MAC
Staff ADRC Staff
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| staff Neuropsychologists & Cognitive Neuroscientists
Dr. Dronkers received her PhD degree in Neuropsychology from the University of California, Berkeley in 1985. Nina Dronkers is a consultant to the UCSF Memory and Aging Center and specializes in adult speech and language disorders. Dr. Dronkers assists in the evaluation of those individuals with progressive changes in their speech or language skills and participates in ongoing research concerning language abilities in dementia. She is currently the Director of the Center for Aphasia and Related Disorders and the Chief of the Audiology and Speech Pathology Service at the Department of Veterans Affairs Northern California Health Care System. She also holds an appointment as Adjunct Professor in the Departments of Neurology and Linguistics at the University of California, Davis. Dr. Dronkers' expertise is in the field of Aphasia and in understanding the language and communication deficits that can occur with neurological disease. She has conducted extensive research in this area and in the localization of language functions in the brain. UP  Julene Johnson, PhD  Publications (PDF)
Dr.
Johnson received her PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience from the Dr.
Julene K Johnson is a Cognitive Neuroscientist
and Associate Professor of Neurology at the
UCSF Memory and Her
research interests include cognitive and neuropathological
studies of mild cognitive impairment, frontotemporal
dementia, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
She is particularly interested in the frontal
cortex and executive function, especially
in the pre-clinical stages of dementia.
Dr. Kramer earned his Doctorate in Psychology at Baylor University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Martinez VA hospital. Dr. Kramer is board certified in clinical neuropsychology and serves on the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Clinical Neuropsychology. Dr. Kramer is a Clinical Professor of Neuropsychology in Neurology and the Director of the Memory and Aging Center Neuropsychology program. Dr. Kramer has been extensively involved in studying the cognitive changes associated with brain disorders for the past two decades. He has co-authored widely used neuropsychological measures of memory and executive functioning. Much of his work has been devoted to identifying the different ways in which neurodegenerative diseases affect memory and other abilities and in utilizing these differences to improve differential diagnosis in clinic. Presently, Dr. Kramer's active areas of research include studying the cognitive effects of cerebrovascular disease and frontotemporal dementia, identifying behavioral markers of pre-clinical Alzheimer's disease, and understanding the relationships between aging, hormones, and behavior. UP
Katherine Possin was awarded her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from UCSD in June 2007 and completed her internship at UCSF with focused research and clinical work in neuropsychology at the Memory and Aging Center. She is now a full-time postdoctoral fellow at the Center. During her training at UCSD, she studied cognitive changes associated with Parkinson’s disease. She joined the Memory and Aging Center to investigate executive functioning in patients with neurodegenerative disease using a component process analysis and magnetic resonance imaging modalities. UP
Caroline Racine received her B.A. in Psychology from Boston University, where she completed an honors thesis exploring visual-perceptual deficits in patients with stroke and traumatic brain injury. From 1997-1999 she worked as a research assistant with Dr. Dan Schacter at Harvard University on studies examining false memories in healthy aging. Dr. Racine went on to obtain an M.A. and Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at Washington University in St. Louis, specializing in Neuropsychology and Aging. Her research at Washington University examined changes in frontal lobe function during healthy aging using both behavioral and neuroimaging methods (e.g., fMRI). She completed her clinical internship at Duke University in 2005 and afterward completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in Neuropsychology at the Memory and Aging Center. Currently, Dr. Racine is a member of the Neuropsychology team that provides clinical and research evaluations for the MAC. Her research interests include white matter contributions to normal aging and cognition in Parkinsonian disorders such as Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). UP  Katherine P. Rankin, PhD PubMed
She received her B.A. in Psychology from Yale University, where she worked in a psychiatric epidemiology research unit at Yale School of Medicine. She went on to obtain a Master’s degree in Theology and Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at Fuller in Los Angeles. During her training she worked at USC researching the effects of estrogen and cortisol on the brain, and also researched cognition and social functioning in Klinefelter’s patients at Harbor UCLA Medical Center. After finishing her internship at the Martinez VA hospital and UC Davis Medical Center, she came to the Memory and Aging Center at UCSF to complete a 2-year post-doctoral fellowship in neuropsychology. Dr. Rankin is currently an Assistant Professor in the UCSF Department of Neurology, and works as a neuropsychologist with the UCSF Memory and Aging Center. Dr. Rankin specializes in research examining the neuroanatomic changes that can cause altered personality and social behavior in dementia. She is the principal investigator on a number of grants that have allowed her to investigate topics such as the link between hormones and social behavior, and artistic creativity in dementia. UP
Indre Viskontas received a Bachelor of Science degree from the She joined the Memory and Dr. Viskontas is also a classically-trained
soprano pursuing a Masters of Music degree at the
San Francisco Conservatory of Music and performing
with regional opera companies in the Bay Area.
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