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.
Maria Luisa Mandelli leads the neuroimaging research within the language team of the Memory and Aging Center. Her research focuses on neuroanatomical changes caused by language and other neurodegenerative disorders. She has been working on brain magnetic resonance imaging for the past ten years, with the goal of better understanding of how the brain develops, changes over time, and how it makes us who we are.
Alyson is a practice coordinator that handles many sub-specialty clinics for the MAC such as Huntington’s disease, movement disorders and genetics. She graduated from CSU Long Beach with a bachelor’s degree in health science. She enjoys baking desserts, learning about the Korean culture and language, and has a passion for helping all those in need.
Austin is a clinical research coordinator in the Boxer Lab. He is looking forward to applying to PhD programs in cognitive neuroscience. He previously worked in the Hallquist Lab and Perez-Edgar Lab at Pennsylvania State University as an undergraduate research assistant, as well as summer internships at Celgene.
Kailey Mateo is the GBHI Monitoring and Evaluation Coordinator based at UCSF. She works with the Monitoring and Evaluation team to provide ongoing support for the monitoring and learning activities of the program and is helping to expand into new arenas, such as evaluating social impact.
Mindy works with faculty and staff to design the instructional content for the Atlantic Fellows for Equity in Brain Health program at the Global Brain Health Institute.
Elizabeth came to the Bay Area from Cedar Rapids, Iowa to attend Stanford University, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in Science, Technology and Society. During her time at Stanford, Elizabeth worked as a Residential Assistant in a student co-operative house and did publicity and outreach at the Women’s Community Center and the Haas Center for Public Service. Since graduating, she has worked as Residential Director at Stanford Pre-Collegiate Studies and has worked as the Operations Coordinator at Mixpanel.
Diana is a clinical research coordinator for the NIH-designated Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at the Memory and Aging Center, where she coordinates visits for Mandarin-speaking participants. She graduated from UC Davis with a Bachelor of Science degree in Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior.
Jennifer Merrilees received her doctorate degree in nursing from the University of California, San Francisco. She is a Clinical Nurse Specialist in Geriatrics at the Memory and Aging Center and Associate Clinical Professor for the UCSF School of Nursing.
Dr. Milanini received her PhD degree from the Catholic University of Rome. Prior to that, she graduated from La Sapienza University of Rome in July 2010 with a degree in Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychological Rehabilitation. Her PhD research focused on the identification of a cognitive screening test that is sensitive to the characteristics of neurocognitive impairment. Benedetta has published a manuscript on the usefulness of the MoCA screening test within the UCSF HIV Over 60 Cohort study in the Journal of AIDS.
