Chairs and Speakers

Dr. Henrik Zetterberg is a Professor of Neurochemistry at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and University College London, UK, and a Clinical Chemist at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg. He is Head of the Department of Psychiatry and Neurochemistry at the University of Gothenburg and leads the UK DRI Fluid Biomarker Laboratory at UCL.

Dr. Zetterberg’s main research focus and clinical interest are fluid biomarkers for central nervous system diseases, Alzheimer’s disease in particular. He has published more than 1200 papers and has received numerous awards.

Dr. Zetterberg will also chair Session I of the Symposium.

Dr. Shannon Risacher received the BS degree in psychology from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, and the PhD degree in medical neuroscience from the Indiana University School of Medicine. She is an assistant professor of radiology and imaging sciences with the Indiana University School of Medicine.

Her main research interests involve evaluating imaging and non-imaging biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) for utility in early detection and diagnosis. In particular, she is interested in evaluating which biomarkers are most sensitive in the earliest stages of disease, both for detecting pathophysiological changes and for predicting future clinical outcomes. She is primarily focused on structural, functional, and molecular imaging biomarkers of AD, but has an additional interest in novel biomarkers such as sensory and perceptual tests

Dr. Risacher will also chair Session II of the Symposium.

Dr. Emma Louise Anderson is a Research Fellow at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Integrative Epidemiology Unit, University of Bristol, UK. She currently holds a post-doctoral fellowship from the MRC, which aims to improve causal inference in the life course etiology of dementia and cognitive decline. Her research focuses on applying causal inference methods such as Mendelian Randomization and offspring instrumental variable analyses to identify novel causal risk factors for dementia and cognitive decline. She also has an interest developing methods to address selection bias in Mendelian randomization studies. In addition to her fellowship, she is a co-applicant on a grant from an Alzheimer’s Research charity (BRACE), which uses genetic data to identify early-life determinants and causal environmental risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr. Anderson completed her PhD in Epidemiology in 2014 at the University of Bristol.

Dr. Ronald Petersen holds the Cora Kanow Professorship in Alzheimer’s Disease Research, and is a Mayo Clinic Distinguished Investigator at the Mayo Clinic. He was on the National Advisory Council on Aging, and the chair of the Advisory Council on Research, Care and Services for the National Alzheimer’s Project Act by the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. 

Dr. Petersen is a recipient of the 2004 MetLife Award for Medical Research in Alzheimer’s Disease, and the 2005 Potamkin Prize for Research in Pick’s, Alzheimer’s and Related Disorders of the American Academy of Neurology.

Dr. Suzanne Schindler is a clinical neurologist and neuroscientist who performs research on Alzheimer disease. She completed the MD/PhD program, neurology residency and dementia fellowship at Washington University in St. Louis.

Currently Dr. Schindler sees patients with memory concerns in a weekly clinic and attends on the inpatient neurology consult service. Dr. Schindler has received a career development award from the National Institute on Aging to study cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease. The primary focus of her work is on predicting if and when cognitively normal individuals will develop symptoms of Alzheimer disease dementia.

Dr. Mohammad Arfan Ikram is Professor and Chair of Epidemiology at the department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC Rotterdam, the Netherlands. He is also adjunct professor of Epidemiology at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health. He is principal investigator of the Rotterdam Study, in which his research focuses on dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. He is also a key collaborator in the CHARGE (Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology) consortium.

His research focuses on investigating the etiology of neurologic diseases in the elderly, with a particular focus on dementia, Alzheimer disease, cognition and brain imaging. The main areas of research are to elucidate the earliest signs of brain diseases, before clinical symptoms are present, and to understand how these lead to clinical manifestation of disease. Moreover, he is interested in preclinical signs that can be used to identify persons at highest risk of developing disease. To this aim he has used data from the large population-based Rotterdam Study and Rotterdam Scan Study that have followed nearly 15,000 persons for a period of nearly 25 years. A main focus on his research has been the use of MRI-imaging to understand brain disease. Also, he has used neuropsychological testing, genome-wide, exome chip, DNA-methylation and sequencing technologies, and recently electronic gait assessments. Not only is he interested in how these pre-clinical markers lead to clinical disease, he also wants to disentangle the intricate relationships between these markers.

