Meet the Team

Anna is a doctoral student working with Dr. Kaitlin Casaletto in the Longitudinal Brain Aging Program for the duration of her PhD program. She is interested in cerebrovascular burden as it relates to exercise, cognitive aging and cardiovascular health. Additionally, she conducts much of her clinical work in Spanish and is interested in bilingual assessment.

As an Assistant Professor of Neurology at UCSF, Dr. Lawren Vandevrede's overarching goal is to provide outstanding clinical care to patients with dementia and their caregivers. He completed his medical training in Chicago, where he also obtained a PhD degree in neuroscience working with his mentor to develop novel therapeutic agents for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.

Sarat Vatsavayai received a master of science degree in Human Genetics from Andhra University, India. He then did his doctoral work in the field of Huntington’s disease at the Open University, UK, where he was characterizing a novel mouse model and was trying to find out if DNA repeat instability could modify disease progression. In July 2013, he joined Dr.

Christina Veziris is an assistant clinical research coordinator in the UCSF Clinical Affective Neuroscience (CAN) Lab. She graduated from the University of San Francisco in 2018 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and minors in neuroscience and health studies. She volunteered in the CAN lab for a year and then worked in the Relationships, Emotions, and Health Lab at San Francisco State University for three years using the Facial Action Coding System to code facial emotions.

Lucienne Vintaer is the program coordinator for the ALBA Language Neurobiology Lab and serves as the executive administrative assistant to principal investigator Dr. Maria Luisa Gorno Tempini. Born and raised in San Francisco, she earned her bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Psychology at Scripps College and discovered her interest in brain health while working for the University’s Disability Resource Center, supporting individuals with varying forms of neurodivergence.

Jet Vonk, PhD, PhD, is a researcher specializing in neurolinguistics, cognitive science, and epidemiology. She earned her doctorate in Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences from the City University of New York Graduate Center, with a focus on neurolinguistics and cognitive science. Dr. Vonk earned a second PhD in Epidemiology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, with a focus on neuroepidemiology.

Anil Vora joined the Memory and Aging Center in December 2022 as the Executive Analyst. He is responsible for managing Dr. Bruce Miller’s schedule, travel, research collaborations and other advanced administrative objectives related to the executive office. He also partners with the center’s six leadership committees acting as a primary resource for committee operations and strategic priorities.
 

Whitney Walker is a dedicated Adult-Gerontology Clinical Nurse Specialist with over a decade of acute care experience at UCSF. Originally from Connecticut, she brings over 13 years of expertise in acute transitional and ICU clinical settings. Whitney previously held the role of Lead Clinical Trials Nurse at the UCSF Neuroscience Clinical Research Unit, where she honed her skills in clinical research and patient care.

Amie Wallman-Jones joined the UCSF Clinical Affective Neuroscience Lab (CAN) Lab at the Memory and Aging Center in February 2023. She previously received her PhD degree from the University of Bern in Switzerland. Her graduate work assessed how physical activity influences interoceptive processing, where she used a multi-method approach to reveal the active ingredients driving this relationship.

Christine M. Walsh, PhD, received her BA degree in physiology from Trinity College Dublin, University of Dublin in Ireland. Dr. Walsh did her doctoral work at the University of Michigan studying the effects of REM sleep modulation on learning and memory. She also studied the neural correlates of cognitive aging. In 2011 Dr. Walsh joined the UCSF Memory and Aging Center where she has been studying sleep in both healthy older adults and in individuals with neurodegenerative diseases. Dr. Walsh is particularly interested in the contribution of sleep disturbance to cognitive decline.

Yun-Ting (Katie) was born in Taiwan and is a registered nurse with several years of clinical experience in emergency medicine and anesthesiology in Taiwan. She earned her master’s degree in global health sciences from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) in 2025.

Cathy earned a master’s degree in social work from Columbia University in New York. Her extensive knowledge about social service systems is based on her work experience at the local, state and federal level. She was a consultant, training social workers in nursing homes to maintain state licensure. Cathy is also a registered yoga teacher and a Grief Recovery Specialist.