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.
Pongpat Putthinun is a health economist and postdoctoral scholar in the UCSF Memory and Aging Center. He joined the Decision Lab team, led by Dr. Winston Chiong, and is currently working on a project aimed at understanding how genetic predispositions to frontotemporal dementia influence decision-making in the pre-symptomatic phase. Through neuroeconomic methods, the research seeks to identify incidents of early impaired judgment that could lead to early intervention strategies to decelerate the onset of frontotemporal dementia.
Janet Allen-Williams joined the UCSF Department of Neurology in 2015. Since April 2023, Janet has been serving as an Academic Assistant for the Memory and Aging Center, providing Academic Core Team services for the education team.
Maya graduated from UC San Diego in 2023 with a degree in Cognitive Science, Specializing in Neuroscience. As an undergraduate, she worked at the Center for Healthy Eating and Activity Research and the Zeidan Lab. At the UCSF Memory and Aging Center she works on the Frontotemporal Dementia: Genes, Images and Emotions study.
Carina is a research coordinator in Dr. Joel Kramer’s lab working primarily on Dr. Kramer’s Healthy Aging studies. She graduated with a BS degree in Biology from Tufts University in May 2023.
Aaron Colverson is a Doctor of Philosophy in Ethnomusicology, with partnering research in Neuropsychology. He graduated from Berklee College of Music with a BM degree in Professional Music focusing on jazz violin performance, after which he moved to Nairobi, Kenya, for two years, embedding himself in East African musical traditions and cultures.
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.
Xiuxiu is a Neuroimaging Data analyst in the RabLab at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center. She obtained her master’s degree in Biomedical Imaging from UC San Francisco. Currently, Xiuxiu works on processing and analyzing amyloid and tau PET data to further understand Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementias.
In her free time, she enjoys yoga, running and rock climbing as well as hanging out with her cat Sesame.
Dr. Kelly Atkins is a Clinical Neuropsychologist from Melbourne Australia, completing postdoctoral research at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center in the Department of Neurology. She graduated from Monash University in 2021 with a doctorate in Clinical Neuropsychology and completed her registrar training at St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne, before moving to Weill Cornell Medicine on a postdoctoral Fulbright Fellowship. Kelly's research interests focus on the measurement of cognitive and neuropsychiatric changes in people with atypical neurodegenerative conditions.
