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.
Rochelle-Jan (RJ) Reyes (they/she) is a staff research associate in the de Leon Lab at UCSF. With Dr. de Leon and members of the lab, they support the Bilingualism Study that aims to investigate bilingualism’s effect on healthy aging and neurodegenerative disease. RJ is also a PROPEL scholar at UCSF.
Dr. Luke Fischer (he/his) is a neurologist-neuroscientist with an interest in Lewy body disease. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Michigan State University with degrees in Philosophy and Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, and he remained there to complete his PhD degree in Neuroscience in the laboratory of Dr. Caryl E. Sortwell as part of a dual-MD/PhD program. As a trainee in the NINDS Morris K.
Stefania Pezzoli completed her PhD degree in Neuroscience at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom. Her research aimed to investigate the neural and cognitive correlates of visual hallucinations in Lewy body disease and Alzheimer’s disease by integrating multimodal neuroimaging and neuropsychological measures.
Rowan graduated from Middlebury College in May 2024 with a major in Sociology and a minor in Global Health. She joined the UCSF Memory and Aging Center (MAC) in June 2024 as a clinical research coordinator in the Dementia Imaging Genetics Lab led by Dr. Suzee Lee, where she coordinates a study investigating the neurodevelopment of children from families with a history of frontotemporal dementia or Alzheimer’s disease.
Sevinç joined the Seeley Lab as a postdoctoral scholar in October 2023. She completed her BSc degree in Molecular Biology and Genetics at Boğaziçi University in Turkey. She then moved to Germany, where she earned her MSc degree in Developmental and Stem Cell Biology from Heidelberg University. Her Master's thesis focused on establishing culture conditions for circulating tumor cells from breast cancer patients in the lab of Andreas Trumpp at the German Cancer Research Center.
Zoe was born and raised in Northern California. She graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in December of 2023 with a degree in biology with a neuroscience focus. Previously, Zoe worked as an undergraduate research associate in the Campbell Lab at WashU School of Medicine, investigating brain volume differences and volumetric progression patterns in Parkinson’s disease clinical subtypes through MRI imaging.
Jessica Pasqua, MD, completed her Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical-Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. There she was part of an advocacy and support group for former foster youth which inspired her to pursue a career in medicine with a focus on serving those with limited access to medical care due to poverty and social inequity. She then completed her Medical Degree (MD), her Adult Neurology residency, and her Epilepsy fellowship at the University of California, Los Angeles.
