The Stanford Center for Memory Disorders Team

Sharon Sha, MD, MS
Clinical Professor, Neurology & Neurological Sciences
Director, Stanford Center for Memory Disorders

Dr. Sha is a Clinical Professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences at Stanford University where she serves as Chief for the Memory Disorders Division and the Stanford Memory Disorders Center, Associate Vice Chair of Clinical Research, Director of the Huntington’s Disease Center of Excellence and Ataxia Clinic, Co-Director of the Lewy Body Disease Association Research Center of Excellence, Clinical Core Co-Leader of the Stanford Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, and Director of the Behavioral Neurology Fellowship. Her clinical time is devoted to caring for patients with Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders and her research is devoted to finding treatments for these cognitive disorders. She also served on the California Governor’s Alzheimer’s Prevention and Preparedness Task Force Chaired by Maria Shriver in 2020.

Dr. Sha received a Master’s degree in Physiology and an MD from Georgetown University, followed by Neurology training at UCLA and Stanford University. She completed a clinical and research fellowship in Behavioral Neurology at UCSF, where she focused on identifying biomarkers for genetic forms of frontotemporal dementia and caring for patients with movement disorders with cognitive impairment.


Katrin Andreasson, MD
Professor of Neurology & Neurological Sciences

Dr. Andreasson is Professor in the Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences, and is a neurologist who treats patients with dementia and who is also engaged in basic research in neurodegenerative disorders.  Dr. Andreasson received her M.D. degree at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons, completed her residency in Neurology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and carried out her postdoctoral training in the Johns Hopkins Department of Neuroscience, where she began her research studies on the function of brain inflammation in development of neurodegenerative disease.    The objectives of her laboratory research are to identify specific inflammatory pathways that may be targeted to prevent and treat neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease.   


Michael Greicius, MD, MPH
Iqbal Farrukh and Asad Jamal Professor of Neurology & Neurological Sciences

Dr. Greicius is the Iqbal Farrukh and Asad Jamal Professor in the Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He attended medical school at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, did his neurology residency at the Harvard Partners program, and completed a behavioral neurology fellowship at UCSF. He first came to Stanford in 2000 as a postdoctoral fellow and joined the faculty in 2007. Dr. Greicius is currently the director of the Stanford Center for Memory Disorders and leads a research team studying the genetics of Alzheimer’s disease. Current efforts in the Greicius lab are focused on identifying novel genetic variants in two groups of subjects: healthy older people carrying the high risk APOE4 genetic variant and early age-at-onset Alzheimer’s patients who do not carry the high risk APOE4 genetic variant. The goal is to identify rare but powerful genetic mutations that either protect against or cause Alzheimer’s disease, respectively in these two groups. These genetic variants will then be characterized in detail to understand how they impact disease risk and how their related molecular pathways can be targeted for novel drug development.


Zihuai He, PhD
Assistant Professor of Neurology & Neurological Sciences

Dr. He received his PhD from the University of Michigan in 2016. Following a postdoctoral training in biostatistics at Columbia University, he joined Stanford University as an assistant professor of neurology and of medicine in 2018. His research is concentrated in the area of statistical genetics and integrative analysis of omics data, attempting to develop new statistical methodologies that aid with the identification and interpretation of complex biological pathways involved in human diseases, particularly neurological disorders. His methodology interest includes high-dimensional data analysis, correlated (longitudinal, familial) data analysis and machine learning algorithms


Victor W. Henderson, MD, MS
Professor of Epidemiology & Population Health
Professor of Neurology & Neurological Sciences

Dr. Henderson is principal investigator for the NIH Stanford Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, funded by the National Institute on Aging to facilitate and enhance research on Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders of aging and cognition. His research emphasizes brain–behavior relations, risk factors for cognitive aging and Alzheimer’s disease, and therapeutic strategies to maintain and improve cognitive abilities affected by age. He co-directs the Stanford master’s degree program in Epidemiology & Clinical Research. Dr. Henderson obtained his medical degree from Johns Hopkins University, and he trained at Duke University (internal medicine), Washington University in St. Louis (neurology), Boston University (behavioral neurology), and the University of Washington School of Public Health (epidemiology). He was visiting professor at the University of Melbourne (Australia) and at the University of Aarhus (Denmark), where he is currently Honorary Skou Professor. He has held leadership positions in professional organizations focused on late-life and midlife health, serves on editorial boards and scientific advisory boards, and has published numerous scientific articles.


