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.
Lily is a graduate of the University of San Francisco with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology and minors in gerontology and music and has completed a Master of Science in gerontology at USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology. Her primary interests include cognition and improving the quality of life for older adults with neurodegenerative diseases.
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.
Dr. Kiet (Robert) Hua completed a Bachelor of Science degree in Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior at the University of California, Davis. During his undergraduate studies, he developed a love of research, studying animal behavior. He completed further research training at the University of Houston where he studied drosophila genetics. He completed his Medical Degree (MD) and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degrees at Albany Medical College. His PhD thesis focused on the study of primary cilia and their role in a category of neurodevelopmental disorders known as ciliopathies.
Dr. Manizhe Eslami Amirabadi attended medical school in Yazd, Iran. Passionate about equity in healthcare, she then worked as a family physician for a year in an underserved area of Iran before starting her neurology residency in Tehran. She became interested in cognitive decline in the setting of chronic systemic illnesses and worked with chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients during her residency. She eventually moved to the US to pursue further training in cognitive neurology hoping to improve the quality of life for people living with dementia.
Lily was born and raised in Lanzhou, China. She attended the University of California, San Diego and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Cognitive Science with a specialization in Design and Interaction and a Bachelor of Science degree in Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience (CBN). At UCSF Memory and Aging Center, she works as a Clinical Research Coordinator who coordinates Mandarin-speaking participants.
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.
Originally from Austin, Ellie graduated from the University of San Francisco with her BA degree in psychology in 2023. At the University of San Francisco, Ellie was a research assistant in the Learning and Memory Lab where she studied thought suppression and the rebound effect. She was also a research assistant in the Social Cognition Lab studying moral outrage in virtual settings.
Eden received a BS degree in Biological Sciences from UC Irvine and a PhD in Neuroscience from UC Davis. Her doctoral work broadly focused on learning, memory, and synaptic plasticity. Now, as a member of the Boxer Lab, she is interested in facilitating more equitable and inclusive research of neurodegenerative disorders.
