Margot Kushel's research is informed by her 20 years of experience as a practicing internist at San Francisco General Hospital. She studies the health and health care utilization patterns of homeless adults and other vulnerable populations, with a focus on improving outcomes among older homeless adults. Her other interests include the use and misuse of prescription opioid analgesics and improving access and quality of care in safety-net settings. In this work, she uses descriptive epidemiology and develops, implements and evaluates novel interventions designed to improve outcomes. Kushel is the principal investigator for two studies on older homeless adults funded by the National Institute on Aging. One focuses on the causes and consequences of geriatric conditions, the other on family-assisted housing as an intervention. Kushel has also obtained support for her work as a mentor for junior investigators interested in improving health outcomes among older vulnerable populations. She is co-director of the UCSF Primary Care Research Fellowship, which trains primary care physicians and recent Ph.D.s in research of relevance to primary care. Kushel obtained her M.D. from Yale and completed a residency, chief residency and fellowship in internal medicine at UCSF. Twitter: @mkushel