Rate My Professor Fernando Gonzalez

Fernando Gonzalez, MD, is a Professor of Pediatrics and Chief of the Division of Neonatology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics. He earned a Sc.B. in Neuroscience from Brown University in 1997 and an M.D. from Brown University School of Medicine in 2001. Gonzalez completed his pediatrics residency at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, California, in 2004, followed by a fellowship in Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine at UCSF in 2007. In 2019, he completed Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Champion Training at UCSF. He joined the UCSF faculty following his fellowship and progressed to full professor. Appointed Chief of Neonatology effective April 2024, he leads the division and is a member of the Newborn Brain Research Institute. Clinically, Gonzalez specializes in caring for newborns with brain injuries and infants requiring extracorporeal membrane oxygenation.

Gonzalez's research focuses on the full-term brain's response to acute injury during the neonatal period, including hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy and perinatal arterial ischemic stroke. He investigates neuronal subpopulations vulnerable to ischemia, mechanisms of injury and endogenous repair in the immature brain, differences between immature and adult brain responses to stroke, and therapeutic strategies to enhance neuroplasticity, reparative mechanisms with delayed therapy, and long-term functional outcomes. His studies emphasize cell type-specific changes in the peri-infarct cortex affecting cell fate, function, and circuit formation, with a translational approach linking basic neuroscience to clinical neonatal brain injury. He received the NIH K08 Research Career Development Award (K08NS064094) from 2011 to 2016. Key publications include "Dynamic fibroblast-immune interactions shape recovery after brain injury" (Nature, 2025), "Chorioamnionitis and Two-Year Outcomes in Infants with Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy" (Journal of Pediatrics, 2025), "Trial of Erythropoietin for Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy in Newborns" (New England Journal of Medicine, 2022), "Enhanced Mesenchymal Stromal Cells or Erythropoietin Provide Long-Term Functional Benefit After Neonatal Stroke" (Stroke, 2021), and "Erythropoietin increases neurogenesis and oligodendrogliosis of subventricular zone precursor cells after neonatal stroke" (Stroke, 2013). His contributions to multi-center trials such as the HEAL trial have influenced neuroprotective therapies like combined erythropoietin and therapeutic hypothermia for neonatal encephalopathy.