Meet the Team

Shaista Afzal is a research coordinator for the Brain Aging Network for Cognitive Health (BRANCH) program.

Gloria Aguirre is an artist and community advocate who has been part of the Edward and Pearl Fein Memory and Aging Center since 2019. She is an Atlantic Fellow for Health Equity at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and serves as the Artistic Director of Creative Minds, a San Francisco-based community arts initiative advancing brain health. She also works as the Community Engagement Manager for the Fein Memory and Aging Center’s Community Outreach Program.

Cecilia Alagappan, RN, has been at the UCSF Edward and Pearl Fein Memory and Aging Center since 2011 and serves as a clinical and research nurse. She has over 30 years of nursing experience caring for older patients with various medical conditions, including those with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, cardiac disease, and cancers needing home infusion therapy and pain management. As a nurse educator in a home care agency, Cecilia trained caregivers to care for patients with dementia, including assisting the family with behavior management and activities of daily living.

Celina graduated from the University of San Diego with a BA degree in Behavioral Neuroscience and a minor in Philosophy before she obtained her MS degree in Neuroimaging and Informatics from the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine.

Subahnia earned a Bachelor of Science degree in global and public health sciences, with a minor in human development, from Cornell University in May 2025. She is a clinical research coordinator at the UCSF Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC) and a member of the Rabinovici Lab within the Edward and Pearl Fein Memory and Aging Center.

Janet Allen-Williams joined the UCSF Department of Neurology in 2015. Since April 2023, Janet has served as an Academic Assistant for the Edward and Pearl Fein Memory and Aging Center, providing Academic Core Team services to the education team.
 

Florianne is a Staff Research Associate in the Specimen Processing Lab at the UCSF Edward and Pearl Fein Memory and Aging Center. A San Francisco native, she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Health Sciences from Cal State University, East Bay. Prior to joining the Fein Memory and Aging Center, Florianne worked in the Core Immunology Laboratory at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, where she supported infectious disease research, coordinated study activities, and contributed to sample processing for HIV clinical trials and related studies.

Jorge Archila is an Assistant Clinical Research Coordinator at the Edward and Pearl Fein Memory and Aging Center in the Department of Neurology at the University of San Francisco, California. He has a BS degree in psychology and a BA degree in psychopedagogy. He is a Bilingual Certified Specialist in Psychometry.

Jorge moved from Guatemala in 2011 and began working in psychometry, administering psychological test batteries in English and Spanish in a neuropsychological private practice in San Francisco.

Andrea earned a Master of Science degree in biomedical engineering, with a specialization in stem cell research, from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. She is a specialist in the Kao Lab at the Edward and Pearl Fein Memory and Aging Center.

Nilgoun Bahar, SLP, PhD, is a postdoctoral research scholar in the ALBA Lab at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center, where she works primarily on the Dyslexia Project. She earned her PhD in experimental psychology from the University of Oxford’s Brain, Speech, and Language Lab and holds a clinical master’s degree in speech-language pathology from the University of Toronto. She completed her clinical residency at the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto.