Our team

Peter A. Young, MPAS, PA-C

Peter Young, CIAD's founder, is a physician assistant with the Permanente Medical Group in Sacramento, California, and a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University's Department of Dermatology. He has co-authored 30 peer-reviewed articles to date, accepted at Cutis, JAMA Dermatology, Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, Journal of the German Society of Dermatology, Dermatology Online Journal, Journal of Dermatology for PAs, and others. He is also the principal investigator for multiple research projects on contact dermatitis, dermoscopic algorithms, melanoma diagnostic trends, and postgraduate curriculum development; with grant funding from Kaiser Permanente, the American Contact Dermatitis Society, and the Dermatology Education Foundation.

Gordon H. Bae, MD, FAAD

Dr Gordon Bae is a dermatologist with Stanford Health Care and a clinical assistant professor of dermatology at Stanford University School of Medicine. He has co-authored peer-reviewed articles on a broad range of topics from managing rare dermatological conditions to the state of diversity within the field of academic dermatology and issues pertaining to dermatology education and mentorship. His work has appeared in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, Journal of the American Medical Association, American Journal of Medicine, Journal of Cutaneous Pathology, and elsewhere.

Cynthia F. Griffith, MPAS, PA-C

Cynthia Griffith is a PA in the Department of Dermatology at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, where she co-founded the High-Risk Skin Cancer Transplant Clinic and has been honored as their Physician Assistant of the Year. Her clinical and research interests include skin cancer screening and prevention in immunosuppressed populations, including patients undergoing solid organ and bone marrow transplant. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Dermatology for Physician Assistants and the Journal of the American Academy of Physician Assistants. From 2013 to 2022, Ms Griffith was the Dermatology Grand Rounds Editor for the Journal of Dermatology for Physician Assistants; she is now its Editor-in-Chief.

Paradi Mirmirani, MD, FAAD

Dr Paradi Mirmirani completed residencies in Internal Medicine and Dermatology and a clinical hair research fellowship at the University of California San Francisco. She is practicing at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Vallejo, California where she serves as the assistant chief of dermatology, the regional director for hair disorders, the local research chair, and the regional co-lead for dermatology research. Additionally, Dr Mirmirani has faculty appointments at the University of California, San Francisco and Case Western Reserve University. As an active clinician, researcher, and teacher, she has over 60 peer-reviewed publications and regularly presents at national and international conferences on various hair topics. Notably, Dr Mirmirani co-authored “Cicatricial Alopecia: An Approach to Diagnosis and Management,” the first book dedicated to the topic. Her awards include the UCSF Outstanding Clinical Teacher, and the San Francisco Dermatologic Society’s Key Dermatology Leader for hair.

Bethany Grubb, MPAS, MPH, PA-C

Bethany Grubb is an Assistant Professor in the Department of PA Studies at University of Texas-Southwestern Medical Center and previously worked in the Department of Dermatology, where she also completed a 1-year postgraduate fellowship in dermatology. She serves as a Director-at-Large on the American Academy of PAs' board of directors (2020-22) and received the Presidential Award of Excellence from the Society of Dermatology PAs in 2008. Ms Grubb's work has been published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology and the Journal of the American Academy of Physician Assistants.

Thomas H. Konia, MD

Thomas Konia is a board-certified dermatopathologist and clinical professor at the University of California- Davis, in the Departments of Dermatology and Pathology & Laboratory Medicine. He received his Doctor of Medicine in 1995, from the Chicago Medical School in Chicago, Illinois, and his residency training in Pathology at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu in 2000. He completed fellowships in Surgical Pathology at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California in 2001, and Dermatopathology at Ackerman Academy of Dermatopathology/SUNY Downstate in 2008. His writing has appeared in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, Journal of Cutaneous Pathology, Archives of Pathology Laboratory Medicine, and elsewhere.

Travis Hayden, MPAS, PA-C

Travis Hayden is a professor of practice and assistant academic coordinator at Le Moyne College, a consultant for Visual Dx, and a decorated Navy veteran. Hayden founded the Journal of Dermatology for Physician Assistants in 2007 and served as its Editor-in-Chief until 2020. He has received numerous awards throughout his 24 years as a PA, including Educator of the Year from the Central New York PA Association. Hayden has given scholarly presentations on a broad range of topics including cutaneous malignancies, surgical wound repair, dermatologic emergencies, and others. His writing has appeared in the Journal of Dermatology for Physician Assistants and the textbook Dermatology for Advanced Practice Clinicians.

Douglas DiRuggiero, DMSc, PA-C

Douglas DiRuggiero is a PA at Skin Cancer and Cosmetic Dermatology Center in Rome, Georgia, and the founding president of the Georgia Dermatology PA Society. He graduated with Honors from the Duke University PA Program and has specialized in dermatology since 2000, during which time he has earned numerous awards including National Dermatology PA of the Year and the Presidential Volunteer Service Lifetime Achievement award, among others. His writing has appeared in the Journal of Clinical and Aesthetic Dermatology, Skin, the British Journal of Dermatology, and elsewhere. He is also an editor and co-author of the textbook Dermatology for Advanced Practice Clinicians.

Megan Inkeles, MD, PhD, FAAD

Megan Inkeles graduated from the UCLA Medical Scientist Training Program with an MD and a PhD in Bioinformatics, with a focus on the immunology of dermatologic diseases. She completed her Dermatology residency at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and now practices complex medical dermatology at Kaiser Permanente in the Bay Area. Her research has been published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, Journal of Dermatological Treatment, Journal of Investigative Dermatology, Journal for Clinical Investigation Insight, Science Translational Medicine, Journal of Immunology, and elsewhere.

Javier Rangel, MD, FAAD

Javier Rangel completed his MD and dermatology residency at UCSF, followed by a one year dermatopathology fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. He is currently a dermatologist and dermatopathologist at Kaiser Permanente San Francisco and Oakland Medical centers. He has been involved extensively in melanoma research, with publications in the Journal of Cutaneous Pathology, Permanente Journal, American Journal of Surgical Pathology, Cancer, Clinical Cancer Research, American Journal of Dermatopathology, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, and the Journal of Clinical Oncology.