He has published over 400 international scientific papers (H-index = 51) and currently heads a research group of 13 PhD-students, 3 post-docs, 3 MSc-students, and 5 research staff.

Elisabeth Thijssen is a 4th year PhD candidate in Neurochemistry at Amsterdam UMC in the Netherlands. She performed a significant part of her research at UCSF in San Francisco, where she worked on the diagnostic value of plasma phosphorylated tau for the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, published in Nature Medicine. Her focus is on blood-based biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia, in an effort to find a low-invasive diagnostic.

Elisabeth holds a Master’s degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences with an additional honors degree from Utrecht University, the Netherlands. She performed research on medical nutrition for Alzheimer’s disease. Later, she worked on the set-up of a clinical trial at the Dutch consulate in San Francisco in collaboration with Stanford Center for Longevity. In her spare time, Elisabeth enjoys kickboxing and exploring Amsterdam.

Dr. Beth Snitz is a neuropsychologist with research expertise in risk factors for dementia and cognitive decline in aging. Currently, she is associate professor of Neurology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. She received her doctoral degree in clinical psychology from the University of Minnesota.

Dr. Snitz is involved in clinical, neuroimaging and epidemiologic studies investigating cognitive aging across the normal and pathologic spectrum. She is a co-investigator with the University of Pittsburgh Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, Clinical Core Leader for the ADRC-affiliated PiB-PET Program Project Grant, and co-investigator on the Monongahela-Youghiogheny Healthy Aging Team (MYHAT) Study, a population study of MCI in southwest Pennsylvania.

Dr. Snitz’s current research focuses on boundaries between normal and pathologic cognitive aging, including mild cognitive impairment, cognitive correlates of amyloid imaging in normal aging, and subjective cognitive complaints in clinic and community.

Dr. John Breitner has devoted his career to the study of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), its risk factors, and their implications for its prevention. Although an expert clinician, he is better known as a researcher. His early work on familial aggregation in AD evolved to twin studies of heritability and environmental risk factors. He then founded the Cache County Study of Memory in Aging, a longitudinal investigation of genetic and environmental antecedents of AD, which has produced over 100 scientific papers. More recently he was Chair of the randomized placebo-controlled Alzheimer’s Disease Anti-inflammatory Prevention Trial (ADAPT) that evaluated two nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for primary prevention of AD in healthy elderly. As that trial winds down, he recently joined the McGill faculty to establish the new StoP-AD Centre at the Douglas. This Centre is devoted to identification and quantitation of AD markers in the pre-symptomatic stage of the disease, and to preliminary testing of experimental strategies for that may prevent progression of pre-symptomatic disease to dementia.

Dr. Breitner is has mentored more than 15 individuals who have gone on to tenure-track academic positions, nine of these whom have independent NIH funding, 3 are now Chairs and one the Executive Editor of a leading Alzheimer’s disease journal.

Dr. Peter van Wijngaarden is an ophthalmologist with research interests in Alzheimer’s disease and retinal imaging biomarker discovery. He is Deputy Director of the Centre for Eye Research Australia and Associate Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Melbourne.

After completing Medicine at Monash University, Peter undertook a PhD in retinal vascular biology at Flinders University, South Australia. He pursued ophthalmology training in Victoria before undertaking a post-doctoral research fellowship in central nervous system regeneration in multiple sclerosis with Professor Robin Franklin at the University of Cambridge, UK.

Dr. Willa Brenowitz is an Assistant Professor in the UCSF’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. She received her PhD in epidemiology and MPH in health services from the University of Washington School of Public Health where she worked at the National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center.

