Mentors

Rebecca Abraham, MS, received her BS in Neuroengineering from Drexel University and her MS in Cognitive Neuroscience from the CUNY Graduate Center. Her thesis focused on the impact of cerebrovascular disease on frailty and aging, with a particular focus on cognition. She is currently the Project Manager for the Long Life Family Study, a comprehensive, multi-site investigation of the factors which contribute to healthy aging.

Sachin Agarwal, MD, MPH is an Associate Professor of Neurology. He is a nationally and internationally recognized expert in neurological intensive care in the Department of Neurology's Division of Neurocritical Care and Hospitalist Neurology. He is an expert in post-cardiac arrest care, treatments, and outcomes.

Stacy Andersen, PhD is an Assistant Professor at Boston University School of Medicine. She is a behavioral neuroscientist and co-director of the New England Centenarian Study at Boston University. Her primary research interests lie in the study of exceptionally long-lived individuals and resilience to cognitive dysfunction in very old ages.

Stephanie Assuras, PhD is an Associate Professor of Neuropsychology in the Clinical Neuropsychology Service within the Division of Cognitive Neuroscience. Her primary clinical and research activities have focused on differential diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases such Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and other movement disorders, and primary progressive aphasia.

Megan Barker, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown University. Dr. Barker’s research is in the field of cognitive neuropsychology. Her work focuses on detecting cognitive and behavioral changes in persons at risk for developing dementia and phenotyping cognitive and behavioral changes in neurodegenerative disorders, acquired brain injuries, and congenital brain malformations. She has a particular interest in young-onset dementias and disorders on the frontotemporal lobar degeneration spectrum.

Korhan Buyukturkoglu, PhD is an Associate Research Scientist in the Department of Neurology at CUMC, focusing on identifying neuroimaging biomarkers of cognitive impairment in multiple sclerosis (MS) and Alzheimer's disease. He uses machine learning methods to develop predictive models from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data, aiming to detect cognitive decline early and improve diagnosis and treatment strategies for these neurological conditions.

Silvia Chapman, PhD is an Associate Research Scientist in the Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center with a background in understanding clinical presentations of disordered self-awareness and cognitive impairment across a variety of neurological disorders. During her postdoctoral fellowship she focused on unimpaired samples to study how self-awareness, specifically Subjective Cognitive Decline (SCD) operates as one of the earliest clinical markers of early Alzheimer’s disease. Through a multifactorial approach she seeks to understand how psychological, social, measurement, and biological factors impact SCD and its link to future AD.

Yian Gu, PhD is an Associate Research Scientist who received her training in epidemiology at Fudan University and New York University. Her research aims to understand the role of diet, physical activities, sleep, and other lifestyle factors in brain aging, cognitive aging, and neurodegenerative diseases. Dr. Gu’s current research focuses on elucidating the biological mechanisms for the lifestyle-brain relationship.

Vanessa Guzman, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai. Dr. Guzman’s research focuses on how vascular risk factors and vascular health disparities are related to cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD), with the goal of identifying factors contributing to risk and resilience in ADRD among racial and ethnic minorities.

Betina Idnay, PhD, RN is a nurse informaticist and postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of Biomedical Informatics. Her research focuses on leveraging machine learning and electronic health records (EHR) to enhance cohort identification and improve cohort representation in clinical studies.

Radhika Jagannathan, MD, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Neurology in the Division of Aging and Dementia and the Taub Institute. Dr. Jagannathan specializes in treating patients with memory disorders in her Aging and Dementia practice and also sees patients with Huntington’s disease through the multidisciplinary Huntington's Disease Society of America Center of Excellence at Columbia.

Zarina Kraal, PhD is a Postdoctoral Research Scientist in the Department of Neurology and the Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center. She is a neuropsychologist whose research examines sources of stress and resilience that link cardiometabolic diseases and psychosocial function to Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias in racially and ethnically diverse groups.

Victoria Leavitt, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Neuropsychology in the Department of Neurology and Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center at CUMC. Her primary interest lies in understanding cognitive impairment and lifestyle factors that protect against cognitive decline in clinical populations, with a specialization in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS).

Annie Lee, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Neurology Science in Neurology, the Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center, and the Taub Institute. In research, Dr. Lee is focused on understanding neurodegenerative diseases, in particular Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and Parkinson’s disease, using advanced statistical approaches and large-scale multi-omics data.

Ikjae Lee, MD an Assistant Professor of Neurology in the Division of Neuromuscular Medicine. Dr. Lee is board-certified in Neurology, Neuromuscular Medicine, and Electrodiagnostic Medicine. Dr. Lee has a particular interest in developing therapeutics and studying quality-of-life-related treatments in patients with ALS and myasthenia gravis.

Francesco Michelassi, PhD is an Assistant in Clinical and Postdoctoral Clinical Fellow in the Department of Neurology. His primary research focuses on the physiology and pathophysiology of the brain to discover and improve upon treatments for neuronal diseases.

Mamunar Rashid, PhD is an Associate Research Scientist in the Department of Neurology. Dr. Rashid’s long-term career goal is to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most common neurodegenerative disorder. His research places particular interest on the role of innate immune cells, such as microglia, in AD, and how to modulate their phagocytic activities to clear toxic material from the AD brain while maintaining neuronal integrity.

Sandra Rizer, MA is a psychometrist and coordinator of cognitive assessment for multiple research studies at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. She received her BS in Criminal Justice and BA in Psychology from the University of New Haven and her MA in Psychology from Montclair State University. Her primary research interest is in teleneuropsychology and the validity and reliability of digital assessment.

Ayesha Sania, PhD is an Associate Research Scientist in the Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Sania studies the role of early life exposures on child health and development outcomes relevant to maternal and child health programs and policy among the underserved population.

Sabrina Simoes, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Neurological Sciences in Neurology and in the Taub Institute at CUMC. Dr. Simoes is a cellular neurobiologist who studies endosomal trafficking in normal and pathological conditions. Research in her lab focuses on understanding the mechanisms underlying the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), with special emphasis on endo-lysosomal dysfunction.

Preeti Sunderaraman, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Neurology at the Boston University School of Medicine. Dr. Sunderaraman’s research focuses on financial decision-making, financial awareness, and financial loss in aging and neurodegenerative conditions.

Sarah Tom, PhD, MPH is an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology in Neurology and the Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center at the CUMC. Dr. Tom’s primary area of research uses methods of demography and epidemiology to study risk for and resilience against dementia and cognitive decline in older adults from a life course perspective.

Giuseppe Tosto, MD, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Neurological Sciences in Neurology, the Taub Institute, and the Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center. Dr. Tosto is a genetic epidemiologist who works primarily on populations with admixed ancestry, such as Caribbean Hispanics and African Americans and has funded projects on admixture mapping and RNA sequencing in the context of Alzheimer’s Disease.

Angeliki Tsapanou, MSc, PhD is an Associate Research Scientist in the Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center. Dr. Tsapanou studied Psychology at the University of Athens. She continued her education with a master’s degree in clinical Neuropsychology at the Medical School of Athens and then pursued a PhD jointly between the University of Athens and Columbia University, New York. Her primary research examines sleep genetics and cognition.