Scientists
Year 5
Zarina Kraal, PhD
- Postdoctoral Research Scientist at Columbia University
Dr. Kraal's pilot, Social Context and Psychosocial Contributors to Type 2 Diabetes-Related Cognitive Outcomes in African American Older Adults, explores relationships between T2D, negative psychosocial factors (depressive symptoms, perceived stress), social context, and cognitive outcomes. Her mentor is Dr. Jennifer Manly.
Emily Hokett, PhD
- Postdoctoral Research Scientist at Columbia University
Dr. Hokett's pilot project, Neighborhood- and individual-level and factors in relation to racial/ethnic sleep disparities and cognition in a community-based older adult sample, examines neighborhood-level factors that may contribute to racial/ethnic sleep and cognitive disparities. Her mentors are Drs. Jennifer Manly, Priya Palta, and Adam Brickman.
Pablo Martinez Amezcua, MD, PhD, MHS
- Assistant Professor of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Dr. Martinez Amezcua’s pilot project, Association of domains of physical activity and sedentary behavior with neuroimaging and blood markers of brain health in a middle-aged ethnically diverse cohort, aims to investigate if the association between physical activity and neuroimaging markers of brain health differ by the physical activity domains. His mentors are Drs. Priya Palta and Kelley P. Gabriel.
Broadly, he is interested in how mid-life cardiovascular risk factors contribute to health at older ages, including physical function, cognitive health, and sensory loss. Martinez Amezcua is passionate about teaching epidemiology.
Paris "AJ" Adkins-Jackson, PhD, MPH
- Assistant Professor, Departments of Epidemiology and Sociomedical Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health
- Faculty Affiliate, Columbia Population Research Center and Data Science Institute
Dr. Adkins-Jackson's pilot, The aggregate role of structural racism on depressive symptoms, sleep disturbance, and cognitive function in Black older adults, tests the fit of a multilevel model where the pathway between structural racism and cognitive function are mediated by depression and sleep disturbance. Her mentor is Dr. Jennifer Manly.
Year 4
Justina Avila-Rieger, PhD
- Postdoctoral Research Scientist at Columbia University
Dr. Avila-Rieger's pilot project, Estrogen, Lifecourse Social Factors, and Cognitive Aging across Race/Ethnicity, will determine whether there are racial/ethnic differences in the relationship between cumulative estrogen exposure, cognitive decline, and dementia risk, and explore the relationships between lifecourse social and contextual factors, such as childhood and adult SES and birth place and time, estrogen exposure and cognitive outcomes across racial/ethnic groups. Her mentor is Dr. Jennifer Manly.
Jordan Weiss, PhD
- Research Scientist, Stanford Center on Longevity
Dr. Weiss's pilot project, Unpacking Educational Gradients in Dementia, to evaluate heterogeneity in the effect of education on dementia across population subgroups, and to identify drivers of that heterogeneity. His mentor is Dr. David Rehkopf.
Michael Oliver, PhD
- Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Belmont University
Dr. Oliver's pilot project, Differential Effects of Tau Pathology and Dysautonomia in Alzheimer's Disease, aims to elucidate the connections between tau pathology, AD-related CNS dysfunction, and dysautonomia in a multi-racial/ethnic cohort. His mentors are Drs. Lisa L. Barnes and Priya Palta.
Ganga Bey, PhD, MPH
- Postdoctoral Fellow, UNC School of Global Public Health
Dr. Bey's pilot project, Biopsychosocial Mechanisms for the Contribution of Neighborhood Stressors to Brain Health Disparities, aims to empirically test hypotheses generated from a previously developed theoretical framework. Beginning with the construction and validation of a scale measuring a novel health-predictive identity characteristic, this research will examine identity influences on the relationship between neighborhood stressors, psychosocial traits, and cognitive aging and health in a large cohort. Her mentors are Drs. Priya Palta and Gerardo Heiss.
Year 3
Stacia Nicholson, PhD
- Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Columbia University
Dr. Nicholson's pilot project, Investigation of Differential Expression of Plasma-derived Neuronal Extracellular Vesicles across Races: Non-invasive Detection of Neurodegeneration associated with Environmental Pollution, aims to identify novel biomarkers that accurately reflect environmental influences and predict future risk of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias (ADRD). Her mentor is Dr. Andrea Baccarelli.
David Camacho, PhD, MSW, MSG
- Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Maryland, Baltimore
Dr. Camacho's pilot project, Loneliness, Chronic Pain and Cognitive Functioning in Racially Diverse Older Adults: Examining the Role of Minority Stress, investigates how cultural and minority stress factors influence the relationship between loneliness, chronic pain, and impaired cognitive functioning among community-dwelling older Latinos and African Americans. His mentors are Drs. Carrington Reid and Elaine Wethington.
