Presenter Bios

Nicholas D. Baker, MPH, PharmD

Nicholas D. Baker is a regional director for pharmacy operations in Northern California for Kaiser Permanente. He earned his master of public health from San Jose State University and his doctor of pharmacy from the University of the Pacific. His post-graduate managed care residency training was completed at Kaiser Permanente in the California Central Valley. He oversees pharmacy operations including budgeting, workflow design and implementation, policy development, regional training programs, complex supply chain logistics, business continuity planning, technology implementation, and resource planning for the ambulatory care infusion pharmacies in the region. He is a current member of the Board of Pharmacy Specialties Council for Sterile Compounding and Section Advisory Group on Value, Quality and Compliance with the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP). He is a past co-chair of the Hematology/Oncology Pharmacy Association Practice Management Committee.

Desi Kotis, BSPharm, PharmD

Desi Kotis is chief pharmacy executive at UCSF Health and vice dean of clinical affairs at UCSF School of Pharmacy. She received her bachelor of science in pharmacy and her doctor of pharmacy at the University of Illinois. She completed a pharmacy residency at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

In 2013, Kotis was appointed fellow of ASHP. She received the President’s award in 2015 and the Pharmacist of the Year Award in 2017, both from the Illinois Council of Health-System Pharmacists. She was appointed by the governor to the Illinois Board of Pharmacy, ending her vice chair term in November 2020. She completed her term as chair of the Vizient Pharmacy Network in January 2024. As of 2024, she is on the Executive Council for the National Community Oncology Dispensing Association (NCODA) and the board of Health System Owned Specialty Pharmacy Alliance (HOSP), representing all campuses of the University of California.

Kotis is a strategic academic medical center leader in health system administration. As of 2024, she reports to the chief operating officer at UCSF Health and has the chief pharmacy officer as a direct report. She has system responsibility for the UCSF pharmacy enterprise, including regulatory, quality, safety, and financial responsibilities, which include the management of the 340B drug pricing program.

John Rootenberg, MD

Principal Director, Digital Safety & Decision Support, Genentech / Roche

John Rootenberg is an accomplished health care and life sciences innovation strategist and solution developer with over 25 years of experience working at the intersection of technology, data, data science, behavioral science, and business. He is trained as both a physician and clinical researcher with hands-on experience spanning the continuum from R&D through commercialization, access, reimbursement, and clinical outcomes while working across the broader ecosystem of providers, patients, industry, payers, and venture capital.

Since 2017, Rootenberg’s work has focused on digital health solutions that incorporate multi-stakeholder perspectives in terms of user experience, functional requirements, workflows, fit-for-purpose data, and value realization. His current work at Genentech / Roche is focused on innovation in digital safety, including the use of technologies for early identification of treatment-emergent risks, as well as for improving benefit-risk decision-making amidst rapidly evolving technology, information, and analytics landscapes. In addition, Rootenberg is a member of the workgroup for Responsible Oversight of AI at Roche and the Data & AI Ethics Workgroup.

Ray Shi, PharmD

Senior Clinical Pharmacist, Emergency Medicine; Assistant Clinical Professor, UCSF School of Pharmacy

Ray Shi attended pharmacy school at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He completed his PGY-1 and PGY-2 in emergency medicine at Intermountain Medical Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. He is now the senior emergency medicine clinical pharmacist at the University of California Davis Medical Center, where he spends his time attending codes, implementing policies, exploring the world of AI, and precepting.

Sierra Young, PharmD

Sierra Young attended pharmacy school at the University of California, San Francisco. She completed her PGY-1 and PGY-2 in critical care at the University of California Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, CA. She is now a senior critical care pharmacist at the University of California Davis Medical Center, where she spends her time primarily in the burn unit, precepting and performing clinical research.

Michelle Wang, PharmD, PhD

Michelle Wang earned her PharmD degree from the Ohio State University and her PhD degree in pharmaceutical sciences and pharmacogenomics from UCSF. Her postdoctoral training included regulatory sciences at the FDA, clinical informatics research at the Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute, and a clinical pharmacology and therapeutics fellowship at UCSF. She will be involved in teaching in the new master’s program for AI and computational drug discovery and development.