Our Doctors

Dr. Altman received his medical education and training in internal medicine and rheumatology at the University of Miami in Florida. He was formerly a professor of medicine and orthopedics and chief of rheumatology at the University of Miami and chief of rheumatology and clinical director of the Geriatric Center at the Miami Veterans Administration Medical Center. Since 2003, Dr. Altman has been a member of the Division of Rheumatology and Immunology in the Department of Medicine. His recent research and clinical interests have been in osteoarthritis, Paget's disease of the bone and osteoporosis.\

Dr. Furst is the first Carl M. Pearson Professor in Rheumatology. He has been on a number of national committees concerned with rheumatic therapeutics, including as a member and fellow in the American College of Rheumatology and The American Society of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics. Dr. Furst has published more than 400 articles and 12 books, including more than 180 research articles and more than 210 reviews or chapters, in addition to two editions of a book on scleroderma. Dr. Furst's areas of research interest include RA, scleroderma and polymyositis/dermatomyositis.

Dr. Louie received his medical education at Washington University, St. Louis, trained in medicine at John Hopkins and in rheumatology at UCLA. He was formerly chief of rheumatology at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. His expertise is in infectious, post-infectious, immune mediated and inflammatory rheumatic diseases. He is co-editor of the coming text, "Targeted Treatment of the Rheumatic Diseases," Elsevier 2009.

Dr. David Yu has been a rheumatologist since 1973, and since 1980 specializing in the spondyloarthritis (ankylosing spondylitis, nonradiographic axial spondyloarthritis, undifferentiated spondyloarthritis, reactive arthritis). He is the major author on those sections in widely-used UpToDate textbook. He is a member of the ASAS and SPARTAN, organizations focusing on developing recommendations and guidelines in spondyloarthritis. Besides, spondyloarthritis, Dr. Yu also specializes in pain of the extremities, neck and back, and also those generalized to total body.

Dr. Choi received her medical degree from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and completed her training in both internal medicine and rheumatology at UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. Dr. Choi's clinical interests include complex autoimmune diseases, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, osteoporosis, scleroderma, dermatomyositis, polymyositis, spondyloarthropathies, vasculitis and osteoarthritis.

Dr. Marian Kaldas is a Southern California native and has been part of the UCLA family since her high school years when she won a scholarship for doing over 1000 hours of hospital volunteering. She received her undergraduate degree in Neuroscience at UCLA, her medical degree from the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine and completed her internship, residency and fellowship in Rheumatology all with UCLA. She joined the UCLA Faculty practicing Rheumatology and Hospitalist medicine and is now excited to join UCLA Health practicing Rheumatology full-time. Dr. Kaldas is interested in the treatment of the full spectrum of the rheumatic diseases including rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, gout, lupus and over 100 other conditions. Her other interests include humanism in medicine and teaching. Dr. Kaldas is board certified in Internal Medicine and Rheumatology. In her spare time Dr. Kaldas enjoys reading, beach walks, singing and spending time with her husband and children.

Dr. King graduated from Harvard Medical School, and completed her internal medicine residency at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital. After completing her rheumatology fellowship at UCLA, she has remained on faculty since 2008. Her clinical interests include general rheumatology, Sjogren's syndrome, systemic lupus erythematosus, osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, systemic sclerosis, musculoskeletal complaints and gout. She has received multiple patients service awards for excellence in clinical care, diagnostic acumen, and bedside manner. She also embraces complementary and alternative medicine as adjuncts to gold standards of care for chronic conditions. Dr. King is a translational researcher with a special interest in B-cell mediated autoimmune diseases, including but not limited to Sjogren's syndrome, systemic lupus erythematosus, and rheumatoid arthritis. She is the Chief Fellow in her Specialty Training and Advanced Researcher (STAR) class and studies the role of non-coding RNAs in regulating autoimmune diseases. Her research focuses on defining new diagnostic markers to predict treatment responses and disease flares in autoimmune conditions.

