Meet the Team

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

Gloria Aguirre is an artist and community advocate who has been part of the Edward and Pearl Fein Memory and Aging Center since 2019. She is an Atlantic Fellow for Health Equity at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and serves as the Artistic Director of Creative Minds, a San Francisco-based community arts initiative advancing brain health. She also works as the Community Engagement Manager for the Fein Memory and Aging Center’s Community Outreach Program.

Cecilia Alagappan, RN, has been at UCSF Memory and Aging Center (MAC) since 2011 and is a clinical and research nurse. She has over 30 years of nursing experience caring for elderly patients with various medical conditions, including those with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, cardiac disease and cancers needing home infusion therapy and pain management. As a nurse educator in a home care agency, Cecilia trained caregivers to care for patients with dementia, including assisting the family with behavior management and activities of daily living.

Celina graduated from the University of San Diego with a BA degree in Behavioral Neuroscience and a minor in Philosophy before she obtained her MS degree in Neuroimaging and Informatics from the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine.

Janet Allen-Williams joined the UCSF Department of Neurology in 2015. Since April 2023, Janet has served as an Academic Assistant for the Edward and Pearl Fein Memory and Aging Center, providing Academic Core Team services to the education team.
 

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.

Andrea earned a Master of Science degree in biomedical engineering, with a specialization in stem cell research, from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. She is a specialist in the Kao Lab.

Nilgoun Bahar, SLP, PhD, is a postdoctoral research scholar in the ALBA Lab at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center, where she works primarily on the Dyslexia Project. She earned her PhD in experimental psychology from the University of Oxford’s Brain, Speech, and Language Lab and holds a clinical master’s degree in speech-language pathology from the University of Toronto. She completed her clinical residency at the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto.

Michelle received her master’s degree in Lifespan Developmental Psychology with a specialization in Gerontology from Louisiana State University. She has over 25 years of experience working with people with dementia and their care partners as a researcher, consultant, educator and program planner. Her areas of expertise include timely detection, early intervention and improving health care quality for people with dementia.

Maya graduated from Middlebury College in 2024 with a BA degree in neuroscience and a minor in art history. During her time at Middlebury, she contributed to a research project investigating gender and sex differences in visuospatial abilities among children using the Judgment of Line and Position Task (JLAP). Maya also spent a summer as a research assistant in the Hammack Laboratory of Behavioral Neuroscience at the University of Vermont, where she studied the neurobiological underpinning of anxiety-like and depression-like behaviors.

Eden received a BS degree in Biological Sciences from UC Irvine and a PhD in Neuroscience from UC Davis. Her doctoral work broadly focused on learning, memory, and synaptic plasticity. Now, as a member of the Boxer Lab, she is interested in facilitating more equitable and inclusive research of neurodegenerative disorders.