Faculty spotlight: Joanne Stekler

Dr. Joanne Stekler, professor (Allergy and Infectious Diseases) received her medical degree from Duke University in 1997 before coming to Seattle for residency and joining the Division of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in 2000.

She provides care and preventive services for patients living with and at risk for HIV, providing HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in the community clinic she started in 2013 (the first in the country to provide PrEP via telemedicine, back in 2015.)

“As a doctor whose career has focused on caring for people living with HIV, I’m lucky to have finished medical school in the mid-1990s, just as antiretroviral therapy was becoming available.

I’ve been able to share in the lives of people who thought they’d never grow old. I’ve seen the medicines become so effective that helping people living with HIV get on treatment can prevent the transmission of HIV to anyone else.

And these medicines are so safe that we now give them to HIV-negative people to prevent them from becoming infected in the first place. That’s what PrEP is. ”

In addition to her work in infectious diseases, she has been cooking and baking for 40+ years. In January 2021, she started a food blog, Ugly Duckling Bakery.

“Blogging has given me new ways to connect with people,” she says. “I get to teach people things they may not know about cooking and baking. And, just like with medicine, I’ve been both mentor and mentee to other food bloggers.”