Dr. Jess Mandel serves as the Kenneth M. Moser Professor of Medicine, the Executive Vice-Chair of the Department of Medicine, and Chief of the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine at UC San Diego. In addition to his administrative responsibilities and scholarship, he remains an active educator and clinician in both critical care and pulmonary settings. A physician “frontline provider” in the intensive care unit during the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Mandel also oversaw critical care surge planning for UCSD Health. In addition, he developed and led efforts to assist the Tijuana, Mexico medical community in dealing with their surge of COVID-19 patients, including establishment of daily in-person collaborations with Hospital General de Tijuana (the safety net hospital and largest COVID-19 care provider in that region of Mexico) as well as donations of lifesaving medical equipment. Subsequently, he also led efforts to assist Mexicali General Hospital in Mexicali, Mexico with their COVID-19 surge. In part due to these efforts, he was named UCSD's Physician of the Year of 2020 and received special commendations from the San Diego County and Tijuana, Mexico Medical Societies.