NEUROSCAPE - Key Persons

Biography: Catherine Gotz is a Clinical Research coordinator in the Psychedelics Division of Neuroscape, working under Jennifer Mitchell, PhD. She is primarily responsible for coordinating the POET Study, a San Francisco VA Medical Center phase II clinical trial on the use of oxytocin nasal spray combined with Prolonged Exposure therapy for veterans with PTSD. clinicaltrials.gov study record Catherine Gotz received her BA in Neuroscience from the University of Pennsylvania in 2021.

Catriona Miller

ca..@ucsf.edu

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Clinical Program Manager

Chelsea Bautista

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Undergraduate Student, University of San Francisco

Chris Palitz

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3D Artist

Christopher Blake Finnegan

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Graduate Student, Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo

Courtney Gallen

co..@ucsf.edu

Job Titles:

Director of Education Division - Neuroscape / Assistant Professional Researcher - Neurology
Director of Education Division / Assistant Professional Researcher - Neurology

Courtney graduated in 2009 from Penn State with a B.S. in biology, concentrating in neuroscience. As an undergraduate, Courtney worked with Sheri Berenbaum, examining the effects of prenatal testosterone exposure on gender-typed behavior. From 2009 to 2011, Courtney worked in Elliot Stein's lab at the National Institute on Drug Abuse through the NIH Post-Baccalaureate IRTA program. There, she studied the effects of genetic polymorphisms on reward processing using fMRI. In Courtney's graduate work with Mark D'Esposito at UC Berkeley, she used fMRI and graph theory to examine properties of large-scale functional brain networks that support cognitive control processes, such as working memory. One arm of her dissertation research focused on examining modular network reconfiguration due to cognitive control demands. This work showed that the pattern of demand-related reconfiguration is altered by selective attention and normal aging. A second arm of her dissertation work focused on examining the role of baseline brain network properties in predicting training-related cognitive control gains. This work showed that brain network modularity is predictive of training gains in both young and older adults, suggesting that network properties may be a unifying predictor of cognitive training success across populations and interventions. At Neuroscape, Courtney is using her previous research to develop personalized approaches to cognitive interventions. Further, Courtney has several lines of work at Neuroscape dedicated to understanding attention abilities that develop over childhood and adolescence, including how they are related to real-world behaviors (e.g., academic performance, risk-taking, physical and mental health) and how we can improve these abilities with targeted training programs. Finally, Courtney is also broadly interested in how brain network properties support aspects of cognitive control, namely attention, and how such properties are related to cognitive and neural plasticity. Mulitmodal biosensing, internal attention, self-regulation, mind-body integration

Crystal Wang

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Undergraduate Student, UC Berkeley

Daniel Steiner

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Undergraduate Student, UC Berkeley

Danny Holzman

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Undergraduate Student, UC Berkeley

David A. Ziegler

da..@ucsf.edu

Job Titles:

Director, Technology Division Multimodal Biosensing - Neuroscape / Assistant Professor - Neurology
Director, Technology Division Multimodal Biosensing / Assistant Professor - Neurology

Dr. Ziegler completed his Ph.D. in Systems Neuroscience in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he took a cutting-edge multimodal neuroimaging approach to examine the effects of healthy aging and Parkinson's disease on cognitive control systems in the brain. The current focus of his research is on unmasking the neural mechanisms that account for age-related changes in cognitive control and to translate these basic neuroscience findings into cognitive neurotherapeutic interventions to alleviate impairments in attention in diverse populations. He has a particular interest in merging complementary mind-body approaches, such as meditation and yoga, with neuroplasticity-based interventions to improve cognition while also enhancing overall wellbeing. Dr. Ziegler has received numerous awards, including a UCSF School of Medicine Technology Transformation Grant, a Human Brain Mapping Trainee Travel Award, the Angus MacDonald Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching at MIT, the Denison University President's Medal, and was a two-time recipient of the Harvard/MIT/MGH Advanced Multimodal Neuroimaging Training Program Fellowship. His research has been featured in The New York Times, the Faculty of 1000, the MIT Spotlight, Nature Outlook, and in numerous regional media outlets.