Dr. Brenowitz is broadly interested in understanding the role of multimorbidity in cognitive decline and in using novel statistical and epidemiologic approaches to enhance causal inference. Her current research focuses on evaluating the relationships between sensory impairments (including hearing and vision loss) and dementia in older adults. In particular, she is interested in identifying whether sensory impairments are causal risk factors for dementia or early clinical symptoms of underlying pathology.

Dr. Sandra Black, MD, FRCP(C) is an internationally renowned cognitive and stroke neurologist who holds the inaugural Brill Chair in Neurology, Department of Medicine, University of Toronto and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. A leading clinical trialist in dementia, she is the current Executive Director of the Toronto Dementia Research Alliance, a multi institutional collaborative network of memory programs at the University of Toronto involving Baycrest, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, St. Michael’s Hospital, Sunnybrook HSC and Toronto Western Hospital, UHN. She is also the Sunnybrook Site Director of the Heart & Stroke Foundation Canadian Partnership for Stroke Recovery and the Hurvitz Brain Sciences Research Program Director at Sunnybrook Research Institute. In 2011 she was named to the Order of Ontario, cited as an assiduous physician leader and influential architect of the Ontario Stroke System.

Dr. Black has authored/co-authored over 450 papers in a 25-year research career that has bridged dementia and stroke, using neuroimaging to study brain behavior relationships, with a recent focus on interactions of Alzheimer’s and silent stroke disease. She has earned numerous mentorship and research awards, and elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 2012. In 2015 she received the U of T Faculty of Medicine Dean’s Alumni Lifetime Achievement Award and was appointed an Officer to the Order of Canada for her contributions to Alzheimer’s disease, stroke and vascular dementia.

Dr. Black will chair Session III.

Dr. Helena Chang Chui is internationally recognized for her research in Alzheimer disease and vascular cognitive impairment. She is the principal investigator for the NIA-funded Alzheimer Disease Research Center, as well as a multi-institutional program project on vascular dementia.

Dr. Chui is the author of over 120 publications and has served on the editorial board for Stroke, Alzheimer Disease and Associated Disorders, and Archives of Neurology. She holds the Raymond and Betty McCarron endowed Chair at the Keck School of Medicine and serves as the Chair of the Department of Neurology.

Dr. Melissa Lamar is a full-time Cognitive Neuroscientist within the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center and a licensed Clinical Neuropsychologist and an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Rush University Medical Center. She received her PhD in
Clinical Neuropsychology from Drexel University and completed her postdoctoral training in Cognitive Neuroscience within the intramural program of the Laboratory of Behavioral Neurosciences at the National Institute on Aging. She worked at the Institute of Psychiatry King’s College London and the University of Illinois at Chicago prior to joining the Rush faculty in 2016.

Dr. Lamar’s research focuses on cardiovascular disease risk factors, brain aging and cognition with a particular focus on Latinos and African Americans. She employs novel neuroimaging and data analytic techniques to identify modifiable factors associated with health disparities in brain aging in order to increase health equity. Additionally, she incorporates translational tasks and digital technology into her work assessing cognitive functioning in order to strengthen the accuracy of her work, and detect subtle alterations in behavior and their roots in brain.

Dr. Lamar has published extensively on brain-behavior profiles of risk and disease in aging and has received numerous honors and awards for her work including Fellows status of the American Psychological Association and the Arthur Benton Award for Mid-Career Research from the International Neuropsychological Society.

Dr. Tatjana Rundek is a Professor of Neurology, Epidemiology and Public Health with tenure, Vice Chair of Clinical Research, and Director of the Clinical Translational Research Division in the Department of Neurology of the University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine. She holds a secondary faculty appointment at the Department of Neurology at Columbia University in New York.

Dr. Rundek is a stroke neurologist, clinical researcher and principal investigator of several NIH/NINDS funded R01 grants on genetic determinants of carotid atherosclerosis and stroke. Dr. Rundek is a recipient of a NINDS K24 Midcareer development award. She participates in large stroke genetic consortia including the NINDS Stroke Genetic Network and International Stroke Genetic Consortium. Dr. Rundek was a Fulbright Scholar and the recipient of the research awards from the Hazel K. Goddess and the Dr. Gilbert Baum Funds.