Frank M. Longo, MD, PhD
George E. and Lucy Becker Professor in Medicine
Professor of Neurology & Neurological Sciences

Dr. Longo is chair of the Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences, the George E. and Lucy Becker Professor of Medicine, and director of the Stanford Alzheimer’s Translational Research Center. His clinical interest include Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders.  His research team is developing new drugs that are focused on the modulation of fundamental cell signaling pathways that are involved in neurodegeneration. These pathways can be regulated by known protein growth factors but such proteins cannot be used as drugs. Dr. Longo’s team has pioneered the development of the first small molecule, drug-type compounds that can mimic key parts of growth factor proteins and achieve their potent effects on preventing or reversing degeneration. Work in Alzheimer’s mice has been extremely promising and efforts are now underway to bring the first of these compounds to human trials.


Sandeepa S Mullady, MD
Clinical Assistant Professor of Neurology & Neurological Sciences

Dr. Mullady is a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences at Stanford University. She specializes in the care of patient with memory disorders. She has completed her fellowship training in behavioral neurology from University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where she also received her medical education and residency training. Dr. Mullady is board-certified in neurology and is a member of the American Academy of Neurology.

Dr. Mullady’s interest in medicine stemmed from her desire to advocate and empower underserved and under-resourced communities. As an undergraduate at University of California, Berkeley, she helped run a women’s homeless clinic and witnessed how powerfully a physician can advocate for a patient. She continued working in underserved populations in medical school at UCSF where she helped run a homeless clinic. Her research interests have stemmed from her passion in working with the underserved. She is currently working on understanding how neurodegeneration can affect trajectories into homelessness. She is also passionate about providing excellent clinical care to individuals with cognitive disorders and providing access to neurologic care in underserved communities.

Dr. Mullady hopes to continue providing outreach, advocacy, and care to underserved communities at Stanford as well as igniting the next generation of physician advocates.


Elizabeth Mormino, PhD
Assistant Professor (Research) of Neurology & Neurological Sciences

Dr. Mormino obtained her doctorate in neuroscience at the University of California at Berkeley and completed postdoctoral fellowship training in neuroimaging at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.  She is a neuroscientist who uses multimodal brain imaging to understand the development of Alzheimer’s disease in older adults without dementia.  This work involves amyloid PET imaging, tau PET imaging, structural MRI, and functional MRI.  Her research may help to identify people at risk before widespread neuronal damage has occurred.  Many older adults without cognitive impairment have brain amyloid.  Dr. Mormino has found great variability in the rate of decline among those who eventually progress to Alzheimer's disease, and she is examining genetic factors that influence the risk of decline.


Kathleen Poston, MD, MS
Professor, Neurology & Neurological Sciences

Dr. Poston received her Bachelor's of Science in Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania, her Master's Degree in Biomedical Engineering and her MD at Vanderbilt University. She completed her Neurology residency training at UCSF, where she was Chief Resident. She also completed a fellowship in clinical Movement Disorders under the mentorship of Dr. Stanley Fahn at Columbia University and post-doctoral training in Functional Neuroimaging with Dr. David Eidelberg at the Feinstein Institute.

Dr. Poston's clinical expertise focuses on Parkinson's disease, Dementia with Lewy Bodies, and atypical Parkinsonian disorders (Multiple System Atrophy, Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, Cortical Basal Syndrome), with a special interest in the cognitive and non-motor symptoms in these disorders. She also treats patients with dystonia and blepharospasm with botulinum toxin.

Dr. Poston's research uses functional and structural imaging biomarkers that (1) aid in understanding the underlying pathophysiology associated with the motor, cognitive, and behavioral symptoms characteristic of Parkinson’s disease and (2) aid in diagnosis and objectivity track disease progression in clinical trials.  She has also been the Principal Investigator for interventional clinical trials in movement disorders, such as Gene Therapy in Parkinson's disease.


Niyatee Samudra, MD
Clinical Assistant Professor, Neurology & Neurological Sciences

Dr. Samudra is a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine. She specializes in the care of patients with memory disorders and epilepsy. She has completed fellowship training in behavioral neurology at the University of California, San Francisco, as well as in epilepsy and clinical neurophysiology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Dr. Samudra is board-certified in neurology and in epilepsy.

Her research interests include clinical trials in memory disorders and epilepsy; early neurophysiological markers of Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders; neuropsychiatric symptoms in neurodegenerative disorders; and the cognitive and neuropsychiatric consequences of epilepsy. She is interested in improving neurologic care for underserved populations.