Dr. Masoom Modi completed her rheumatology training at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Originally from Northern California, she obtained her bachelor’s degree at the University of California at Berkeley. She attended medical school at St. George’s University School of Medicine, and completed internal medicine training at Maricopa Medical Center. Dr. Modi is an active member of the American College of Rheumatology. She enjoys participating in teaching activities with first year medical students at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Outside of work, she enjoys spending time with her husband and dog.

Dr. Rania Shammas is a board certified rheumatologist and an assistant clinical professor of rheumatology at UCLA. She was born and raised in Los Angeles. She completed her undergraduate studies at UCLA and then went to Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons for medical school, where she was part of the Gold Humanism in Medicine Honor Society and received the Joseph Garrison Parker Award for arts in medicine. She completed her internal medicine training at Albert Einstein and then her rheumatology fellowship at UCLA. She spent several years in private practice, while also actively participating in teaching and as an investigator for multiple clinical trials. In her spare time, she enjoys musical theater, playing the piano, tennis, and spending quality time with her family.

Dr. Taylor received her M.D. degree from the University of Medicine and Pharmacy Carol Davila in Bucharest, Romania, and completed her rheumatology fellowship at Loma Linda in June 2004. She practices general rheumatology, taking care of a variety of rheumatology conditions, including rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, connective-tissue disorders, crystal arthritis such as gout and pseudogout, myofascial syndromes, polymyalgia rheumatica, and vasculitis. She performs ultrasounds of the joints and performs injections with hyaluronic acid for osteoarthritis. Her interests is in musculoskeletal sonography.

Dr Yachoui's interests include inflammatory conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis, diagnostic musculoskeletal ultrasound, ultrasound-guided interventional procedure, as well as prevention and treatment of osteoporosis.

Professor, Director of the FOCIS Center of Excellence at UCLA. Dr. La Cava received his M.D. and Ph.D. from the Federico II University of Naples, Italy, and did postdoctoral research at UCSD and The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA, before joining UCLA as faculty in 2001. Dr. La Cava’s research interests focus on the development of new immunotherapies in systemic lupus erythematosus.

Dr. Charles-Schoeman received her medical degree from the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, where she remained for training in both internal medicine and rheumatology. Dr. Charles-Schoeman has interests in inflammatory myositis and rheumatoid arthritis. She is a member of the Medical Advisory Board for the Myositis Association and pursues research in inflammatory myositis. She is also an active investigator in multiple clinical trials of novel therapies for rheumatoid arthritis and her research in this area includes the study of accelerated atherosclerosis in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

Dr. Kafaja received her MD in UCLA School of Medicine and completed internal medicine traing at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center. She completed dermatology and rheumatology training at UCLA School of Medicine. Her research interest includes scleroderma and raynaud's phenomenon.

Dr. Ranganath is a native Los Angelean. After graduating from Drew/UCLA Medical School and completing her residency at the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System in internal medicine, she returned to UCLA for Rheumatology Fellowship in 2003. She joined the UCLA faculty in 2005 and obtained a Masters in Clinical Research at UCLA in 2010. Dr. Ranganath has a strong interest in rheumatoid arthritis research. Her specific research goal is to develop a model to predict early response to therapy in RA with biomarkers, imaging markers (ultrasound and MRI), and clinical measures.

Dr. Volkmann graduated from Pomona College where she majored in Neuroscience and minored in Dance. She received her medical degree from UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, and subsequently completed her residency in Internal Medicine and fellowship in Rheumatology at UCLA. During her fellowship, she participated in the Specialty Training and Advanced Research (STAR) Program and earned her Master of Science degree in Clinical Research. Her clinical interests include systemic sclerosis, interstitial lung disease, pulmonary hypertension and systemic lupus erythematosus. Dr. Volkmann is an active clinical and translational researcher with a special focus on systemic sclerosis, and in particular, she investigates the pulmonary, gastrointestinal and vascular dimensions of this condition. She strives to provide humanistic and compassionate care, and she embraces complementary and alternative approaches to healing, in addition to traditional modalities.