Mirnova Ceide MD, MS
- Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Department of Medicine (Geriatrics)
Dr. Ceide's pilot project, The Motoric-cognitve Correlates of Apathy in Racial-ethnic Minority Older Adults, investigates the association between apathy, a potential risk factor for Alzheimer's Disease and related dementias (ADRD), and both cognitive and locomotor performance in a culturally and educationally diverse, urban clinic population of older adults with memory complaints. Her mentors are Drs. Joe Verghese and David Lounsbury.
Year 2
Miguel Arce Renteria, PhD
- Assistant Professor of Neuropsychology at Columbia University Medical Center
Dr. Arce's pilot project, Improving Detection and Management of Cognitive Impairment among Older Latinx, evaluates the relationship of a language concordant/discordant neuropsychological evaluation on health care utilization. His mentor was Dr. Jennifer Manly.
Indira Turney, PhD
- Associate Research Scientist/Neuroscientist at Columbia University Medical Center
Dr. Turney's pilot project, Neuroimaging Predictors of Cognition in Mid-life and Late-life across Race/Ethnicity, focuses on underlying neural correlates of cognition across the lifespan in racially/ethnically diverse middle-aged and older adults. Her current research uses multiple neuroimaging modalities to identify lifecourse sociocultural and structural mechanisms that underlie brain aging in racially/ethnically diverse adults across the lifespan. Her mentor is Dr. Adam Brickman.
Omonigho M. Bubu, MD, MPH, PhD
- Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry at NYU Grossman School of Medicine
- Assistant Professor, Department of Population Health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine
Dr. Bubu's pilot project, Interaction of Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) and Race on novel plasma biomarkers of Alzheimer’s Disease Neuropathology, specifically plasma tau, and neurofilament light (NFL) protein, investigates whether OSA is associated with plasma tau, and NFL. His mentor was Dr. Ricardo Osorio.
Since the CIRAD pilot funding, Dr. Bubu has received various grants to fund his research, such as the BrightFocus Foundation Alzheimer’s disease grant, Alzheimer’s Association Research Grant (AARG), American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) Bridge Award for Early Career Investigators, NYU Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center Developmental Grant, and a mentored NIA K23 award.
Diana Hernandez, PhD
- Associate Professor of Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University
Dr. Hernandez's pilot, The Relationship between Energy Insecurity (EI) and Cognitive Impairment and ADRD, empirically tests if subjective measures of energy insecurity based on the Energy Insecurity Scale are associated with cognitive function, sleep quality and psychosocial stress in older adults. Her mentors are Drs. Jose Luchsinger and Jennifer Manly.
Ivan Hernandez, PhD
- Assistant Professor in the Department of Pathology
Dr. Hernandez's pilot project, Comparative Studies of Expression of rDNA Variants in Post-mortem Brain from Patients with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), Asymptomatic AD pathology, and Controls from a Multiethnic Community, compares expression of rRNA gene variants RNA-seq in brains of AD, ASYMAD, and control groups and whether they differ across racial/ethnic groups. His mentor is Dr. Oleg Evgrafov.
Year 1
Adriana Arcia, PhD, RN, FAAN
- Professor, University of San Diego Hahn School of Nursing and Health Science
- Associate Professor of Clinical Nursing, Columbia University School of Nursing
Dr. Arcia's pilot project, Interactive Functional Assessment Staging Navigator (I-FASTN), aimed to test the usability of a novel, interactive informational tool about the functional stages of dementia. Her mentor for the project was Dr. Suzanne Bakken. Dr. Arcia subsequently received funding from the Alzheimer's Association to assess the validity of functional stage assessments made by caregivers using the I-FASTN app.
Eleanor Murphy, PhD
- Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology (in Psychiatry) at Columbia University
Dr. Murphy's pilot project, Causal Attributions about Alzheimer’s Disease and Attitudes towards Genetic Risk Assessment, Diagnostic Imaging and Research Participation among African Americans and Latinos, leverages an existing cohort to investigate causal attributions made for AD, as a function of family history of AD and demographic factors such as age, gender, ethnicity, education, and socio-economic status (SES). Her mentor is Dr. Ruth Ottman.
Marisa Spann, PhD, MPH
- Associate Professor of Medical Psychology in Psychiatry and Pediatrics at Columbia University
Dr. Spann's pilot project, Cranial ultrasound abnormalities as early indicators of brain and cognitive aging in LBW/PT birth adults, examines the consequences of neonatal brain injury on brain and cognitive outcomes in early adulthood (mid-thirties) in a racially/ethnically diverse subsample of a Low Birth Weight/Preterm Birth regional birth cohort. Her mentor is Dr. Agnes Whitaker.