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.
Sophia is a research coordinator in Dr. Joel Kramer’s lab working primarily on the Brain Aging Network for Cognitive Health study and the Mechanisms of Executive Decline study. She graduated with a BA degree in Integrative Biology from UC Berkeley in 2024.
Kevin was born and raised in San Francisco, California. He attended UC Davis and graduated with a bachelor's of science degree in neurobiology, physiology and behavior and a bachelors’ of arts degree in psychology. Before joining the Memory and Aging Center, Kevin volunteered at On Lok Lifeways and interacted with Chinese elders in Chinatown. He is currently a research coordinator for the UCSF Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. He coordinates visits for the Cantonese- and English-speaking Chinese participants.
Marlene is a neuroimaging data analyst in the Rabinovici Lab. Originally from Guangdong, China, she received her BS degree in computational biology from UCLA in 2023 and her MS degree in health data science from UCSF in 2025. She joined the lab in late 2023 to pursue her capstone project on data-driven tau-PET subtypes in sporadic early-onset Alzheimer’s disease and now supports various ongoing research projects related to Alzheimer’s disease.
Mia received her BA degree in Psychology from Rice University. She joined the MAC as an Assistant Clinical Research Coordinator on the Language/PPA Team. Previously, she worked as a Research Assistant at the T-SCAN Lab. She is passionate about utilizing research to develop targeted interventions for underserved and underrepresented populations. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, bullet journaling, and trying new restaurants.
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.
Katherine graduated from the University of California, Davis with a BS degree in Neurobiology, Physiology, and Behavior. During her time in college, she explored various paths, including an internship at the local hospital as well as working at the COVID Testing Facility at UC Davis. She is currently working with the Sample Processing Laboratory at UCSF as a Lab Assistant to aid with the processing and shipping of various biospecimens for clinical studies.
Collin has BS degree in Biological Sciences, with an emphasis in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California, Merced. He is driven by an inclination for multidisciplinary knowledge and a desire to learn. During his undergraduate study, he worked in the lab of Dr. Betsy Dumont and under the guidance of postdoc Dr. Gregory Mutumi to explore the morphological adaptations of sensory structures within the skulls of bats. His experiences were further enriched by journal club, quantitative systems biology seminars, and his work with diceCT and 3D visualization.
Dr. Peter A. Ljubenkov is a behavioral neurologist at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center and specializes in caring for patients experiencing memory, language and behavioral changes due to neurological conditions, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy body dementia, and other causes of dementia.
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.
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.