David Dolby - Founder

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Executive Director
Founder

Dawn Weinstein

da..@ucsf.edu

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Nurse Practitioner

Dom Wall

do..@ucsf.edu

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Research Associate

Dooyoung Jung

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Visiting Scholar

Dr. Jennifer Mitchell

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Professor - Neurology and Psychiatry

Biography: Dr. Jennifer Mitchell is a Professor in the Departments of Neurology and Psychiatry and the Deputy Associate Chief of Staff for Research and Development at the San Francisco VA. She received her PhD in Neuroscience from UCSF, where her doctoral research focused on understanding how stress and anxiety influence opioid tolerance and addiction. She conducts translational neuroscience research that rests at the intersection of psychology, behavioral pharmacology, and neuroanatomy. Her work is focused on identifying and developing novel therapeutics for drug and alcohol abuse, PTSD, stress, anxiety, and depression and on understanding the neural mechanisms responsible for these disorders. Dr. Mitchell has extensive and diverse experience with human and animal pharmacology, hypothesis-driven neuroscience, human proof-of-concept studies, and clinical trials.

Dr. Manesh Girn

Job Titles:

Chief Research Officer at EntheoTech Bioscience
Postdoctoral Fellow

Biography: Dr. Manesh Girn is a postdoctoral neuroscientist specializing in psychedelic drugs. Working closely with Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris, he conducts functional neuroimaging research on the neural mechanisms underlying the psychedelic experience and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. He has been lead or co-author of over 20 peer-reviewed publications to date on topics spanning psychedelics, the default mode network, and related aspects of consciousness and cognition. Manesh also serves as the Chief Research Officer at EntheoTech Bioscience, a pioneering Canadian bioscience company focused on psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy and multidisciplinary mental health solutions. Beyond academia and industry, he runs a popular digital platform on YouTube and Instagram called "The Psychedelic Scientist", where he disseminates the latest findings and developments in psychedelic science in a layperson friendly manner.

East Forest

East Forest - a musician and producer, specializes in presenting his musical creations to guide live audiences through healing journeys of deep introspection.

Eileen Mariano

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Undergraduate Student, Standford University

Ellen Snyder

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Undergraduate Student, UC Berkeley

Elwyn Crawford

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Design and Technology

Erik Månsson

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Medical Student, Karolinska Institute

Estefania Regalado

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Undergraduate Student, University of San Francisco

Ezequiel Morsella

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Professor - SFSU and UCSF / Assistant Adjunct Professor ( UCSF )

Farzaneh Roostaeigrailoo

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Master, CSU East Bay

Francis Julian Graham

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Undergraduate Student, University of San Francisco

Frederick Fajardo

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Undergraduate Student, University of San Francisco

Gabriella Mace

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Research Associate

Garrett Barnett

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Undergraduate Student, UC Berkeley

Gene Kwan

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Undergraduate Student, San Francisco State University

Georgia Calhoun

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Undergraduate Student, UC Berkeley

Gwen Gao

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Undergraduate Student, Santa Clara University

Hanna Darwish

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Undergraduate Student, UC Berkeley

Hope Zollars

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Undergraduate Student, University of San Francisco

Iacopo Battaglini

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Università Di Palermo

Iman Tassavor

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B.S. Human Physiology @ SF State U, Anatomy & Physiology Instructor @MLVS

Isabella Hartley

is..@ucsf.edu

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Research Associate

Ivan Lee

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Psychology
Undergraduate Student, University of San Francisco

Jackson Borchardt

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Student, Computer Science, Georgia Tech

Jade Rona

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High School Student, Redondo Union High School

Janet Chen

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Undergraduate Student, University of San Francisco

Janni Andersson

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Medical Student, Health University of Linköping

Jared Tan

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Undergraduate Student, UC Berkeley

Jasdeep Sabharwal

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Undergraduate Student, UC Berkeley

Jasminder Bains

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Undergraduate Student, Santa Clara University

Jason Samaha

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Undergraduate Honors Student, San Francisco State University

Jeff Chiu

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Undergraduate Student, UC Berkeley

Jerimiah Martinez

je..@ucsf.edu

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Administrative Analyst

Jessica Younger

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Postdoctoral Fellow

Joaquin A. Anguera

jo..@ucsf.edu

Job Titles:

Director of Clinical Division - Neuroscape / Associate Professor - Neurology and Psychiatry
Director of Clinical Division / Associate Professor - Neurology and Psychiatry

