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.
Carmen Hart is the Program and Events Manager for the Global Brain Health Institute. She works closely with the Executive Director and GBHI senior staff to coordinate, manage and plan key aspects and activities of GBHI and the Atlantic Fellows program. She brings extensive expertise in event planning, project coordination, marketing and sales in the healthcare, media, technology and luxury hospitality industries. Before joining GBHI, she managed a contact center team at George P.
Rowan graduated from Middlebury College in May 2024 with a major in Sociology and a minor in Global Health. She joined the UCSF Memory and Aging Center (MAC) in June 2024 as a clinical research coordinator in the Dementia Imaging Genetics Lab led by Dr. Suzee Lee, where she coordinates a study investigating the neurodevelopment of children from families with a history of frontotemporal dementia or Alzheimer’s disease.
Alex earned his degree from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, where he specialized in the epidemiology of chronic diseases. He is passionate about advancing health care literacy and empowering individuals to make informed decisions about their well-being.
Outside of work, Alex enjoys running around Lake Merritt in Oakland, exploring new music, and hiking and camping in the great outdoors.
Cesar holds bachelor’s degrees in psychology and ecology from the University of California, Davis and a Master of Public Health in epidemiology from Boston University. Prior to joining the UCSF Memory and Aging Center, Cesar worked in the Women’s Health Clinical Research Center (WHCRC) at UCSF managing data for the San Francisco Mammography Registry (SFMR) database and various clinical trial studies.
Joe Hesse joined the Memory and Aging Center in 2002 and serves as the center’s Director of Innovation. His focus is the development of informatics and computational infrastructure in support of precision medicine. He works in collaboration with many groups and faculty across UCSF with the overall goal of delivering technology solutions to clinicians and researchers that are both scientifically agile and regulatory compliant.
Dr. Margo Heston is a postdoctoral scholar and an NIH F99/K00 fellow funded through the NIH Blueprint and BRAIN Initiative Diversity Specialized Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Advancement in Neuroscience (D-SPAN) program.
Tanisha Hill-Jarrett, PhD, is a neuropsychologist and an assistant professor of neurology at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center. Her research applies intersectionality theory to understand how psychosocial stressors and structural racism and sexism impact Black women’s cognitive aging and confer risk for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD).
Aidyn was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. In May 2024, she graduated from Whitman College with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a minor in biology. She previously worked as a student researcher in the Psychology Department at Whitman College, investigating the effect of language framing on victim-blaming attitudes and prosocial behavior. Aidyn is now an Assistant Clinical Research Coordinator for the PET program in the Rabinovici Lab at the Memory and Aging Center.
Molly studied Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles. She then completed her PhD degree with Professor Peter Juo at Tufts University, where she investigated the regulation of the AMPA-type glutamate receptor by its deubiquitinating enzyme USP-46 in C. elegans. She identified two novel mechanisms by which USP-46 is stabilized and activated by two WD40-repeat proteins, WDR-48 and WDR-20, to promote AMPAR abundance and recycling to the neuronal surface. In the Kao lab, Molly will continue her research in protein homeostasis and degradation in C.
