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.
Dr. Maria Luisa Gorno Tempini is a behavioral neurologist, currently directing the Language Neurobiology laboratory of the UCSF Memory and Aging Center and the UCSF Dyslexia Center. She also directs the state-funded Multitudes Universal Screening Project, one of the four reading difficulties risk screeners approved by a state appointed panel for use in California public schools beginning in Fall of 2025. She obtained her medical degree and clinical neurology specialty training in Italy, and has a PhD in the neuroimaging of language from University College London.
Tanisha Hill-Jarrett, PhD, is a neuropsychologist and an assistant professor of neurology at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center. Her research applies intersectionality theory to understand how psychosocial stressors and structural racism and sexism impact Black women’s cognitive aging and confer risk for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD).
Emily Paolillo, PhD, is an Assistant Professor and neuropsychologist 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 program of research focuses on advancing real-world assessment of cognitive and everyday functioning in older adults in naturalistic settings, with the goal of improving early and sensitive detection of change in Alzheimer's disease and related dementias.
Dr. Saloner is a scientist-practitioner and Assistant Professor at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center. His research integrates deep molecular screening tools, including large-scale proteomics platforms and targeted biomarker assays, with longitudinal clinical phenotyping to discover molecular pathways and biomarker candidates that drive the earliest clinical manifestations of neurodegenerative disease. Dr.
Pedro Pinheiro-Chagas, PhD, studies the neural architecture and dynamics of human intelligence, focusing on symbolic cognitive systems, such as mathematics and language. His research program aims at understanding how these systems develop and decline and how we can help.
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.
Jet Vonk received her PhD degree in Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences from the City University of New York Graduate Center, with a focus on neurolinguistics and cognitive science. She also maintains an affiliation with the Department of Epidemiology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, where she is currently obtaining a second PhD in Epidemiology.
Dr. Tee is a neurologist from Taiwan and an Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health at the Global Brain Health Institute. She completed her medical and master’s degrees at National Taiwan University and her residency at National Taiwan University Hospital and En-Chu-Kong Hospital. She co-directs the Chinese outreach effort at UCSF Memory and Aging Center.
Sarah Inkelis is an assistant professor at the Memory and Aging Center. She completed her neuropsychology postdoctoral fellowship at the UCSF Dyslexia Center after earning her doctorate degree in Clinical Psychology at the SDSU/UC San Diego Joint Doctoral Program and finishing her internship in pediatric neuropsychology at the UCLA Semel Institute. Her PhD research examined neurobehavioral outcomes of children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, with a particular emphasis on the relationships between sleep and neurodevelopment.
Brandon Holmes, MD, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the Memory and Aging Center (MAC). He completed his clinical fellowship at the MAC and his post-doctoral research in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry in the laboratory of James A. Wells, PhD, where he studies how microglia, the innate immune cells of the central nervous system, alter their proteome in the context of neurodegeneration and neuroinflammation. Learn more about his research here.
