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.
Fonda Smith has a bachelor of arts degree in criminal justice and a passion for social justice. Born and raised in San Francisco, Fonda grew up in poverty and was impacted by the social justice issues such as mass incarceration and gentrification that continuously plague under-served communities of color. She began working in the nonprofit sector at a very early age to empower communities of color and help those in need. She immediately made it her life’s mission to uplift and amplify the voices of those in underserved communities, advocating for positive social justice for all.
Rebecca Snell graduated from UC Davis with a Bachelor of Science degree in Neurobiology, Physiology, and Behavior with an emphasis in Neurobiology and a minor in Psychology. She works as part of the Clinical Trials Team with Dr. Adam Boxer.
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 neuropsychologist and assistant professor at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center. He provides clinical neuropsychological assessments, and his research focuses on predicting disease progression and improving endpoints for clinical trials in neurodegenerative diseases. He obtained a PhD in Clinical Psychology at Palo Alto University, with an emphasis in neuropsychology. He completed a clinical internship at the West Los Angeles VA Health Care System and a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in neuropsychology at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center.
Virginia Sturm, PhD, is the John Douglas French Alzheimer’s Foundation Endowed Professor at UCSF. She is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Neurology and Psychiatry and 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).
Motivated after helping to care for a family member with Alzheimer’s disease, Jeremy studied neuroscience at the University of Southern California as an undergraduate. He then obtained his medical degree and a master’s degree in public health from Johns Hopkins. There he was involved in dementia care coordination and Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis research, and he completed the Sommer Scholar public health leadership program. He subsequently completed neurology residency training at UCSF, during which he joined Dr.