Dr. Samudra has published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease; Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports; Journal of the Neurological Sciences; Seizure; and Epilepsy and Behavior, among others. She is a member of the American Academy of Neurology.


Irina Skylar-Scott, MD
Clinical Assistant Professor, Neurology & Neurological Sciences

Dr. Irina Anna Skylar-Scott is a board-certified Clinical Assistant Professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences at Stanford University. Her clinic is dedicated to caring for patients with changes in memory, language, behavior, and other aspects of cognition and conduct. She also devotes her time to clinical drug trials for Alzheimer’s disease.  

Dr. Skylar-Scott earned a BS at MIT followed by an MD from the Yale University School of Medicine. After finishing a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Medical Research Fellowship, she completed her neurology training at Harvard’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. She subspecialized in cognitive neurology at Harvard following a fellowship at the Center for Brain/Mind Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.  


Ryan Gerald Taylor, MD, FRCPC
Clinical Assistant Professor, Neurology and Neurological Sciences

Dr. Taylor is a clinical assistant professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences at Stanford University. He completed medical school at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario; neurology residency at Western University in London, Ontario; fellowship in behavioral neurology at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center; and is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (FRCPC). Dr. Taylor is a behavioral neurologist in the Memory Disorders Center, and has clinical expertise in the treatment of cognitive, behavioral, and neuropsychiatric disorders. His research interests include clinical trials, atypical dementia, medical ontology and history of medicine.


Edmond Teng, MD, PhD
Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor, Neurology and Neurological Sciences

Dr. Teng is an Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences and serves as a clinician at the Stanford Center for Memory Disorders. He also has a full-time position at Genentech as an Associate Medical Director in Early Clinical Development, where he focuses on developing new treatments for Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative diseases. Dr. Teng completed his undergraduate training at Stanford University (BS in Chemistry) and obtained his MD and PhD (in Neurosciences) degrees at UC San Diego. He subsequently completed his internship, residency training in neurology, and fellowship training in behavioral neurology at both UCLA and the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center. He was a full-time faculty member in the Department of Neurology at both institutions from 2008 to 2017, where he worked on translational and clinical research projects in Alzheimer's Disease.


Kyan Younes, MD
Clinical Assistant Professor, Neurology and Neurological Sciences

Dr. Kyan Younes is a behavioral and cognitive neurologist. He cares for people living with memory, language, executive, visuospatial, behavioral, or psychiatric symptoms. He completed an epilepsy research fellowship at Case Western Reserve University, a neurology residency at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, and a behavioral neurology fellowship at the University of California San Francisco. His recent research projects focused on characterizing patients with right anterior temporal degeneration and on understanding the role of the glymphatic system in neurodegenerative illnesses. His broad focus involves implementing various neuroimaging approaches to achieve early and accurate diagnosis of patients with neurodegenerative diseases.


Claire Delpirou Nouh, MD
Behavioral Fellow

Psychiatry

John Barry, MD
Professor of Psychiatry

Dr. Barry is the Director of the Neuropsychiatry and Psychotherapy Clinics has a special interest in psychiatric problems of people with epilepsy. He has done studies of depression and psychosis in association with epilepsy, and of the psychiatric mimics of seizures, called psychogenic non-epileptic seizure-like events, also known as psychogenic seizures or pseudoseizures. In patients admitted for video-EEG evaluation, he leads the efforts in making the diagnosis of psychogenic disorders and treating the patients disabled by this condition.

Neuropsychology

Gayle K Deutch, PhD, ABPP
Clinical Associate Professor (Affiliated), Neurology & Neurological Sciences

Gayle K. Deutsch, PhD, ABPP-CN received her doctoral degree in clinical psychology at Drexel University in 1994. She completed a pre-doctoral internship at the Brain Behavior Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania and a post-doctoral fellowship at the Graduate Hospital in Philadelphia, PA. She was the Staff Neuropsychologist at the New Jersey Neuroscience Institute and Assistant Professor of Neuroscience at Seton Hall University, Graduate School of Medical Education.  She was at Stanford University Medical Center as the lead neuropsychologist for the Stanford Comprehensive Epilepsy Center in the Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences from 2000 until 2004.  From 2005 to 2008, she had a private practice in Orange County, CA and a faculty appointment as Associate Clinical Professor at UCI Medical Center, Department of Neurology. She returned to Stanford Health Care in 2008 and is currently a Clinical Associate Professor (Affiliated) in the Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences. She is the lead neuropsychologist for the Stanford Comprehensive Epilepsy Center and Stanford Center for Memory Disorders. She is involved in collaborative research with the Stanford Center for Memory Disorders and the Stanford Neuromuscular Program.


