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. Shanaki Bavarsad received her PhD degree from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in Spain. Her PhD thesis was about the effects of CNS local production of IL-10 on neuroprotection and the inflammatory response (microglial activation and leukocyte recruitment) associated with a traumatic brain injury, by generating a new transgenic animal that overproduces this cytokine under the control of the GFAP promoter on astrocytes.
Chelsea Chen is a clinical research coordinator with the Geschwind Lab at the Memory and Aging Center. She oversees studies involving spinocerebellar ataxia and multiple systems atrophy.
Chelsea previously worked for the Bove Lab at the UCSF Multiple Sclerosis and Neuroinflammation Center and studied psychology at UC Berkeley. She plans to go to medical school.
Jolina received her master’s degree in cognitive neuroscience from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. For her PhD degree in clinical neuropsychology, she joined the German FTLD consortium at the Department of Neurology in Ulm, Germany to examine cognitive features and neuroimaging biomarkers in frontotemporal dementia with a focus on primary progressive aphasia. She joined the Dementia Imaging Genetics Lab in 2021 to get a deeper understanding of the brain’s connectivity and its systematic degeneration in frontotemporal dementia.
Marni graduated from the University of Florida with a BS degree in Psychology – Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience and a minor in Zoology. At UF, she was a Research Assistant for a Neurocognitive Lab studying addiction. She also coded qualitative data on the impact of COVID-19 on college students, created a scientific poster for an international conference and wrote a manuscript that is currently under review for publication. Marni was Clinic Manager at a Neuropsychology Clinic where she gained experience scoring and administering neuropsychological tests.
Margo graduated from UCLA with a BS degree in Applied Mathematics and a minor in Cognitive Science. She has previously worked at UCLA’s Computational Vision and Learning Lab and the German research center Forschungszentrum Jülich. Margo currently works in the UCSF Dyslexia Center, with a focus on math cognition and neuroimaging.
Kristen joined the Selective Vulnerability Research Laboratory led by Dr. William Seeley in January 2022 as a research associate. She assists with neuroimaging data management and analysis. She received her BA degree in psychology from Washington University in St. Louis where she volunteered in the Cognitive Control and Psychopathology Lab.
