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.
Ms. Soppe is the PET Program Clinical Research Supervisor working directly with the Rabinovici Lab. She is deeply involved with both faculty and staff in monitoring operational issues, regulatory compliance, and project development. Besides project management expertise, Carol brings over 20 years of research experience spanning fields from basic immunology, metabolic diseases, and oncology to transplantation and autoimmunity.
Dr. Spina received his medical degree from the University of Catania, Italy. He completed a neurology residency at the University of Siena, Italy from which he also obtained his doctorate degree on mechanisms of neurodegeneration. He was trained in neuropathology of dementia syndromes at the Indiana Alzheimer Disease Center, Indianapolis in the laboratory of Dr. Bernardino Ghetti. Later, he completed an internship in internal medicine and a neurology residency at Indiana University. Dr.
Dr. Staffaroni is a clinical neuropsychologist and Associate Professor at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center. His research focuses on improving early detection, prognosis, and monitoring of neurodegenerative diseases through a combination of clinical tests, neuroimaging, and blood-based biomarkers. He leads studies of remote digital data collection in frontotemporal dementia using smartphone assessments and sensor technologies.
Virginia Sturm, PhD, is the John Douglas French Alzheimer’s Foundation Endowed Professor at UCSF. She is a Professor in the Departments of Neurology and Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and she is the director of the Clinical Affective Neuroscience (CAN) Laboratory that is located in the UCSF Memory and Aging Center and affiliated with the UCSF Center for Psychophysiology and Behavior (CPB).
Lily joined the Seeley Lab in September 2023 as a research associate and assists with the brain bank, immunohistochemistry, and other technical work for various projects. Lily received a BA degree in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley in May 2023. As an undergraduate, Lily was a research assistant for a lab studying the neural pathways of feeding behavior in Drosophila, along with working in public health, sexual health education, and sexual violence and harassment prevention.
Gautam Tammewar completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in molecular and cell biology with an emphasis on neurobiology from the University of California, Berkeley. He previously worked at the Memory and Aging Center in the lab of Dr. Gil Rabinovici from 2013–2016, both as an undergraduate and as a full-time research associate after graduation. During this time, his research focused on the use of MRI and PET as imaging biomarkers of typical and atypical Alzheimer’s disease.
