Sheetal Desai completed medical school at the University of Southern California (USC) followed by Internal Medicine residency and Rheumatology fellowship at UCLA.  She pursued a Master of Science in Medical Education from the USC Rossier School of Education.  She joined the University of California, Irvine (UCI) as rheumatology faculty in 2007.  She was program director of the UCI Rheumatology Fellowship for 10 years, Chief of Rheumatology for 7 years and is currently Executive Vice Chair and DEI Officer for the Department of Medicine.  She is on the Board for AWIR and she is passionate about Lupus, collaboration across specialties to create Multidisciplinary clinics, and gender equity in medicine.