Joaquin grew up in San Diego, and in 2000 completed his undergraduate degree in Animal Physiology/Neuroscience at UCSD. While working on his Bachelor's of Science and for some time after, he worked in a physical therapy clinic where the majority of the patients were older adults. At this clinic, there were some patients that made very little improvements, and it was not always clear why certain interventions worked better for some patients and not others. Intrigued by this, he decided to continue his education at California State University at Northridge where he completed a Master's degree in Kinesiology in 2004, followed by a PhD in the School of Kinesiology at the University of Michigan, examining how different cognitive processes contribute to motor learning in both young and older adults, primarily using fMRI and EEG methodologies to probe these questions. After graduating in the fall of 2008, Joaquin searched for a group where he would gain more experience in the realms of cognitive characterization and remediation…and came across Adam Gazzaley's group, where he has been since January of 2009. The body of research Joaquin has developed since then has focused on characterizing & augmenting aspects of cognitive control. This has involved creating i) advanced training tools to remediate cognitive deficiencies and ii) using mobile technology to robustly characterize (and enhance) distinct cognitive abilities outside of the laboratory. These efforts have required developing a unique expertise in being able to navigate between academia and industry when developing tools for research endeavors. The sum of these experiences have allowed Joaquin to work with a number of distinct populations (and collaborators), including healthy children, young and older adults, as well as clinical populations involving ADHD, dyslexia, autism, and depressed individuals amongst others.

Jodi Lomask

Job Titles:

Director of the Innovative Dance Company Capacitor.Org

Jodi Lomask, artistic director of the innovative dance company Capacitor.org, conceived and choreographed a wonderfully unique dance performance - SYNAPTIC MOTION - which was informed by pre-recorded and live GlassBrain stimulations created at Neuroscape. The neural recordings and artistic integration were facilitated by the engineering talents and vision of John Fesenko.

John Ebrahim

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Undergraduate Student, UC Berkeley

John Kilic

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Graduate Student, San Francisco State University

Jon VanLeeuwen

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Assistant Adjunct Professor, Department of Neurology - UCSF / Director, Strategic Initiatives - UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences
Assistant Adjunct Professor, Department of Neurology - University of California / Director, Strategic Initiatives - UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences

Jonas Karlsson

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Medical Student, Linköping University in Sweden

Joseph Chen

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Postdoctoral Fellow

Josh Volponi

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Research Associate

Josh grew up in the Bay Area and completed his B.A. in Molecular and Cell Biology, emphasis in Neurobiology at UC Berkeley in 2014 and began volunteering as a research assistant at Neuroscape (then called the Gazzaley Lab) that summer to administer neuropsychological assessments assessing baseline cognitive levels of older adults. In 2016, Josh was hired as a research associate to coordinate the Body Brain Trainer Study, a longitudinal, adaptive training study integrating cognitive and physical elements, which was repeated with Older Adults, children, and patients with MS. This work showed enhancements in attention in both the Older Adult and Child populations. That same year, Josh began working in the field of remote research by coordinating the BRIGHTEN study, a mobile randomized controlled trial with bilingual individuals diagnosed with depression. This work demonstrated the potential of remote studies to reach typically underrepresented participants while allowing the recruitment of diverse populations. Due to his experience with coordinating longitudinal training studies both in person and remotely, Josh began working as the Platform Manager for Nexus, Neuroscape's remote trials platform, in 2019. Josh's involvement in Nexus spans design, development, and study coordination, including translating study requests and requirements to actionable development tasks and iterating between researchers and the development team (Alternova) to continually improve Nexus. As of Q3 2023, Nexus hosts over 55 studies (at UCSF and collaborations). In 2022, Josh was promoted to Clinical Research Coordinator and continues to manage Nexus while coordinating various studies and the Neuroscape Alliance, an international affiliation of like-minded translational neuroscience centers.

Joshua Price

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Undergraduate Student, UC Berkeley

Kaitlin Casaletto

ka..@ucsf.edu

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Assistant Professor of Neuropsychology in Neurology, Memory and Aging Center - UCSF

Karam Samplay

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Undergraduate Student, University of California, Berkeley
Undergraduate Student, University of Rochester

Karen I. Amaya Aguirre

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Undergraduate Student, University of San Francisco

Katherine Chong

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Undergraduate Student, Wellesley College

Katherine Kusmin

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Undergraduate Student, University of Rochester

Kayla Bowen

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Undergraduate Student, San Francisco State University

Kelly Galdamez

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Undergraduate Student, University of San Francisco

Kendra Bean

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Undergrad Student, Santa Clara University
Undergraduate Student, Santa Clara University

Kyle Lyman

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Undergraduate Student, the Ohio State University

Lara Stables

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Manager of MRI Lab
Manager, Neuroscape Scanner

Lauren Kim

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Undergraduate Student, University of San Francisco

Laurie Russell

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Undergraduate Student, Northwestern University

Lisa M.P. Munoz - CCO

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Head of Communications

Lorenzo Pasquini

lo..@ucsf.edu

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Assistant Professor

Louie Schwartzberg

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Director
Producer

Louie Schwartzberg - a director, producer, and videographer, recognized as a pioneer of high-end, time-lapse cinematograph. He directed the 2019 film, Fantastic Fungi, and the 2014 Netflix series, Moving Art. His work focuses on connections between humans and nature and environment.

