People

Natalie Pandher, BS

Clinical Research Coordinator

Emily Paolillo, PhD

Assistant Adjunct Professor

Emily Paolillo, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center. She obtained her PhD degree in Clinical Psychology (emphasis in Neuropsychology) from the SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program in 2021, which included a predoctoral clinical internship at VA Palo Alto Health Care System. Her research interests include evaluating digital health tools for early detection and monitoring of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.

Gabriella Parham-Cruzado, MS, SLP

Research Speech-Language Pathologist

Gabriella is a bilingual speech-language pathologist at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center in the Dyslexia Center led by Dr. Marilu Gorno Tempini. Gabriella has a BA degree in Psychology from the University of Puerto Rico and an MS degree in Speech and Language Pathology from Carlos Albizu University. Gabriella is a native Spanish speaker, raised and educated in Puerto Rico, and is passionate about bilingualism.

Jessica Pasqua, MD

Jessica Pasqua

Behavioral Neurology Clinical Fellow

Jessica Pasqua, MD, completed her Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical-Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. There she was part of an advocacy and support group for former foster youth which inspired her to pursue a career in medicine with a focus on serving those with limited access to medical care due to poverty and social inequity. She then completed her Medical Degree (MD), her Adult Neurology residency, and her Epilepsy fellowship at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Bettina Pedemonte

Full Specialist

Bettina Pedemonte completed a PhD degree in mathematics in Italy at Genoa University and a PhD degree in mathematics education in France at Grenoble University. She has experience in teaching mathematics, in particular to students with learning disorders. She designed technological environments to support mathematical learning. Her research interests include understanding cognitive processes involved in solving mathematical problems and finding new teaching methods to support mathematical learning. Bettina joined UCSF in March 2018, specializing in designing a battery for dyscalculia.

Francesca Pei

Chief Operating Officer, Multitudes, ALBA Language Neurobiology Lab

In addition to her doctorate degree in Developmental Neuroscience from the University of Pisa, Francesca Pei brings over 20 years of leadership, operational management and strategic planning in a variety of health care, research, academic and education settings. She joined UCSF in 2022 as the Chief Operating Officer for Applied Neuroscience projects in the ALBA Lab at the MAC.

Christa Pereira, PsyD

Assistant Professor

Dr. Watson graduated from the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology-Stanford PsyD Consortium in 2014. She has a background in psychology, developmental biology, neuroimaging and neuropsychology. Her research interests include brain development across the lifespan and, in particular, in the neuroscience of typical and atypical learning. She is currently working in the ALBA Language Neurobiology Lab with Dr. Maria Luisa Gorno Tempini.

David Perry, MD

Associate Professor

Dr. Perry graduated from medical school at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. He completed an internship in internal medicine and residency in neurology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota where he also researched obsessive-compulsive features in dementia. He is an Assistant Professor of Neurology at the Memory and Aging Center and participates in the evaluation and treatment of patients in the MAC clinic.

His current area of research interest is the impact of neurodegenerative illness on reward processing.

Stefania Pezzoli, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow

Stefania Pezzoli completed her PhD degree in Neuroscience at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom. Her research aimed to investigate the neural and cognitive correlates of visual hallucinations in Lewy body disease and Alzheimer’s disease by integrating multimodal neuroimaging and neuropsychological measures.

Albert Pham

Data Engineer

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.

Hieu Pham

Hieu Pham, BA

Assistant Clinical Research Coordinator

Hieu Pham received his BA degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology with an emphasis on Neurobiology from UC Berkeley. He is from Sacramento, California, and plans to pursue medical school in the future. At the Memory and Aging Center, Hieu is part of the team working on the frontotemporal dementia program project grant, Frontotemporal Dementia: Genes, Images and Emotions.

Andrew Philipoff

Senior Systems Adminstrator

Andrew manages technological services for the Memory and Aging Center and the Global Brain Health Institute.

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