Meet the Proud UCSF Employees Related by Blood, Marriage and Mission

Bringing families together 

UCSF has been part of Benjamin and Kristine Breyer’s lives for a long time, highlighted by a fateful meeting on New Year’s Eve 2006 when they both were residents. 

The husband and wife of 14 years first ran into each other – literally – in the hallway at the UCSF Helen Diller Medical Center at Parnassus Heights. 

“I was jogging through the emergency room and I smacked into Ben,” said Kristine Breyer, MD, professor in the UCSF Department of Anesthesia, anesthesia clerkship director in the UCSF School of Medicine, medical director of UCSF Health Code Blue and Rapid Response, and co-medical director of the cardiothoracic intensive care units. “I said, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ and I just kept going because I was lasered in on admitting this patient. Then I noticed that he had one of the Urology fleeces on. I thought, ‘Oh, gosh! That’s probably one of their senior residents.’” 

A last-minute shift added to her call schedule, what at first seemed like an inconvenience for Kristine turned out to be serendipitous. 

“I happened to have a friend in common with her and asked that friend to set us up,” said Benjamin Breyer, MD, MAS, FACS, chair, UCSF Department of Urology, professor of epidemiology and biostatistics, and chief, genitourinary reconstructive surgery at UCSF Health. “The rest is history.” 

Three years later, the couple was married. Then came three kids. 

But there was always UCSF. 

“We love working at UCSF and feel very blessed to be here,” Benjamin Breyer said. 

Kristine is the best thing that UCSF has ever done for me.”

While both are primarily based at Parnassus Heights, Benjamin also spends time at UCSF Mission Bay and Kristine sometimes goes in to UCSF Mount Zion. Having kids ages 12, 9 and 7 prevents the two from carpooling on a regular basis, though they’ll make time for a lunch date at Parnassus from time to time. 

“We report to the kids later that we saw each other and they think that’s super fun,” Kristine Breyer laughed. 

True to form, the UCSF experience has given the Breyers more than careers and the occasional date. All of their children also went through the Child Care Center at UCSF’s Laurel Heights campus. 

“Kristine is the best thing that UCSF has ever done for me,” Benjamin Breyer said. 

Foot in the door 

Some, like Armanda Edwards-Newman and Blair Newman Jr., have known each other well before UCSF. 

Edwards-Newman started at UCSF in 2010 as a contractor in IT Data Center Services, then called Data Center Operations. These days, she’s a technical project manager with the IT Project Management Office. While she already had a taste of working with her son when he interned at UCSF as a student in 2021, Edwards-Newman was more than happy to help him land a full-time position at UCSF when he was nearing graduation from Atlanta’s Morehouse College. 

“I’ve always loved working for UCSF,” Edwards-Newman said. “It’s a great place to work. I knew he could grow and do very well here. Having that opportunity was a good start. Even if he ventured out after working here for a while…or maybe he would decide to stick around because he would grow to love it just as much as I do.” 

Though the mother and son duo work in similar fields, they’ve never actually run into each other on a project, Zoom or in-person meeting. 

That hasn’t stopped people from recognizing the family connection. 

My expectation is that he exceeds my level. Parents always want their children to do better than they’ve done themselves.” 

As Edwards-Newman sees it, that’s exactly what he should be doing.  

“My expectation is that he exceeds my level,” she said. “Parents always want their children to do better than they’ve done themselves.” 

Not to be outdone, Edwards-Newman’s other son, Darius Newman, spent last summer working for UCSF Learning and Organization Development. He’s currently at the University of Portland majoring in business finance but could make it a trio at UCSF if he goes down the same path as his brother. 

“There’s no telling what will happen,” Edwards-Newman added. 

Cross-country moves 

There are also several instances of families coming to UCSF at the same time. 

Take Julie Ann Sosa, MD, MA, FACS, FSSO, and Sanziana Roman, MD, FACS. 

The couple – married two years at the time – moved to the Bay Area to start their UCSF careers in 2018. They’ve been together 22 years, with stops at Yale University and Duke University, both in endocrine surgery the entire time they’ve known each other. 

When Sosa was recruited to UCSF, Roman was right there at her side. 

