GAAIN - Key Persons


Arthur W. Toga - Founder

Job Titles:
  • Director
  • Founder
  • Director of the USC Laboratory of Neuro Imaging
Arthur W. Toga is Director of the USC Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, Director of the USC Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute, Provost Professor, Departments of Ophthalmology, Neurology, Psychiatry, and the Behavioral Sciences, Radiology and Engineering at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. His research is focused on neuroimaging, informatics, mapping brain structure and function, and brain atlasing. He has developed multimodal imaging and data aggregation strategies and applied them in a variety of neurological diseases and psychiatric disorders. His work in informatics includes the development and implementation of some of the largest and most widely used databases and data mining tools linking disparate data from genetics, imaging, clinical and behavior, supporting global efforts in Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's and Parkinson's disease. He was trained in neuroscience and computer science and has written more than 1,000 papers, chapters and abstracts, including eight books. In the fall of 2013, he and the Laboratory of Neuro Imaging were recruited to the University of Southern California. Prior to his recruitment to USC, Dr. Toga was recruited to UCLA in 1987 where he directed the Laboratory of Neuro Imaging. This 80-member laboratory includes graduate students from computer science, biostatistics and neuroscience. It is funded with grants from the National Institutes of Health grants as well as industry partners. He has received numerous awards and honors in computer science, graphics and neuroscience. At UCLA, he was a Distinguished Professor of Neurology, held the Geffen Chair of Informatics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, was the Associate Director of the UCLA Brain Mapping Division within the Neuropsychiatric Institute, and was Associate Dean, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the journal NeuroImage and has held the chairmanship of numerous committees within NIH and a variety of international task forces. Dr. Toga is the principal investigator for GAAIN.

Dr. Alon Halevy

Job Titles:
  • CEO of the Recriut Institute of Technology
Dr. Alon Halevy is the CEO of the Recriut Institute of Technology located in Mountain View, California. Prior to that, he was the head the Structured Data Group at Google Research, where he led the Google Fusion Tables project. He was a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Washington, where he founded the Database Research Group. From 1993 to 1997 he was a Principal Member of Technical Staff at AT&T Bell Laboratories (later AT&T Laboratories). He received his Ph.D in Computer Science from Stanford University in 1993, and his Bachelors degree in Computer Science and Mathematics from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1988. Dr. Halevy's research interests are in data integration, structured-data on the Web, semantic heterogeneity, personal information management, management of XML data, peer-data management systems, query optimization, database theory, knowledge representation, and more generally, the intersection between Database and AI technologies.

Dr. Enrique Castro-Leon

Job Titles:
  • Enterprise Architect / Intel
Dr. Enrique Castro-Leon is an enterprise and data center architect and technology strategist for Intel Digital Enterprise Group working in OS design and architecture, software engineering, high-performance computing, platform definition, and business development. Dr. Castrol-Leon's work involves matching emerging technologies with innovative business models in developed and emerging markets. In this capacity he has served as a consultant for corporations large and small, nonprofits and governmental organizations on issues of technology and data center planning. He has taken roles as visionary, solution architect, project manager, and has undertaken the technical execution in advanced proof of concept projects with corporate end users and inside Intel illustrating the use of emerging technologies. Dr. Castro-Leon has published over 40 articles, conference papers and white papers on technology strategy and management as well as SOA and Web services. He holds PhD and MS degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Purdue University.

Dr. Neil Buckholtz

Job Titles:
  • Chief of the Dementias of Aging Branch
  • Chief, Dementias of Aging Branch
Dr. Neil Buckholtz is chief of the Dementias of Aging Branch of the Division of Neuroscience at the National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD. He has overall programmatic responsibility for the development, coordination, and implementation of basic and clinical Alzheimer's disease (AD) research. Specifically, he is the program administrator for grants and contracts portfolios, including AD drug discovery and development and AD neuroimaging and biomarker research. Dr. Buckholtz holds a doctorate in physiological psychology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and was a faculty member at the Medical University of South Carolina, Department of Psychiatry, from 1970 to 1983 before coming to NIH.

Dr. Rhett Alden

Job Titles:
  • Chief Architect for Performance
  • Chief Architect, Performance Solutions, Division of HCIT
Dr. Rhett Alden is the Chief Architect for Performance Solutions within GE Healthcare. He is responsible for technical diligence activities for Merger and Acquisition activities in collaboration with the Business Development team for Performance Solutions, to evaluate both technical and market applicability within the GEHC portfolio. He is also driving the implementation of Cloud computing strategy for Performance Solution portfolio and Analytics as a Service (AaaS). Dr. Alden has been with GE for the past decade, and prior was the Director and Architect for Regulome Corporation, a biotech startup targeting regulatory markers for heart disease and other genetic diseases. He received his doctorate from the University of New Mexico in Major Physical Chemistry. Dr. Alden has over forty peer-review journal articles published in high impact journals such as Science, Nature, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Dr. William Klunk

Job Titles:
  • Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
  • Professor, University of Pittsburgh / Co - Director, Alzheimer 's Disease Research Center
Dr. William Klunk is a Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He is also the co-Director of the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Klunk is an internationally recognized expert on the development and application of PET amyloid imaging agents for the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease and for the assessment of the effectiveness of therapeutic interventions. He is the Vice Chair of the Alzheimer's Association Medical Advisory Council. He has been honored with a MERIT Award from the National Institute on Aging, the 2009 Ronald and Nancy Reagan Research Institute Award for research in Alzheimer's disease with colleague Chester A. Mathis, Ph.D., the 2008 Potamkin Prize and the 2004 MetLife Foundation Award. Dr. Klunk has published more than 100 journal articles and book chapters. In addition to his extensive research activities, he has established a reputation as a superb educator and mentor to students, trainees and junior faculty. Dr. Klunk is a highly respected and accomplished member of the scientific field. He received his MD and his PhD at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, Missouri.