Lauren Drag, PhD
Clinical Assistant Professor (Affiliated), Neurology & Neurological Sciences

Lauren Drag, PhD, is a Clinical Assistant Professor (Affiliated) in the Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine. She received her bachelor’s degree from Pomona College and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Arizona. She completed a clinical internship in neuropsychology at the VA Ann Arbor Medical Center and a two-year post-doctoral fellowship in neuropsychology at the University of Michigan Healthcare System. Prior to coming to Stanford, she was a researcher at the VA Palo Alto Medical Center and served as Director of the Neuropsychology Area of Emphasis at Palo Alto University. Dr. Drag’s research interests are in cognitive aging and traumatic brain injury.


Simon Tan, PsyD, ABPP
Clinical Assistant Professor (Affiliated), Neurology & Neurological Sciences

Dr. Tan received his bachelor's degree at Dartmouth College, doctorate in clinical psychology from Yeshiva University, and completed a pre-doctoral internship at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center, Harvard Medical School. Dr. Tan also completed a post-doctoral fellowship specializing in clinical neuropsychology in both adult inpatient and outpatient settings at the Behavioral Neurology Unit, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Cambridge Hospital at Harvard. He received his board certification (specialization in geriatric assessment) by the American Board of Assessment Psychology in April of 2013. He completed a program to obtain my Postdoctoral Master of Science degree in Clinical Psychopharmacology at Alliant University with degree received in December 2013.


Anna Teague, PhD
Clinical Assistant Professor (Affiliated) in the Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences

Anna Teague, PhD, received her bachelor’s degree in biopsychology and neuroscience from UC Davis, and her doctorate in clinical psychology from Palo Alto University. During her doctoral training, Dr. Teague completed neuropsychology practica at the Palo Alto VA Healthcare System and UCSF Epilepsy Center. She completed her predoctoral internship at the Washington, DC VA Medical Center and a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in clinical neuropsychology at the University of Virginia Health System. Her clinical and research interests include brain health and successful cognitive aging, quality of life in epilepsy, concussion management, and functional neurologic disorders. 


Maya Yutsis, PhD, ABPP
Clinical Assistant Professor (Affiliated), Neurology & Neurological Sciences

Maya Yutsis, Ph.D., ABPP-CN is a Clinical Assistant Professor (Affiliated) in the Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine. She received her doctorate in clinical psychology at the Palo Alto University in 2009. She completed an APA approved clinical internship in neuropsychology at the Minneapolis VA Medical center and a two-year post-doctoral fellowship in Clinical Neuropsychology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN in 2011. Prior to coming to Stanford, she worked as a lead neuropsychologist for three years at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Polytrauma Transitional Rehabilitation Program and Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center (GRECC) Telehealth Neuropsychology clinic, where she conducted clinical services, clinical research, and served as a director/preceptor of an APA-approved post-doctoral fellowship Neuropsychology Emphasis Area training program.  She had previously worked as a Staff Neuropsychologist in inpatient and outpatient Rehabilitation Units at the Multicare Good Samaritan Hospital in Puyallup, WA.  She is currently a Newsletter Editor of the Society for Clinical Neuropsychology, APA Division 40 and is a member of Publications and Research Committee for the National Academy of Neuropsychology (NAN).  She is involved in collaborative research with the Palo Alto VA Polytrauma Center and Mayo Clinic and her research interests focus on computerized cognitive rehabilitation interventions for persons with acquired brain injury and mild cognitive impairment (MCI).


Penelope Zeifert, PhD
Clinical Professor (Affiliated), Neurology & Neurological Sciences

Dr. Zeifert is Clinical Professor (Affiliated) in the Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine.  She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley, and doctorate in clinical psychology from California School of Professional Psychology.  She completed pre-doctoral internships in San Francisco at Mt. Zion Hospital and St. Mary’s McAuley Neuropsychiatric Institute.  She was a post-doctoral scholar in the UCSF School of Medicine at San Francisco General Hospital where she subsequently worked as an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and an Attending Psychologist.  She has been on staff at Stanford since 1993, first as a neuropsychologist in inpatient rehabilitation and later in inpatient psychiatry. She has been the Director of the Neuropsychology Service since 1997 and the Co-Director of the Stanford Center for Memory Disorders since 2002.