“It is really hard to be a two-career couple,” said Sosa, chair, UCSF Department of Surgery, professor, UCSF Department of Medicine, and affiliated faculty, Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies. “It’s also very hard to be a two-career couple in the same specialty at the same institution doing the same specialty in senior roles."

We couldn’t have done what we did except at UCSF, where we found a community of belonging.” 

Even though their careers are intertwined, both have found great value in carving their own paths. 

“Because we grew up in our professions together, it makes it easy for us to understand each other,” said Roman, a professor of surgery in the UCSF School of Medicine. “I get what Julie Ann’s job is and how she needs to handle it. She knows I support her no matter what. As we grew more senior in our careers, we definitely matured together. But we are not competitive, we are synergistic. That helped us move through some of the challenges. We are individualistic.” 

The same goes for Jodi Hirsch, JD, and Raphael Hirsch, MD. 

After meeting in Pittsburgh at a children’s hospital, the couple made a stop at the University of Iowa before Raphael was recruited to UCSF. “Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d ever move to California,” said Raphael Hirsch, physician-in-chief, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals, and chair, UCSF Department of Pediatrics. “I thought California was where the hippies and the surfers go, and that wasn’t me.” 

Not so for Jodi, vice president for legal affairs, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland. “I thought it sounded really fun,” she laughed. 

Like Sosa and Roman, the couple find themselves in a similar circle as part of the children’s hospitals’ leadership group. 

“I rarely mention that he’s my husband,” Jodi Hirsch said. “People sometimes smile because I’ll be in a meeting and I’ll say, ‘This might be something that the chair of the Department of Pediatrics needs to be aware of.’ I do have several people whom I’ve been with in Oakland who did not know of the connection.” 

Naturally, work comes up a lot at home for both couples, though confidentiality plays a part in what each can share with the other. 

“At some point, we’ll say, ‘You know what? Let’s stop talking about work,’” Raphael Hirsch said. “But we tend to debrief about how our day went like any couple would do.” 

With two of their three kids in health care, it wouldn’t be a surprise to find another Hirsch at UCSF – if the parents had their way. “We would do anything to get them here,” Jodi Hirsch said. “I really love working for UCSF. The children’s hospital in Oakland is a big part of my heart now. The work that we do, the community we serve and the mission that we have, I honestly can’t think of a better place to work.” 

Unlike any other 

When it comes to bloodlines, the Carmonas may be the de facto “First Family of UCSF.” 

All four Carmonas are employed by the university – father, mother, son and daughter. 

It started in 1994 with Mario Carmona who came to UCSF when he got a job at the Millberry Union bookstore. His wife and former high school sweetheart, Esther, moved over to UCSF five years later from UC Law San Francisco (formerly UC Hastings). 

Mario is currently the associate director of UCSF Documents and Media. 

Esther is now the operations manager in UCSF Human Resources. 

Years later, their son, Antonio, settled in as an applications programmer for the IT Web Services Access Management Team. He was followed by the youngest Carmona, Brianna, now a diet clerk at UCSF Health St. Mary’s Hospital. 

I’m just so proud that the kids are following in our footsteps as Mario and I near retirement.” 

“I think I always was going to end up at UCSF,” Brianna Carmona said. 

With that, the family circle was complete. 

“It’s all the kids have ever known,” Esther Carmona said. “I’m going on my 32nd year. I’ve been here a long time, and it’s all I’ve ever known. I’m just so proud that the kids are following in our footsteps as Mario and I near retirement.” 

Both kids did summer stints at UCSF before taking on full-time jobs later in life, a familiar pattern for other UCSF children that have gone on to careers at the University. 

“I told them to think about UCSF when they were looking for a job,” Mario Carmona said. “We’re huge, right? We’re the second largest employer in the city. The opportunity is there. You can leverage your institutional knowledge to get in here. They did.” 

Family lunches on campus can be hard to come by, with Brianna separated from the other three in her role at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center. Meanwhile, the other Carmonas often find themselves working remotely out of the family home in San Francisco all at the same time – logging into Zooms from the bedroom (Esther), dining room (Mario) and downstairs area (Antonio). 

The family joked that their house is essentially a UCSF satellite office. 

But there is time for non-UCSF talk when the family sits down together for dinner almost every single night, though UCSF comes up from time to time. “How can you avoid it?” Esther Carmona said. 

With all of these families, UCSF is a constant. One can imagine they’d not have it any other way.