Healthy aging

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

Blythe is an Assistant Clinical Research Coordinator in the Kramer Lab at the UCSF Edward and Pearl Fein Memory and Aging Center, part of the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences. She works on the Brain Aging Network for Cognitive Health (BrANCH), a study focused on understanding brain aging and promoting cognitive health.

She graduated from Emory University in 2026 with a bachelor's degree in biology and human health.

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.

Laura Fenton, PhD, is a postdoctoral fellow in Kaitlin Casaletto, PhD’s lab at the UCSF Edward and Pearl Fein Memory and Aging Center, part of the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences. Her research focuses on understanding the factors that support healthy brain aging and cognitive resilience, or the ability to maintain cognitive function despite age-related changes in the brain. Dr.

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.

Gelasia is a Research Coordinator in the Kramer Lab at the UCSF Edward and Pearl Fein Memory and Aging Center, part of the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences. She works on the Active Mind and MarkVCID studies, which examine brain health and the vascular contributions to cognitive impairment and dementia. She earned a bachelor's degree in neuroscience from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2026.

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.