UCSF’s innovative, collaborative approach to patient care, research and education spans disciplines across the life sciences, making it a world leader in scientific discovery and its translation to improving health.
Dr. Shanaki Bavarsad received her PhD degree from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in Spain. Her PhD thesis was about the effects of CNS local production of IL-10 on neuroprotection and the inflammatory response (microglial activation and leukocyte recruitment) associated with a traumatic brain injury, by generating a new transgenic animal that overproduces this cytokine under the control of the GFAP promoter on astrocytes.
Chelsea Chen is a clinical research coordinator with the Geschwind Lab at the Memory and Aging Center. She oversees studies involving spinocerebellar ataxia and multiple systems atrophy.
Chelsea previously worked for the Bove Lab at the UCSF Multiple Sclerosis and Neuroinflammation Center and studied psychology at UC Berkeley. She plans to go to medical school.
Jolina received her master’s degree in cognitive neuroscience from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. For her PhD degree in clinical neuropsychology, she joined the German FTLD consortium at the Department of Neurology in Ulm, Germany to examine cognitive features and neuroimaging biomarkers in frontotemporal dementia with a focus on primary progressive aphasia. She joined the Dementia Imaging Genetics Lab in 2021 to get a deeper understanding of the brain’s connectivity and its systematic degeneration in frontotemporal dementia.
Margo graduated from UCLA with a BS degree in Applied Mathematics and a minor in Cognitive Science. She has previously worked at UCLA’s Computational Vision and Learning Lab and the German research center Forschungszentrum Jülich. Margo currently works in the UCSF Dyslexia Center, with a focus on math cognition and neuroimaging.
Zoe is a speech-language pathologist at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center in the ALBA Language Neurobiology Lab led by Dr. Marilu Gorno Tempini. Zoe has a BS degree in Cognitive Science with a specialization in neuroscience from UC San Diego and an MS degree in Speech-Language Pathology from Vanderbilt University.
Jorge Archila is an Assistant Clinical Research Coordinator at the Memory and Aging Center in the Department of Neurology at the University of San Francisco, California. He has a BS degree in psychology and 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.
Oscar is the Assistant Clinical Research Coordinator at the Yokoyama Lab. He supports the research focusing on the genetic, structural and cognitive characterization of Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia in Central and South American populations.
Alexis is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, where she received her Bachelor’s degree in Data Science and a concentration in Urban Science. As an Undergraduate Research Assistant, Alexis studied the impact of the technology industry on housing in the Bay Area. Her specialities include data mapping and data visualization, and she is deeply interested in the intersections of neurology, data science, and social justice.
