required to engender high functioning and healthy teams.
In recognition of her work, she was selected for the UCSF Chancellor's Award for University for Exceptional University Management and the Chancellor's Award for Diversity, Advancement of Women Leaders. She has served as an advisor to the Career Forum at Science magazine’s online resource, Sciencecareers.org, and frequently presents career-related workshops at ABRCMS and FASEB. Naledi also is a Co-PI on NSF grant focused on teaching future faculty how to inclusively supervise and mentor.
Prior to UCSF, Naledi was an Assistant Dean of Students and Assistant Director of the Career Center at Amherst College, and an Assistant Director of the Career Development Center at Mount Holyoke College. She holds a Master of Public Management degree from the University of Maryland, College Park, and a Bachelor of Arts in History from Spelman College.
