Dr. Cheryl Pirozzi is a climbing-lifer and loves the wilderness. Dr. Pirozzi is a pulmonary medicine and pulmonary critical care doctor and exposure related lung disease researcher at the University of Utah.
Cheryl Pirozzi grew up in Manhattan Beach, California, outside of Los Angeles. She recounts an impactful experience going the Mojave Desert with the Girl Scouts as her first experience in wilderness and an introduction into climbing. As a teenager, Cheryl and her dad would go to Yosemite and find climbers to take them out. For her undergraduate studies, Cheryl went to Dartmouth College to study ecology and environmental biology. During that time, she started sport climbing at Rumney and met her husband Mike. They moved to Portland, Oregon, for two years before returning to Dartmouth College and Brown University for their medical studies. They picked the University of Utah for their residencies for the accessibility to wilderness and climbing. Cheryl recounts several memorable climbs, mentors in medicine and climbing, motherhood, COVID-19 pandemic, and mental wellbeing. Cheryl is a pulmonary medicine and pulmonary critical care doctor and exposure-related lung disease researcher at the University of Utah.
View Cheryl Pirozzi's Oral History in the Marriott Digital Library