Alum Returns to UCSF to Teach New Students, Centering Representation and Holistic Care

When Tristan Storm, PharmD ’21, stepped into his new role as an assistant adjunct professor in the UCSF School of Pharmacy, he was already familiar with the campus community — and the power of representation within it. 

A decade after moving to the San Francisco Bay Area from Denmark, and just a few years after earning his PharmD from UCSF, Storm has returned to UCSF to help educate new cohorts of pharmacy students while continuing to advocate for more inclusive, human-centered health care. His focus: queer and trans health, and the importance of holistic, interdisciplinary approaches to patient care. 

“I was a specialty pharmacist before I came on as faculty and had exposure to a lot of different, complex conditions,” Storm said. “The pharmaceutical side of it was interesting, but a lot of it, for me, was also learning the more human side of how to support those patients.” 

Storm, who is autistic, said that even though he is “not particularly a people person,” he felt that the whole-person context was often missing from his medical experience.  

“I want to remind students that even if we're talking about one drug and one mechanism, the goal is to treat a person who has a lot going on,” he said. “A person is never just straightforward, like a case that you're given in class. There's always more going on, and sometimes the best option for one patient is not the same as the guideline, or whatever is recommended or typical, because of their unique circumstances.” 

A pathway into pharmacy 

Storm’s journey to pharmacy was, by his own account, somewhat unexpected. Though his undergraduate studies emphasized biology, it wasn’t until a biochemistry professor shared insights from the pharmaceutical industry that he considered pharmacy as a career. 

“I’ve always been into science and biology, and had an interest in health related fields,” he said. “But pharmacy, specifically, wasn’t something I had a lot of awareness around until a biochemistry professor who had worked in pharma made references to it. That’s when it first pinged for me.”  

Storm was part of the first class to graduate from UCSF’s revamped three-year PharmD program.  

“One thing that intimidated me a bit — which was also the draw — was the idea of being the drug expert. I felt I had to be an expert on everything, and that's just not possible,” he added. “You have to know enough to know what you don't know. Who do you ask? Where do you look it up? Can you trust what you're seeing? What's reliable and what's relevant? No one person is going to have all that background or knowledge or context. So it's really about learning how to integrate other people's work and experiences." 

Representing, teaching, and being seen 

That ethos of collaboration guides Storm’s teaching. As a volunteer faculty member following graduation, he maintained close connections to UCSF through mentors like professor Igor Mitrovic, MD, and PharmD advisor Julie Reed, PhD, and then joined the faculty officially in January 2025. Now, his presence in the classroom serves not just an academic role, but a representational one as well. 

In addition to identifying as neurodivergent, Storm identifies as genderqueer and transmasculine. 

“I've taught in the field of queer and trans health in many different contexts, and I wanted to bring that experience and perspective into our program, not because every class is about trans health, but in terms of treating the whole person. The diversity in patients is often something that we don't talk about enough in school. For example, there is a lot of sex-based dosing, and what do they actually mean by that? Is it based on your hormones? Is it based on your anatomy? Is it based on your identity? And how do you know as a provider?” 

Bridging science and practice 

Storm will be teaching this inclusive mindset while housed in the Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, a joint department of the UCSF School of Pharmacy and the School of Medicine. He said he is excited to be a pharmacist among basic scientists, and to provide a link between research and practice. 

“When these expert researchers come in and lecture, they're all very excited about what they're doing,” he said. “That link of how applicable the research is for a pharmacist is often missing. This is something I felt was a gap when I was a student, and I had to sort of backfill afterwards, when I started seeing things applied.” 

Whether he’s leading with his experience as a pharmacist, or as a human who is trans and autistic, Storm said representation is an important part of what he has to offer to the UCSF community. He wants students to see that reflected in his teaching. 

“I came out as trans while as a student. And I put a lot of thought into that — how to do it, whether I wanted to do it while I was at UCSF, whether it was better to wait, and what the best approach was. I felt safe doing that here, and that has continued to be confirmed for me,” he said. “Not everyone is equally versed, of course, but the support is there, and I haven't felt that waver at any point as a student or as a faculty member now. And the willingness to learn is there.”