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.
Salma was born and raised in Orange County, California. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in May 2022 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Molecular and Cell Biology: Neurobiology and Spanish Linguistics. She is now working as an Assistant Clinical Research Coordinator to aid with various studies related to Alzheimer's disease in the Rabinovici Lab.
Anne-Marie Rodriguez received her BS degree in biology & neuroscience and her BA degree in Spanish at the University of Portland. She works as an assistant clinical research coordinator for the Brain Health Assessment study with Dr. Katherine Possin. Anne-Marie’s interested in neurodegenerative diseases and TBIs, particularly working with the Spanish speaking population.
In her free time, Anne-Marie enjoys wine-making and exploring the outdoors.
Julio Rojas is a neurologist who specializes in dementia, caring for patients with cognitive difficulties or behavioral changes resulting from conditions including Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy body dementia (a form of dementia that causes cognitive defects and Parkinson’s-like symptoms), frontotemporal dementia (a common cause of dementia in younger adults that features behavioral changes) and progressive supranuclear pa
Lisa graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2020 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in neuroscience. As an undergraduate, she participated in neurodegenerative disease research with Penn’s Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research and Columbia University’s Taub Institute. Born and raised in the Bay Area, Lisa is proud to serve the UCSF community as a clinical research coordinator on the Boxer Clinical Trials team.
Dr. Rosen is a behavioral neurologist and holds the Dorothy Kirsten French Foundation Endowed Professorship for Parkinsonian and Other Neurodegenerative Disorders. He received his medical degree from Boston University School of Medicine, trained in internal medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, and subsequently completed a neurology residency at UCSF. After residency, Dr. Rosen pursued fellowship training in brain imaging at the Washington University School of Medicine, and then returned to UCSF to join the team at the Memory and Aging Center (MAC) in 1999.
Ashlin earned his bachelor of science degree in psychology at the University of Oregon in 2016. As an undergraduate, he assisted in several labs that study the neurobiological basis of behavior. After graduating, Ashlin worked as a lab manager at the University of Massachusetts Boston for Dr. Keith Welker and Dr. Rhiana Wegner. Currently, Ashlin is a data analyst at UCSF’s Memory and Aging Center for Dr. Virginia Sturm and Dr. David Perry.
Cande joined the Memory and Aging Center as the ADRC Data Coordinator in August 2017. She graduated from the University of California, Davis with a bachelor of arts degree in psychology and a minor in human development. During her time as an undergraduate, she interned at the UC Davis MIND Institute where she assisted in the Infant Sibling Study for the early detection of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). To gain further research experience, she took a position as a research assistant at the Developmental Research Center at UC Davis.
Rowan previously coordinated the Longitudinal Brain Aging Program from 2015–2017, and he returned to the MAC in 2021 to pursue a doctoral internship and postdoctoral fellowship in Clinical Neuropsychology under the mentorship of Dr. Joel Kramer.
Dr. Sampognaro majored in neurobiology as an undergrad at Georgetown University. There, he worked as a research assistant in the laboratory of Maria Donoghue, studying the molecular underpinnings of Eph/ephrin signaling and its role in cortical neuronal development. After college, he matriculated to the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he earned his MD and worked part-time in Charlotte Sumner’s laboratory, quantifying the degree of SMN1 insufficiency in humans with spinal muscular atrophy.
Movements are files of a person’s life, learned, reproduced, and altered as needed. There are external movements, those that make us act on objects and internal movements, and energy that we use in space and time. Clara’s interest in the body as a ‘depository of human expressiveness’ led her to a degree in Psychomotor Therapy with a master’s specialization in old age and mental health (University of Lisbon).
