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.
Erica is a pediatric speech-language pathologist in the UCSF Dyslexia Center. She has a BS degree in Human Development from UC Davis and an MS degree in Speech-Language Pathology from Boston University. Erica has worked with students with language-based learning disorders in both outpatient and school settings. Her research interests in developmental language and reading disorders are at the intersection of neurocognition, education, and clinical practice.
Originally from Austin, Ellie graduated from the University of San Francisco with her BA degree in psychology in 2023. At the University of San Francisco, Ellie was a research assistant in the Learning and Memory Lab where she studied thought suppression and the rebound effect. She was also a research assistant in the Social Cognition Lab studying moral outrage in virtual settings.
Originally from Sonoma County, Dolce attended college at UCLA, where she graduated with a degree in Psychology. While at UCLA, Dolce was a research assistant at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, studying the effects of behavioral therapy on children with autism spectrum disorder. She also served as a public speaker with the National Alliance on Mental Health, Westside LA, working to expand mental health awareness to young adults in the community.
Pedro Pinheiro-Chagas, PhD, studies the neural architecture and dynamics of human intelligence, focusing on symbolic cognitive systems, such as mathematics and language. His research program aims at understanding how these systems develop and decline and how we can help.
Hannah graduated from the University of Southern California in 2022 with a BS degree in Neuroscience. At USC, she was a research assistant at the Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute using histology techniques to visualize fluorescently labeled neural circuits. She also studied the effects of sex hormones on Alzheimer’s disease as a research assistant at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology. Hannah has experience performing immunohistochemistry, perfusion-fixation surgery, confocal microscopy, and imageJ analysis.
David received his BA degree in Neurobiology from UC Berkeley. Before joining the ALBA Lab, he was the Sleep Data Research Coordinator for the Richards lab at the San Francisco VA. Outside of research, he has experience as a medical scribe and an after-school teacher. In his free time, he enjoys watching basketball and dancing.
Stephanie was born and raised in Hong Kong. She attended the University of California, Berkeley and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Cognitive Science and Linguistics. At the Memory and Aging Center, she coordinates visits for Chinese-speaking participants. She aims to pursue a graduate degree in speech language pathology in the near future.
