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.
Sarah Kaufman received her undergraduate degree in Molecular and Cell Biology, with a focus in Neuroscience from the University of California, Berkeley. She completed her MD/PhD degrees through Washington University in St. Louis MSTP. Her graduate research focused on tau aggregation and tau strain biology in the laboratory of Marc Diamond. After completing her dual degree she began Neurology residency at the University of California, San Francisco.
Niall Kavanagh is a communications officer with the Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI). Based at UCSF, he is responsible for developing and sharing the stories and messages of GBHI and the Atlantic Fellows for Equity in Brain Health.
Willa is a speech-language pathologist at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center in the ALBA Language Neurobiology Lab. Willa has a BA degree in Psychology from Lewis & Clark College and an MA degree in Speech-Language Pathology from the University of Texas at Austin.
Alessandra serves as the primary point of contact for the Atlantic Fellows for Equity in Brain Health program at GBHI. While monitoring the fellows' progress and providing programmatic support, she facilitates connections within the Memory and Aging Center and the UCSF community.
Jana has continuously explored new passions and interests throughout her life. Born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska, her love for the outdoors and adventure was evident from an early age. Between camping and fishing with her family, she competed at a high level in the junior tennis circuit, eventually becoming a recruited athlete at Cornell University. It was there that she discovered her passion for genetics and its impact on people’s lives.
Dr. Kramer is a Professor of Neuropsychology in Neurology, the Director of the Memory and Aging Center Neuropsychology program, and the John Douglas French Alzheimer’s Foundation Endowed Professor at UCSF. He earned his doctorate in psychology at Baylor University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in neuropsychology at the Martinez VA hospital. Dr. Kramer is board certified in clinical neuropsychology.
Lisa Kritikos earned her master’s degree in nursing at the UCSF School of Nursing and is certified as an Adult-Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner by the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP).
Stephanie was born and raised in Hong Kong. She attended the University of California, Berkeley and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Cognitive Science and Linguistics. At the Memory and Aging Center, she coordinates visits for Chinese-speaking participants. She aims to pursue a graduate degree in speech language pathology in the near future.
Renaud La Joie originally studied medicine in his native Normandy before graduating with a master’s degree in neuroscience from the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris. He then pursued a PhD degree in neuropsychology with Gael Chételat and Béatrice Desgranges, where he studied Alzheimer's disease using multimodal PET and MRI imaging. Dr. La Joie then spent a year with Dr. William Jagust at the University of California, Berkeley before joining Dr. Gil Rabinovici’s lab at the Memory and Aging Center in March 2016.
Dr. Serggio Lanata was raised in Peru, where he began his undergraduate studies in general science. He later earned a bachelor of science degree from the University of Florida. He obtained his medical degree from the University of South Florida and then completed his medicine internship and neurology residency at Brown University. He joined the UCSF Memory and Aging Center in 2013 as a Clinical Instructor and Behavioral Neurology Fellow.
Courtney studied biological engineering and biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She then completed her MD/PhD at UT Southwestern. She trained with Dr. Joachim Herz studying ApoE receptor signaling in transgenic mouse models of Alzheimer's disease. She identified a role for reelin, a protein that is vital for brain development, in protecting older rodents against amyloid beta, one of the primary pathology proteins that accumulate in Alzheimer's disease.