Dr. Rundek serves on the editorial boards of several scientific journals including Stroke, Neurology, Journal of Ultrasound in Medicine and Cerebrovascular Diseases. She has published over 210 scientific publications, editorials, reviews, and book chapters. She is a fellow of the American Neurological Association, a member of the American Heart Association and American Academy of Neurology. She is past President of the Neurosonology Communities of Practice of the American Institute in Ultrasound in Medicine, the largest professional medical ultrasound organization in the U.S. Dr. Rundek serves on the Intersocietal Accreditation Commission (IAC) Vascular Testing Board of Directors, a national organization that accredits clinical echocardiography, nuclear/PET, MRI, CT and Dental laboratories and carotid stenting programs.

Dr. Mary Ganguli is a geriatric psychiatrist and psychiatric/ neuroepidemiologist at the University of Pittsburgh, where she teaches residents, fellows, and graduate students. She provides geriatric psychiatry outpatient services at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Dr. Ganguli has been conducting population-based studies of cognitive impairment and dementia since 1987. She served on the Neurocognitive Disorders Work Group of DSM-5 and is a member of the AAN Practice Parameter Work Group on MCI. She previously served on the National Advisory Council on Aging.

Dr. Ganguli is Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society and of International Psychogeriatrics, and an Editorial Advisory Board member of Alzheimer Disease and Associated Disorders

Dr. Ganguli will chair the Workshop.

Dr. Brandy Callahan is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Calgary and a Full Member of the Hotchkiss Brain Institute. She holds a Tier II Canada Research Chair in Adult Clinical Neuropsychology and is licensed to practice clinical neuropsychology in Alberta, Ontario and Quebec.

Her research contributes to improving diagnosis of neurocognitive disorders in adult and geriatric individuals, particularly those who have conditions that may mimic, mask or alter signs of dementia, or increase risk for future decline. A current major focus of her work is clarifying the manifestations and causes of cognitive impairment in older adults with ADHD, specifically in relation to prodromal dementia. Her research integrates neuropsychological and neuroimaging assessment measures, as well as biomarker data to inform mechanisms of disease.

Dr. Miriam Rodriguez is an associate professor at the department of Psychology at Albizu University, a minority serving institution of higher education located in Miami, FL. She is a licensed clinical neuropsychologist and is an affiliate researcher with the 1FL ADRC.

Through her collaboration with the 1FL ADRC, Dr. Rodriguez is the principal investigator of studies focused on the identification of multicultural factors that account for differences in the manifestation of AD symptoms, cognitive performance, and brain atrophy among Hispanic older adults. Specifically, Dr. Rodriguez’ work aims to identify factors such as acculturation level, literacy, years of education, and quality of education among Hispanic older adults and how they relate to cognitive performance and AD biomarkers. Additionally, Dr. Rodriguez aims to identify diagnostic tools, such as functional and cognitive measures, that more accurately captures the manifestation of AD among Hispanic older adults in the prodromal/early stages when treatment can be most effective.

Her methods of study include examination of neuropsychological performance and AD biomarkers including MRI imaging, amyloid (PET scan) imaging, and genetic biomarkers.

Dr. Hector González is an Associate Professor in the Department of Neurosciences and Shiley-Marcos Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center in the School of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego. He is a licensed clinical neuropsychologist with clinical research training and experiences in Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. Dr. González was a clinical research fellow and later co-investigator of the Sacramento Area Latino Study on Aging (SALSA), which is a landmark dementia study among Mexican-origin Latinos. He served as Principle Investigator of the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos (SOL), Neurocognitive Reading Center, which is the largest study of Latino neurocognitive health and aging to-date.

Dr. González is PI of the Study of Latinos-Investigation of neurocognitive aging (SOL-INCA), which is a SOL ancillary study examining sociocultural, cardiometabolic and genomic risks of Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and ADRD among diverse Latinos.