- Assistant Professor; Department of Dermatology, Yale School of Medicine, Yale University
- Director of Yale Vulvar Dermatology Clinic, Department of Dermatology, Yale School of Medicine, Yale University
Dr. Alicia Little is an Assistant Professor of Dermatology at Yale School of Medicine and founding Director of the Yale Vulvar Dermatology Clinic. A board-certified dermatologist and immunologist, she specializes in the study and care of patients with autoimmune skin diseases that disproportionately affect women, with a primary research focus on cutaneous lupus and lichen sclerosus. She completed her undergraduate education at Amherst College, received her MD and PhD in immunobiology at Yale, and completed her dermatology residency and postdoctoral training under the mentorship of Dr. Joseph Craft at Yale.
Dr. Little’s research investigates the role of T and B cells in the pathogenesis of autoimmune skin disease. Her postdoctoral and early faculty work focused on human translational and mouse studies to identify tissue-adaptation and effector pathways activated in pathogenic T cells in cutaneous lupus. She continues these investigations with the goal of developing novel therapeutics, while building a parallel research program studying similar pathways in lichen sclerosus — an underdiagnosed inflammatory skin disease that most commonly affects female anogenital skin, causing scarring and predisposing to cancer development.
Her research has been supported by the NIH/NIAMS, the Dermatology Foundation, the Doris Duke Foundation, the Colton Center for Autoimmunity at Yale, and the Robert E. Leet and Clara Guthrie Patterson Trust. She has been recognized with the ASCI Young Physician Scientist Award and the AAD Young Investigator Award. Dr. Little is founding treasurer and president-elect of the Vulvar Dermatoses Research Consortium, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Dermatology.