Chairs and Speakers

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.

Additional resources: mayo.edu/research/faculty/petersen-ronald-c-m-d-ph-d/bio-00078363

Dr. Seshadri enjoys a superb reputation in both science and clinical care and is a recognized thought leader in Alzheimer’s disease having recently co-authored position papers disseminated by the National Academy of Sciences on Preventing Cognitive Decline and Dementia: A Way Forward,  and by the American Heart Association with a paper titled Defining Optimal Brain Health in Adults. She has lectured extensively, nationally and internationally, on Alzheimer’s disease, dementia and the genetics of stroke and vascular brain injury.

She is a senior investigator for the seminal Framingham Heart Study, has had peer reviewed research continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health for 10 years, and currently serves as the principal investigator on eight NIH U01 or R01 grants.

Additional resources: uthscsa.edu/academics/biomedical-sciences/faculty/profile/53266/Seshadri%2C-Sudha

Dr. Hyman’s laboratory studies the anatomical and molecular basis of dementia in Alzheimer’s disease and dementia with Lewy bodies.

He received his MD and PhD from University of Iowa and he has received the Metropolitan Life Award, the Potamkin Prize, a National Institute on Aging Merit award, and an Alzheimer’s Association Pioneer Award. He is the current Director of the Massachusetts Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center.

Additional resources: massgeneral.org/neurology/research/hyman-lab

Dr. Lyketsos’ research mainly focuses on treatment development for neurodegenerative disease especially dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. His work employs the methods of translational and interventional epidemiology and involve biomarkers, and brain imaging.

He has conducted seminal research on the neuropsychiatric disturbances (NPS) associated with degenerative brain disease including studies of patterns of occurrence and impact of NPS on dementia or transition from normal to MCI to dementia. Dr. Lyketsos’ team is developing biomarkers to accelerate treatment development for Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of brain injury.

Additional resources: hopkinsmedicine.org/profiles/details/constantine-lyketsos

Here, he runs an active research laboratory focusing on neurodegenerative disorders—with a particular focus on the mechanisms that drive amyloid deposition in Alzheimer’s and prion diseases. This work has led to over 300 peer-reviewed publications, 28 issued patents, and continuous funding from the NIH for over 30 years.

His lab has made key discoveries in gaining a greater understanding of possible therapeutic interventions, including discovering the role of apolipoprotein E (APOE) in driving amyloid deposition in late-onset Alzheimer’s disease. He coined the term “pathological chaperone” to denote the role of APOE, even before the discovery of the link between the APOE E4 allele and late-onset Alzheimer’s disease. More recently, his laboratory developed a novel therapeutic approach based on blocking the interactions between apoE and amyloid β, showing it to be effective in multiple Alzheimer’s disease models.

Recently, Dr. Wisniewski has developed an unbiased localized proteomic methodology that produces robust data utilizing archival formalin, fixed paraffin embedded human tissue, and used this method to perform the most extensive proteomic analyses of amyloid plaques and phosphorylated tau in Alzheimer’s disease patient tissue.

He obtained his MD at King’s College London GKT School of Medical Education; he completed his residencies and chief residencies in neurology and neuropathology at NYU School of Medicine and New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center, respectively.

Additional resources: nyulangone.org/doctors/1033103759/thomas-m-wisniewski

Additional resources: medicine.yale.edu/profile/serena_spudich/

Dr. de Erausquin’s research focuses largely on prediction and prevention of severe brain disorders, using global health strategies for community engagement, early detection and early intervention in combination with advanced personalized/precision medicine and bioinformatics, and cell-based models with a focus on brain development and repair. He has extensive clinical expertise on the use of deep brain stimulation for movement disorders, as well as on the use of vagus nerve stimulation, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation and electroconvulsive therapy.

Additional resources: uthscsa.edu/patient-care/physicians/providers/1831115138/Gabriel-De%20Erausquin

Prior to joining the McKnight Brain Institute, Dr. DeKosky was vice president and dean of the University of Virginia School of Medicine from 2008 to 2013, and was then appointed emeritus professor of neurology. Prior to becoming dean at UVA, he spent 18 years at the University of Pittsburgh in roles that included chair of the department of neurology and director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center.

As a researcher, Dr. DeKosky focused on understanding the neurochemistry, neuroimaging, treatment and prevention of Alzheimer’s disease in both his laboratory and in clinical research. He also co-authored the first report of the dementia associated with traumatic brain injuries among professional football players and published extensively in basic research of TBI.

At UF, Dr. DeKosky did graduate work in psychology and neuroscience, received a medical degree in 1974 and following an internship at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, returned to UF to complete a residency in neurology, followed by a fellowship in neurochemistry at the University of Virginia Center for Neurosciences.

Additional resources: neurology.ufl.edu/profile/dekosky-steven/

Nelson is board certified by the American Board of Pathology in Anatomic Pathology and Neuropathology. He leads the Neuropathology Core of the University of Kentucky Alzheimer’s Disease Center.

