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.
Caroline Prioleau writes and designs content for the Memory and Aging Center and the Global Brain Health Institute. She is interested in using design and technology to share complex information and facilitate collaborations across clinical, research and non-medical groups. She also co-leads an oral history project, hear/say, that focuses on collecting personal stories about the experience of aging, dementia and caregiving.
Igor Prufer Q.C. Araujo obtained his MD degree at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. He completed his neurology residency at Texas Tech University in Lubbock Texas being the chief resident in his final year of training. His current research interests include the benefits of multilingualism to cognitive reserve, the neural basis of decision making and socioeconomic factors affecting dementia care.
Kyle Pusateri is the Chief Operations Officer at GBHI, where he oversees the complex administrative components of GBHI, helping to ensure that the Institute is able to fulfill its mission of reducing the scale and impact of dementia worldwide.
James was born and raised in Beijing, China. He graduated from Westmont College in December 2019 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. His senior capstone project explored the effects of mindfulness meditation on people with mild cognitive impairment.
After graduation, he worked as a program specialist at Friendship Center Adult Day Services in Santa Barbara, where he organized and led memory-strengthening activities for older adults with dementia.
Dr. Rabinovici is the Edward Fein and Pearl Landrith Endowed Professor in Memory & Aging. He received his BS degree from Stanford University and MD from Northwestern University Medical School. He completed an internship in internal medicine at Stanford University, neurology residency (and chief residency) at UCSF and a behavioral neurology fellowship at the Memory and Aging Center (MAC).
Dr. Kamalini Ranasinghe received her medical degree from the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka and completed her internship training in general medicine and general surgery. She earned her doctorate degree in Cognition and Neuroscience from the University of Texas at Dallas, under the mentorship of Dr. Michael Kilgard.
Dr. Kate Rankin is a professor in the UCSF Department of Neurology who specializes in the neuropsychological, neuroanatomic and genetic underpinnings of human socioemotional behavior in healthy aging and neurodegenerative disease. She studied psychology at Yale for her undergraduate work and received graduate degrees from Fuller School of Psychology in Pasadena, including her PhD degree in clinical psychology and a master’s degree in theology.
Buddhika began working at the Memory and Aging Center as an Assistant Clinical Research Coordinator with the ALBA Language Neurobiology Lab, shortly after graduating with a degree in Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley in May 2020. He helps coordinate the Project Programs Grant, a longitudinal study collecting behavioral and brain imaging measures on patients with primary progressive aphasia (PPA).
Myrthe Rijpma is a visiting scholar from the Netherlands. She obtained her bachelor degree in clinical and neuropsychology in 2015, and she is currently working on her master in neuropsychology at the University of Utrecht. Myrthe joined the Rankin lab in March 2017 because of her interest in understanding changes in neural networks in neurodegenerative diseases. Her goal is to acquire a better understanding on how the brain is made up, and eventually contribute to developing better treatment.
Oscar is the Assistant Clinical Research Coordinator at the Yokoyama Lab. He supports the research focusing on the genetic, structural and cognitive characterization of Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia in Central and South American populations.
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.