Lourdes (Bella) Ruiz

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Undergraduate Student, University of San Francisco

Mackenzie Brown

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Undergraduate Student, Santa Clara University

Madelyn Torres

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Undergraduate Student, University of San Francisco

Mandi Huynh

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Undergraduate Student, UC Berkeley

Mara Pleasure

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Undergrad Student, University of Southern California

Maria Hoffmann

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Graduate Student, University of Berlin, Germany

Maria Sousaguerreiro

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Student, Maastricht University

Marika Sullivan

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Medical Student, Health University of Linköping

Marisa Sanchez

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Undergraduate Student, Santa Clara University

Mark Estefanos

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Undergraduate Student, Minerva Schools

Maryam Bijanzadeh

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Assistant Professional Researcher

Matthew Michel-Cleeve

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Masters Student, San Francisco State University

Melanie Pincus

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Undergraduate Student, Stanford

Melissa Arioli

me..@ucsf.edu

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Research Associate
Undergraduate Student, University of San Francisco

Melissa Bromley

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Undergraduate Student, UC Berkeley

Melissa Nasiruddin

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Undergraduate Student, UC Berkeley

Melody Chang

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Undergraduate Student, UC Berkeley

Mia Borzello

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Undergraduate Student, UC Berkeley

Michael Parker

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Undergraduate Student, UC Berkeley

Michelle Pang

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Undergraduate Student, University of San Francisco

Mickey Hart

Mickey Hart - a musician, percussionist, scholar, author and public speaker, best known as a drummer in the legendary rock band, the Grateful Dead. Mickey has written books on the history and traditions of drumming throughout history, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame and is a three-time Grammy Award Winner. In addition to the following collaborations, Mickey has long been Neuroscape's rhythm muse and a philanthropic supporter of Coherence.

Minsu Kim

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Undergraduate Student, UC Berkeley

Miranda Roberts

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Undergraduate Student, University of San Francisco

Monica Wong

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Masters Student, Leiden University

Monique de Villa

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Research Associate
Graduate Student, University of San Francisco

Namita (Tanya) Padgaonkar

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Undergraduate Student, UC Berkeley

Naomi Kort

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Neuroscience Graduate Student, UC San Francisco

Navdeep Gill

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Graduate Student, California State University, East Bay

Nicholas Wan

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Graduate Student, Utah State University

Nicky Mehtani

ni..@ucsf.edu

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Postdoctoral Fellow

Biography: Nicky Mehtani is a board-certified addiction medicine and HIV physician with research interests focused on understanding the use of psychedelics in the treatment of substance use disorders (SUDs). She completed medical school, MPH studies, and internal medicine residency at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD before returning home to the Bay Area in 2019 to pursue clinical fellowship training in addiction medicine and HIV at UCSF. Her clinical experiences as an attending physician working with patients at Zuckerberg San Francisco General, the Ward 86 HIV/AIDS Clinic, and the San Francisco Department of Public Health's Street Medicine program elucidated the limitations of existing allopathic addiction pharmacotherapies in addressing many of the deeper psychological and socio-structural issues that underlie the development and perpetuation of SUDs. Continuing to learn from the lived experiences of her patients, Dr. Mehtani grew increasingly interested in studying the potential role of psychedelics in the treatment of addictions, with a special focus on understanding avenues toward safely improving access to psychedelic-assisted therapy among medically and socially complex patients who may be less likely to seek care in conventional healthcare settings. As a NIDA T32 postdoctoral fellow at Neuroscape, she is grateful for the opportunity to have dedicated time and mentorship to study these novel therapeutic agents through a lens of health equity under the guidance of Drs. Jennifer Mitchell and Brian Anderson.