Nelson’s areas of interest include neuropathology, microRNAs (miRNAs), Alzheimer’s disease, hippocampal sclerosis of aging (HS-Aging), dementia with Lewy bodies, and other neurodegenerative diseases.

Additional resources: ukhealthcare.uky.edu/doctors/peter-nelson

Dr. Badhwar holds a PhD from McGill University, where she integrated brain imaging, quantitative proteomics and measures of neurovascular coupling to study the interaction of neuronal and neurovascular damage in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and the impact of therapeutics on these two components.

Elements of Dr. Badhwar’s postdoctoral work sought to characterize the heterogeneity in AD cohorts using resting-state functional MRI connectivity, an emerging biomarker of synaptic or
network dysfunction in AD. These investigations contributed to the understanding of connectivity measures in AD from three different perspectives: group-level connectivity,
connectivity subtypes, and individual connectivity fingerprint. 

Another important aspect of Dr. Badhwar’s postdoctoral work was focused on establishing a biomarker roadmap for the Canadian Consortium for Neurodegeneration in Aging, where she
and her colleagues proposed an analytic framework for generating multiomics biomarkers from imaging, genomics, metabolomics and other modalities. 

Dr. Badhwar has held several prestigious scholarships over the years, and was recently awarded the Chercheur-boursier Junior 1 from the Fonds de recherche du Québec.

​Additional resources: badhwarmindlab.ca/our_team.php

Dr. Arnold is board certified in both neurology and psychiatry. After his training, Dr. Arnold joined the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania where he was Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology until his move to Massachusetts General Hospital in 2015. At the Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. Arnold is the neurology lead for the Interdisciplinary Brain Center, a new collaboration of the Departments of Neurology. Psychiatry and the Martinos Center for Neuroimaging. Its mission is to facilitate the discovery, development, and implementation of promising therapeutics and associated diagnostics for individuals with complex brain disorders that affect cognition, behavior and emotion. Neurodegenerative diseases are major disease interests of the Interdisciplinary Brain Center.

Dr. Arnold has conducted longstanding research on neurodegenerative disease pathology, molecular biomarkers and therapeutics for cognitive decline and psychiatric syndromes in late life and has led broad clinical and translational research programs. He has authored over 300 scientific articles, reviews and chapters. Current scientific interests include biomarkers in brain aging and dementias, metabolic factors driving dementia, and protective factors that account for cognitive resilience, all towards accelerating therapeutics discovery and development in early phase and proof-of-concept clinical trials for neurocognitive disorders.

Dr. Arnold’s clinical practice at Massachusetts General Hospital focuses on older adults with cognitive disorders, especially Alzheimer’s disease and normal pressure hydrocephalus.

Additional resources: connects.catalyst.harvard.edu/Profiles/display/Person/166253

He has been the (inter)national PI for over 35 studies, including phase 1-3 multicenter clinical trials. He supervised >75 PhD theses since 2000. He founded the Dutch national plan against dementia and served as chair of the board. He is co-editor-in-chief of Alzheimer’s Research & Therapy and co-leads various EU projects. He authored over 1100 peer reviewed papers and > 75 book chapters and co-edited several major text books.

He is member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) since 2011. In 2016 he was awarded the European Grand Prix for Alzheimer’s Research. In 2020 he was Knighted in the Order of the Netherlands Lion by the King of the Netherlands. In 2021 he was elected honorary member of the European Academy of Neurology and was appointed chair of the World Dementia Council.

Additional resources: research.vumc.nl/en/persons/philip-scheltens

Dr. Nosheny has research experience in the fields of neurodegeneration; synaptic biology; longitudinal brain atrophy in aging and Alzheimer’s disease (AD); and AD biomarkers. Her current research focuses on the development and validation of novel methods to efficiently identify older adults at risk for cognitive decline, cognitive impairment, and dementia. She leads a number of studies focused on validation of remote cognitive and functional assessments, including a project to develop and validate a remotely-administered, automatically scored electronic Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR). Within the BHR, she directs multiple initiatives to increase research participation of underrepresented populations in dementia research using community-engaged research strategies. Within the Alzheimer’s Association ISTAART Subjective Cognitive Decline Professional Interest Area, she leads a working group focused on better understanding the role of dyadic (participant and study partner) subjective measures in dementia research. Dr. Nosheny established a novel cohort in BHR of over 9000 participant/study partner dyads to validate remote dyadic subjective report measures.

