Healthy Aging

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

Lana is a research coordinator in Dr. Joel Kramer’s lab working primarily on the Active Mind Clinical Trial as well as the Brain Aging Network for Cognitive Health study and the Mechanisms of Executive Decline study. She graduated with a BS degree in Neurobiology, Physiology, and Behavior from UC Davis in June 2022

Kaitlin Casaletto, PhD, is a board-certified neuropsychologist, scientist-practitioner, and Associate Professor in the Department of Neurology at the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences and the UCSF Edward and Pearl Fein Memory and Aging Center.

Coty is a research coordinator for Dr. Kaitlin Casaletto’s Activities for Aging Neurogenesis study, an intervention-based study investigating the relationship between lifestyle factors and protein markers of neural functioning. She graduated with a BS degree in Clinical Psychology from UC San Diego.

Valentina joined Dr. Joel Kramer’s lab as a research coordinator in September of 2021 and works primarily on the Healthy Brain Aging study as well as the Mechanisms of Executive Decline study. She graduated with a BA degree in Neurobiology from UC Berkeley in May of 2021 and has interests in neurodegenerative disorders with plans of becoming a neurosurgeon.

Joel Kramer, PsyD, is a board-certified clinical neuropsychologist and professor of neuropsychology in the Department of Neurology at UCSF. He serves as the Director of the Neuropsychology Program at the UCSF Edward and Pearl Fein Memory and Aging Center and holds the John Douglas French Alzheimer’s Foundation Endowed Professorship.

Sophia is a research coordinator in Dr. Joel Kramer’s lab working primarily on the Brain Aging Network for Cognitive Health study and the Mechanisms of Executive Decline study. She graduated with a BA degree in Integrative Biology from UC Berkeley in 2024.

Albert is a data engineer working on the Brain Aging Network for Cognitive Health study building reproducible data pipelines. He graduated with a BA degree in Computer Science from UC Berkeley in 2017.

Adam Staffaroni, PhD, is a clinical neuropsychologist and associate professor at the UCSF Edward and Pearl Fein Memory and Aging Center, part of the Weill Institute for Neurosciences. He specializes in evaluating and caring for patients with neurodegenerative conditions that affect memory, thinking, and behavior, including Alzheimer’s disease and frontotemporal dementia. Dr. Staffaroni’s research focuses on improving early detection, prognosis, and disease monitoring through innovative approaches that combine clinical assessments, neuroimaging, and blood-based biomarkers.

Anna is a doctoral student working with Dr. Kaitlin Casaletto in the Longitudinal Brain Aging Program for the duration of her PhD program. She is interested in cerebrovascular burden as it relates to exercise, cognitive aging and cardiovascular health. Additionally, she conducts much of her clinical work in Spanish and is interested in bilingual assessment.