Stefania Pezzoli, PhD, is an assistant professional researcher at the UCSF Edward and Pearl Fein Memory and Aging Center, part of the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences. Her research focuses on understanding why some people remain cognitively healthy despite age-related changes or disease. She is particularly interested in factors that may contribute to resistance and resilience to brain disease in cognitively healthy older adults and people living with different types of dementia, including the role of potentially modifiable risk factors.
Dr. Pezzoli earned her PhD in neuroscience from the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom. Her doctoral research investigated the brain and cognitive processes associated with visual hallucinations in Lewy body disease and Alzheimer’s disease, combining brain imaging with assessments of memory, thinking, and other cognitive abilities.
Following her doctoral studies, Dr. Pezzoli conducted postdoctoral research in the Jagust Lab at UC Berkeley, where she studied typical and successful cognitive aging and the brain changes associated with aging, including those associated with Alzheimer’s disease pathology.