Additional resources: profiles.ucsf.edu/rachel.nosheny

In addition to her statistical expertise, her research interests cover a wide range of areas, including behavioral intervention against cognitive decline, epidemiology of dementia and cross cultural comparisons on healthy cognitive aging. Over the past 10 years, she has been conducting a series of NIH funded behavioral intervention randomized controlled trials to examine whether social interactions through internet/webcams can improve cognitive functions. Her current NIH funded R01 has been recruiting social isolated older adults (aged 75 and over) collaborating with Meals on Wheels programs and other organizations (I-CONECT project: Internet-based Conversational Engagement Clinical Trial) (https://www.i-conect.org). She also has been actively conducting research in Japan: she has a research cohort of healthy older old in Okinawa, Japan, who have been followed since 2007, collaborating with the Okinawa Centenarian Study. This cohort has been providing opportunities for researchers to examine factors associated with healthy cognitive aging.

She served as the founding chair of a Professional Interest Area (PIA) entitled “Clinical Trials Advancements and Outcomes” in the International Society to Advance Alzheimer’s Research (ISTAART, an international AD research organization sponsored by the Alzheimer’s Association). This PIA creates an international researchers’ forum where innovative clinical trial approaches, developments of outcomes sensitive to trial effects, and unique non-pharmacological trials are being introduced and discussed. She holds Fellow status at the Gerontological Society of America and serves as statistical and senior editors for multiple dementia journals.

Additional resources: ohsu.edu/people/hiroko-h-dodge-phd

Dr. Feldman has made vital contributions in scientific discoveries and clinical research studies focused on aging, mild cognitive impairment/Alzheimer’s disease (AD), frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and diagnostic/therapeutic trials. He has led numerous international clinical trials in AD resulting in important original data and informing care across the continuum of the disease. In the field of frontotemporal dementia, he has contributed to the discoveries of the progranulin (Nature 2006) and C9ORF72 (Neuron 2011) genetic mutations as well as to the elucidation of TDP43. He has helped lead the international working group that has reframed diagnostic criteria for Alzheimer’s disease that have re-conceptualized the disease and transformed the approach to clinical trials (Lancet Neurology 2007, 2011, 2014, 2016, 2021).

His career contributions have been profiled in Lancet Neurology in 2007. He has been named by Web of Science Clarivate Analytics as a ‘highly cited’ neuroscientist and among ‘the world’s most influential scientific minds’ (2008-18). He was appointed as a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and the American Academy of Neurology in 2008. In 2019, he was also ranked #1 PI in Neurosciences funding from NIH by Blueridge Institute for Medical Research.

Additional resources: profiles.ucsd.edu/howard.feldman

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.

Additional resources: psychiatry.pitt.edu/about-us/our-people/faculty/mary-ganguli-mbbs-md

An active clinician, teacher, and researcher, Dr. Peters sees patients in the Acquired Brain Injury Clinic and Memory and Alzheimer’s Treatment Center at Johns Hopkins Bayview. He has been internationally recognized for his research work, being the recipient of the New Investigator Award from the Alzheimer’s Association (2015), Career Development Award from the American Neuropsychiatric Association (2016), and the Young Investigator Award from the International Brain Injury Association (2017).

He has an active interest in developing sustainable, reliable, scalable mental health programs. Towards this end, he is the Medical Director of Telepsychiatry and Telebehavioral Health at Johns Hopkins Bayview, as well as the medical director of the BALANCE program, which incorporates mental healthcare into the workplace. He is an associate editor for the International Review of Psychiatry and a managing editor of the Johns Hopkins Psychiatry Guide.

Additional resources: hopkinsmedicine.org/profiles/details/matthew-peters

He has certification in Behavioral Neurology & Neuropsychiatry, and Geriatric Psychiatry, and has over 20 years of clinical experience. His research program encompasses: i) rating scale development and measurement-based care; ii) neurodegenerative disease epidemiology and diagnosis; iii) nosology, assessment, and management of non-cognitive markers of dementia; iv) neuroimaging and biomarker studies of dementia and predementia syndromes; and v) dementia clinical trials of cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes. His research has been funded by Brain Canada, the Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and he has authored over 150 peer reviewed manuscripts.

Dr. Ismail is Chair of the Canadian Consensus Conference on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Dementia, which generates Canadian dementia guidelines, the most recent iteration of which were published in 2020. He is also Chair of the Canadian Conference on Dementia, and Academic Co-chair of the US Alzheimer’s Association-ISTAART Neuropsychiatric Syndromes Professional Interests Area.

Dr Ismail led the ISTAART development of the neurobehavioural syndrome Mild Behavioural Impairment (MBI) and the MBI Checklist, and co-led development of the new research criteria for biomarker and phenotypic classification of psychosis in AD and related dementias. Dr. Ismail is a contributor to international working groups advancing nosology in neurodegenerative diseases. He is an author on the revised IPA criteria for Psychosis in Neurocognitive Disorders, ISCTM-ISTAART criteria for Apathy in Neurocognitive Disorders, and the upcoming revision of the IPA criteria for Agitation in Neurocognitive Disorders.

Additional resources: hbi.ucalgary.ca/profiles/dr-zahinoor-ismail