Mahtab Jafari is professor and vice chair of Pharmaceutical Sciences at UCI. She is also the Director of the UCI Center for Healthspan Science. The focus of her research is on slowing the aging process and adding healthy years to human life through a science that she introduced as Healthspan Pharmacology. Using various model systems, she studies the impact of botanical extracts and dietary supplements on aging.
Dr. Jafari received her Doctorate in Pharmacy (Pharm.D.) and completed her residency at the University of California, San Francisco. She was on the faculty at the UCSF School of Pharmacy prior to joining the faculty at UCI. She has served as the Director of the Cholesterol Clinic and the co-Director of the Cardiovascular Risk Reduction Program at UCI Medical Center. In 2001, she joined Abbott Laboratories as a senior scientist in the Neuroscience group. In 2005, Dr. Jafari was recruited back to UCI to develop a new major in Pharmaceutical Sciences.
Dr. Jafari is the recipient of a number of teaching and mentoring awards including the 2008 and 2013 UCI Distinguished Professor Teaching Award, 2008 UCI Chancellor’s award for Fostering Undergraduate Research, and the 2011 and 2013 UCI Pharmaceutical Sciences the Most Inspirational Professor Award. Her research on botanical extracts earned her the UCI Susan Samueli Center for Integrative Medicine Discovery Award in 2012. In 2013, Dr. Jafari developed a course titled “Life101” to address the epidemic of stress and poor lifestyle choices among college students in the U.S.
For more information about Dr. Jafari’s work and a complete list of her publications, please visit her website at http://www.mahtabjafari.com.