Nicole Boltz

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Undergraduate Student, UC Berkeley

Nicole Hsu

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Undergraduate Student, UC Berkeley

Nikhil Murthy

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Undergraduate Student, UC Berkeley

Nisha Puri

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Undergraduate Student, UC Berkeley

Noel Moskowitz

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Student, University of San Francisco

Olivia Kim

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Undergraduate Student, UC Berkeley

Olivia Montgomery

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Undergraduate Student, University of San Francisco

Payton Mitchell

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Undergraduate Student, University of San Francisco

Per Rydström

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Medical Student, Linköping University in Sweden

Peter Pan

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Undergraduate Student, UC Berkeley

Peter Wais

pe..@ucsf.edu

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Associate Professor - Neurology

Peter is a native Californian and completed his undergraduate degree in Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. After a long stint in industry (first basic steel, then pure chocolate), his curiosity turned him toward the study of long-term memory. Peter Wais studied with Dr. John Gabrieli at Stanford University, where he learned about functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), before pursuing his Ph.D. in Psychology under the mentorship of Dr. John Wixted and Dr. Larry Squire at the University of California, San Diego. His thesis examined the roles of medial temporal lobe structures (particularly the hippocampus) in recognition memory. Peter's research interest is the cognitive neuroscience of declarative memory: specifically, how brain networks subserve the mind in reconstruction of long-term memory. His research program is supported by an NIH Pathway to Independence Award.

Quentin Coppola

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Undergraduate Student, University of San Francisco

Rabeea Abbas

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Undergraduate Student, UC Berkeley

Rachel Litke

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Medical Student, Université Claude Bernard ( Lyon, France )

Rachel Zhang

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Undergrad Student, Santa Clara University

Raghav Madan

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Graduate Student, Carnegie Mellon University

Rebecca Allen

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Media Artist

Rebecca Allen - a media artist who works in the areas of virtual and augmented reality, wearable computing, large-scale performance and interactive experience design. Allen is professor of Design Media Arts at UCLA and was founding chair of the department. Her artwork is part of the permanent collection of Centre Georges Pompidou, Whitney Museum and Museum of Modern Art NY. Awards include an Emmy.

Refik Anadol

Job Titles:

Media Artist,  Director

Refik Anadol - a media artist, director, and leader in the aesthetics of data and machine intelligence. Using data as his primary material, he offers us radical visualizations as AI data sculptures, live audiovisual performances, and environmental installations around the world.

Richard Campusano

ri..@ucsf.edu

Job Titles:

Research Associate

Richard Campusano has been with Adam Gazzaley's team since late-2015, primarily working alongside Jyoti Mishra on her EEG-based neurofeedback attention training paradigm, Closed-Loop BCI. Currently, he is the principal curator of this study's back-end systems and oversees the source and scalp-space analysis of the large-scale EEG data collected from this repeat-visit training study. In addition, he also works with MR data and assists with data acquisition for several other studies in the lab. Prior to joining The Neuroscape Center, Richard worked with the late Bruce Bridgeman, Ph.D. at UC Santa Cruz. While in Bruce's lab, he assisted in the development of a novel intervention for the reduction of Simulator Adaptation Syndrome which initiated his professional interest in the interplay of neuroscience and technology. That interest is now more fully realized within Neuroscape. Here he helps combine grounded neuroscience with novel technology to turn established methods research into both viable intervention techniques and assayable research studies. The Center's focus on translational research is core to his continued dedication to its work. To this aim, he contributes directly to the attention training paradigm of the cBCI team and their work with ADHD populations, and the meditation and physical training programs of the MT and BBT teams. In addition to further developing the field of physiology-based training paradigms, he is also interested in ethical game design.That is, how the most immersive and addictive aspects of games might be built into a game designed to improve cognitive control or capacity; and importantly, how those immersive qualities might be attenuated so as to release their audience. Outside of research, Richard enjoys making furniture and replica props, and tries to stay active in his visual art, writing, and photography.

Riley Bove

ri..@ucsf.edu

Job Titles:

Assistant Professor - UCSF
Assistant Professor - University of California, San Francisco

Rob Garza

Rob Garza - a musician and producer renowned for his boundary-pushing artistry, is best known for his role as one-half of the pioneering duo Thievery Corporation. His music melds diverse genres and sounds coupled with thought-provoking lyrics that defy categorization.

Roberta Smith

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B.S. Computer Science, University of Miami

Robin Carhart-Harris

ro..@ucsf.edu

Job Titles:

Ralph Metzner Distinguished Professor - Neurology and Psychiatry

Robin is the Ralph Metzner Distinguished Professor in Neurology and Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. He moved to Imperial College London in 2008 after obtaining a PhD in Psychopharmacology from the University of Bristol. Robin has designed human brain imaging studies with LSD, psilocybin, MDMA and DMT, and several clinical trials of psilocybin therapy for severe mental illnesses. Robin founded the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London in April 2019, was ranked among the top 31 medical scientists in 2020, and in 2021, was named in TIME magazine's ‘100 Next' - a list of 100 rising stars shaping the future. His research is creating system-level change in mental health care.