Meet Our Team

Medical Director

David Klonoff, M.D., a board-certified endocrinologist, has been medical director of the DRI since 2000. After graduating from UCSF Medical School, he completed five years of postgraduate training at UCLA Hospital and UCSF hospitals. He has been instrumental in research into an artificial pancreas, continuous and noninvasive glucose monitors, novel hemoglobin A1c assays, new types of insulin pumps, alternate routes of insulin administration and digital health.

Dr. Klonoff received the American Diabetes Association Outstanding Physician Clinician Award in 2019. This international award honors meritorious contributions to diabetes clinical practice. He received an FDA Director’s Special Citation Award in 2010 for outstanding contributions related to diabetes technology. Dr. Klonoff coined the term “diabetes technology” and was the lead investigator on the landmark ASPIRE 2 study, which was the first multi-center outpatient study of a commercial artificial pancreas product.

He is the founding editor-in-chief of Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology and has authored more than 200 publications in PubMed-indexed journals, plus many research abstracts and textbook chapters. Dr. Klonoff has been a United States Army civilian medical officer in physiological monitoring at Fort Detrick, Md.; an advisor to NASA, the United States Air Force and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and a visiting professor at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology. He has spoken before the United States Congressional Diabetes Caucus, participated in the White House Health and Cybersecurity Roundtable and presented at the European Parliament.

DRI Sub-investigator

Chhavi Mehta M.D., has been part of Sutter Health since 2010 and a sub-investigator at the Diabetes Research Institute since 2014.  She’s associate medical director of quality for the Mills Peninsula Division of Palo Alto Medical Foundation. She also is the ambulatory physician lead for the Sutter Diabetes Clinical Improvement Community.

Dr. Mehta completed her residency in internal medicine from Alameda County Medical Center in Oakland, Calif. She’s board certified in Internal Medicine. 

Her professional interests are chronic disease management and prevention, as well as improving workflows in primary care clinics to achieve that goal. She has developed and worked on quality improvement projects related to diabetes, including integrating the diabetes educators within the primary clinics and developing a tele-management system for high-risk patients with diabetes. She’s currently working on addressing clinical inertia in treatment of diabetes and improving comprehensive care for patients with diabetes by focusing on cardiovascular risk reduction.

Clinical Research Coordinator

Irina is a diabetes research nurse and a certified diabetes educator. She came to Mills-Peninsula from Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford and has held her current position for the past 18 years. Irina is an expert in clinical trials for new drugs and devices for diabetes, having conducted more than 110 diabetes trials. She has been invited by the American Diabetes Association to be a research abstract reviewer and chaired a session on alternative therapy for diabetes for the American Diabetes Association’s Annual Scientific Sessions. She’s internationally recognized for her expertise in the use of insulin pens to improve accuracy and experience.

Assistant Research Coordinator

Joann has been working at the Diabetes Research Institute since 2009. She has conducted more than 50 diabetes trials on drugs and devices. Joann works with the research team to support clinical and regulatory requirements for conducting clinical trials according to protocols that have been reviewed by the Sutter Health Institutional Review Board.