Dr. Steve Goldstein’s Biography

As Vice Chancellor of Health Affairs for the University of California, Irvine, Dr. Steve Goldstein oversees a $4.4 billion enterprise comprised of the Susan & Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences – encompassing the schools of medicine, nursing, pharmacy and public health, and six centers and institutes of health – and the UC Irvine healthcare delivery system. He is leading a major expansion rooted in a One Health vision that unites health disciplines to advance the frontiers of discovery, educate the diverse healthcare workforce of the future, and provide whole-person, team-based, precision care and support for wellbeing.

Goldstein is deeply committed to maximizing continuous improvement through innovation to prevent illness and improve patient care, train the diverse future healthcare workforce, and advance policies that place the patient first, decrease cost and support equity. Through the extraordinary generosity of Susan and Henry Samueli, the college was established as a first-of-its-kind alliance uniting health disciplines and merging the benefits of conventional and complementary care. This unique model is driven by the UC Irvine Health Affairs mission: Discover. Teach. Heal.

The One Health approach has been a revolutionary success, leading to growth over 5-years of more than 100% in annual revenue, 75% in external grant funding and $600 million in gifts. During this period, new buildings for research, teaching and clinical care are expanding Health Affairs by 3.8 million square feet, enhancing the impact of over 15,000 faculty and staff, 3,200 students and 760 clinical residents. First to open in 2022 was a two-building complex providing new homes for the Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing, the School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences, the future school of Population and Public Health, and the Susan Samueli Integrative Health Institute. Directly across the Health Sciences Quad, the Falling Leaves Foundation Medical Innovation Building will open in 2025. At 215,000 square feet, it is slated to be among the largest interdisciplinary discovery and translational research hubs on the West Coast.

Embracing access, innovation and friendly, personalized, world-class healthcare, UCI Health serves 4.7 million people as Orange County’s only academic health system. To complement the 460-bed hospital in Orange and 14 other service sites across the region, a new $1.4 billion, 1 million- square- foot specialty medical center is under construction on the main university campus. Opening from May 2024 to late 2025, it includes a 144-bed hospital with 24-hour emergency services – the first fully electric-powered hospital in the U.S. – a cancer and ambulatory surgery building, and an outpatient building for child and adult services including urgent care. Reinforcing a commitment to expanding the benefits of academic healthcare, UC Irvine purchased an 860-bed community health system of four hospitals and associated ambulatory sites in April 2024.

Recognized for 20 years among America’s Best Hospitals by U.S. News & World Report, UCI Health was the first academic health system in the world to receive a 5-star rating from the Patient Safety Movement Foundation, receives ‘A’ safety ratings on The Leapfrog Group’s Hospital Safety Scorecard, earned Magnet hospital status for nursing excellence a record five times, and has been accorded 5-star hospital and top 10 ranking for both inpatient and outpatient services by Vizient.

With over 30 years of experience as a physician-scientist, pediatric cardiologist and academic administrator, Goldstein focuses on improving the human condition through education, research and care. Previously, Goldstein has served as professor and founding head of the Section of Developmental Biology and Biophysics at Yale University; chair of pediatrics, founding physician-in-chief of the Comer Children’s Hospital and founding director of two research institutes at the University of Chicago; dean and chief diversity officer of the Stritch School of Medicine at Loyola University Chicago; and provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Brandeis University.

Goldstein received his BA and MA in biochemistry from Brandeis University and holds an MD and a PhD in immunology from Harvard University. His research has identified families of genes encoding ion channels, the genetic and mechanistic bases for sudden infant death syndrome in African Americans, and inherited and drug-induced cardiac arrhythmias, diagnostic tests; currently, novel therapies for life-threatening diseases of the heart, lungs and nervous system are in development. An American Academy of Pediatrics fellow, he received the prestigious E. Mead Johnson Award from the Society for Pediatric Research in 2001 and was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2020 for his discoveries and contributions to academic medicine. He has served as a scientific advisor to the National Institutes of Health for Nanomedicine and vice chair of the National Science Foundation Advisory Committee for Biological Sciences. A listing of his published works is available here.