Giovanni B. Frisoni

Job Titles:
  • Deputy Scientific Director
Dr. Frisoni is a clinical neurologist and full professor of clinical neuroscience at the University of Geneva, Switzerland and the Head of the Memory Clinical of the Geneva University Hospital. He co-founded the Italian Centre for Alzheimer's Disease at IRCCS - Fatebenefratelli Hospital, where he led a multidisciplinary team of twenty-five clinical neuroscientists in the Laboratory of Epidemiology Neuroimaging and Telemedicine. For twenty years, Dr. Frisoni's scientific interests have encompassed the clinical neuroimaging of Alzheimer's disease and other cognitive disorders. He is the imaging section editor of Neurobiology of Aging and an editorial board member for The Lancet Neurology. Over the past ten years, he has served as the principal or co-principal investigator or scientific coordinator for several research studies and has secured extensive funding to advance the study and understanding of cognitive disorders.

Heather Snyder

Job Titles:
  • Senior Director of Medical and Scientific Operations at the Alzheimer 's Association
  • Senior Director of Medical and Scientific Operations, Medical and Scientific Relations / Alzheimer 's Association
Dr. Snyder is Senior Director of Medical and Scientific Operations at the Alzheimer's Association. She manages the Alzheimer's Association International Research Grant Program, the mechanism through which the Association funds research applications. She oversees the Association's relationship with the leading disease journal in clinical neurology, Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association, and its companion open access journals Alzheimer's & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment & Disease Monitoring and Alzheimer's & Dementia: Translational Research & Clinical Interventions. Dr. Snyder is responsible for a number of specific research initiatives to further understand the underlying biology of Alzheimer's, including the Alzheimer's Association Women's Alzheimer's Research Initiative to explore the link between gender and vulnerability to Alzheimer's, and efforts to understand the role of vascular factors - including heart disease and stroke-related disorders - in Alzheimer's and dementia. Dr. Snyder also serves as the Program Officer for GAAIN

Ioannis Pappas

Job Titles:
  • Project Specialist

Karen Crawford

Job Titles:
  • MIS Manager

Maria C. Carrillo

Job Titles:
  • Chief Science Officer / Alzheimer 's Association
  • Senior Member of the Alzheimer 's Association
Dr. Carrillo is a senior member of the Alzheimer's Association science staff and an Alzheimer's Association spokesperson on a wide range of medical and scientific issues. She leads the Association's International Research Grant Program (the world's flagship nonprofit initiative to advance Alzheimer's science, and the Alzheimer's Association Research Roundtable (a consortium of scientists from academe, industry and international public agencies collaborating to overcome universal barriers to progress in developing Alzheimer's treatments). Dr. Carrillo's core areas of expertise include the emerging effort to identify biomarkers, measurable indicators of underlying physical changes linked to Alzheimer's disease and other types of dementia, through brain imaging, spinal fluid protein analysis and other strategies.

Mr. Brady Davis

Job Titles:
  • Director Healthcare Strategy & Innovation / Oracle
Mr. Brady Davis heads strategy, market development and product marketing for Illumina's Enterprise Informatics Business Unit (EIBU). Brady works with the commercial and product development leads in order to help accelerate new market opportunities with a focus on using Genetics data as a clinical utility. Brady is also responsible for building strategic partnerships with both technology and services based organizations as well as working with Illumina's Corporate Development Business Unit to identify investment and acquisition opportunities. He has been an innovator and leader in the hospital ACO space as well as the consumer health and wellness industry for over 15 years. He is a graduate from the University of Washington in Seattle.

Paul Aisen

Job Titles:
  • Director, Alzheimer 's Therapeutic Research Institute / University of Southern California
Dr. Aisen, has conducted therapeutic research on Alzheimer's disease over 25 years. After graduating from Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Dr Aisen received his medical degree from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City and pursued his clinical training as a resident in the Department of Medicine at University Hospitals in Cleveland, Ohio, and in the Department of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. He completed his fellowship in the Division of Rheumatology at the New York University Medical Center before returning to Mount Sinai Hospital as chief resident in the Department of Medicine. Dr Aisen is a diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine, with specialty certification in rheumatology. After 15 years on the faculty at Mount Sinai, Dr Aisen moved to Georgetown University, Washington, DC, in 1999 as professor in the departments of neurology and of medicine and became vice chair of the Department of Neurology in 2004. From 2007 until 2015 he was professor of neurosciences at the University of California, San Diego in La Jolla, California, and Director of the Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study. At present he is Director of the University of Southern California Alzheimer's Therapeutic Research Institute, located in San Diego, California. Dr Aisen has collaborated extensively with the biotech and pharmaceutical industries for many years. He has led numerous multicenter trials, and has authored more than 300 scientific papers.

Scott Neu

Job Titles:
  • Assistant Professor