People

Rebecca Snell

Assistant Clinical Research Coordinator

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.

Karin Snowberg

Research Project Manager

Karin (“Kari”) joined the Boxer Lab’s Clinical Trials team as a Project Manager in 2023. A San Francisco native (born at UCSF!), she has managed intervention research for over 15 years, the last ten aiming to reduce stress in family caregivers of people with dementia.
 

David Soleimani-Meigooni, MD

Assistant Professor

Dr. David N. Soleimani-Meigooni is a neurologist who cares for patients experiencing cognitive symptoms as a result of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease.

In research, Soleimani-Meigooni focuses on advancing precision-medicine approaches to diagnosing Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative diseases. He looks at using positron emission tomography (PET) to image amyloid-beta and tau (protein fragments that accumulate in the brains of people with the condition).

Gowoon Son

Gowoon Son, PhD

Postdoctoral Scholar

Dr. Gowoon Son is a molecular and cellular neuroscientist and received her PhD degree from Maastricht University in the Netherlands and DGIST in South Korea in 2021. Her doctoral work focused on the neuropathology of Alzheimer’s disease in the olfactory system. She identified the olfactory sensory neurons that generate amyloid-beta protein, which causes anosmia in Alzheimer’s disease, by using both genetically modified mouse models and human tissues. In addition, she discovered a potential non-invasive biomarker using human nasal fluid.

Carol Soppe

Carol Soppe, MS

Clinical Research Supervisor

Ms. Soppe is the PET Program Clinical Research Supervisor working directly with the Rabinovici Lab. She is deeply involved with both faculty and staff in monitoring operational issues, regulatory compliance, and project development. Besides project management expertise, Carol brings over 20 years of research experience spanning fields from basic immunology, metabolic diseases, and oncology to transplantation and autoimmunity.

Melissa Sotelo, BS

Assistant Clinical Research Coordinator

Salvatore Spina, MD, PhD

Associate Professor

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.

Adam Staffaroni, PhD

Associate Professor

Dr. Staffaroni is a clinical neuropsychologist and Associate Professor at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center. His research focuses on improving early detection, prognosis, and monitoring of neurodegenerative diseases through a combination of clinical tests, neuroimaging, and blood-based biomarkers. He leads studies of remote digital data collection in frontotemporal dementia using smartphone assessments and sensor technologies.

Melanie Stephens, PhD

Clinic Director

Dr. Melanie Stephens directs the Memory and Aging Center Clinic and is an Assistant Professor of Neuropsychology.

Virginia Sturm, PhD

Professor

Virginia Sturm, PhD, is the John Douglas French Alzheimer’s Foundation Endowed Professor at UCSF. She is a Professor in the Departments of Neurology and Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and she is 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).

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