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.
Aimee Kao, MD, PhD, is a Professor of Neurology at the University of California, San Francisco and the John Douglas French Foundation Endowed Professor. She leads an NIH-supported Tau Center Without Walls and directs the UCSF Tau Consortium Human Fibroblast Bank. Dr.
Sarah Kaufman received her undergraduate degree in Molecular and Cell Biology, with a focus in Neuroscience from the University of California, Berkeley. She completed her MD/PhD degrees through Washington University in St. Louis MSTP. Her graduate research focused on tau aggregation and tau strain biology in the laboratory of Marc Diamond. After completing her dual degree she began Neurology residency at the University of California, San Francisco.
Niall Kavanagh is a communications officer with the Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI). Based at UCSF, he is responsible for developing and sharing the stories and messages of GBHI and the Atlantic Fellows for Equity in Brain Health.
Nair completed a Bachelor of Science degree with honors in Neuroscience at UC Santa Cruz in 2021. As an undergraduate, Nair founded the National Alzheimer’s Buddies UCSC chapter and became the national Chief Operations Officer for the organization, helping to recruit new chapters and bridge intergenerational gaps in dementia care across the US.
Margo graduated from UCLA with a BS degree in Applied Mathematics and a minor in Cognitive Science. She has previously worked at UCLA’s Computational Vision and Learning Lab and the German research center Forschungszentrum Jülich. Margo currently works in the UCSF Dyslexia Center, with a focus on math cognition and neuroimaging.
Alessandra serves as the primary point of contact for the Atlantic Fellows for Equity in Brain Health program at GBHI. While monitoring the fellows' progress and providing programmatic support, she facilitates connections within the Memory and Aging Center and the UCSF community.
Jana’s life is a continuous discovery of new passions and interests. Born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska, Jana’s passion for the outdoors, adventure and curiosity was determined at birth. In between camping and fishing with her family, she competed on a high level on the junior tennis circuit and eventually became a recruited athlete to Cornell University. This is where she found her passion for genetics and how this science impacts people and their lives. She went on to the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health and completed a Master of Science in genetic counseling.
Dr. Kramer is a Professor of Neuropsychology in Neurology, the Director of the Memory and Aging Center Neuropsychology program, and the John Douglas French Alzheimer’s Foundation Endowed Professor at UCSF. He earned his doctorate in psychology at Baylor University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in neuropsychology at the Martinez VA hospital. Dr. Kramer is board certified in clinical neuropsychology.
Lisa Kritikos earned her master’s degree in nursing at UCSF School of Nursing in 2020. She is certified as an Adult-Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner by the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP).
Stephanie was born and raised in Hong Kong. She attended the University of California, Berkeley and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Cognitive Science and Linguistics. At the Memory and Aging Center, she coordinates visits for Chinese-speaking participants. She aims to pursue a graduate degree in speech language pathology in the near future.
Renaud La Joie originally studied medicine in his native Normandy before graduating with a master’s degree in neuroscience from the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris. He then pursued a PhD degree in neuropsychology with Gael Chételat and Béatrice Desgranges, where he studied Alzheimer's disease using multimodal PET and MRI imaging. Dr. La Joie then spent a year with Dr. William Jagust at the University of California, Berkeley before joining Dr. Gil Rabinovici’s lab at the Memory and Aging Center in March 2016.
Tia graduated from UC Berkeley in 2020 after completing a dual degree in Integrative Biology and Molecular Environmental Biology. She started her research journey in 2018 as a research assistant at the Grinberg Lab practicing various wet lab techniques and focusing on the locus coeruleus' role as a biomarker for Alzheimer's disease.
