Juliet Emamaullee

Juliet Emamaullee, MD, PhD is an Associate Professor of Clinical Surgery at the University of Southern California (Keck School of Medicine), with a dual appointment in Immunology. She serves as an attending liver and kidney transplant surgeon at Keck Hospital of USC and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, while also acting as Associate Chief, Division of Clinical Research, Department of Surgery. Her academic journey includes a PhD in Immunology (2005) and MD (2010) from the University of Alberta, followed by General Surgery Residency at Emory University (2015) and Transplant/Hepatobiliary Fellowship at Alberta.

• Research Focus: Transplant immunology, living donor liver transplantation, computational biology applications in transplantation, Fontan-associated liver disease, and tolerance strategies.
• Leadership: Chair of the North American Living Liver Donation Innovation Group, active roles in the American College of Surgeons, American Society of Transplant Surgeons, American Society of Transplantation, and Association for Academic Surgery.
• Funding: Over $2 million in extramural funding, including a National Cancer Institute K08 Award, with NIH-supported translational immunobiology lab.
• Awards:
  • Jacobson Promising Investigator Award (ACS, 2023)
  • Rising Stars in Transplant Surgery (ASTS, 2023)
  • Basic Science Investigator Award (ILTS, 2023)
  • Royal Australasian College of Surgeons Visiting Professorship (AAS, 2022)
  • Clinical Science Career Development Award (AST, 2021)
  • Award for Young Leaders in Medicine (CMA, 2009)
  • Patricia Numann Medical Student Award (AWS, 2009)

Publications (15 most recent) demonstrate a strong emphasis on transplant immunology, single-cell technologies, living donor optimization, and health equity, with recent works on immune checkpoint inhibitors, CHALF scoring systems, and spatial proteomics in rejection prediction.

Education: PhD (Immunology, Alberta, 2005), MD (Alberta, 2010), General Surgery Residency (Emory, 2015), Transplant Fellowship (Alberta).

Labs & Teams: Leads the USC Transplant Research Lab, focusing on immunological phenotypes in liver transplant recipients, with affiliations to NIH, CTSI, and multiple transplant consortia.