ADRC Affiliated Researchers

Current research interests: Alzheimer’s disease nursing home and assisted living care, community translation of evidence-based dementia caregiver interventions, early stage Alzheimer’s programming, non-pharmacological approaches to dementia-related behavioral symptoms.

The overarching goal of our lab is to understand the interplay between human gut microbiota and host aging.

Neurological illness and injury, traumatic brain injury, dementia, cognition in epilepsy and epilepsy surgery.

REC Scholar Project: Development of a Dyadic Stress Management Toolkit for Dementia Caring Dyads

My research interests are focused on developing and applying statistical methods to search for genes causing common human diseases. Recent work has been in the development of statistical methods for genetic studies and in identifying optimal study designs for genetic studies of complex traits.

Ocular genetics and age related macular degeneration.

Research include noninvasive measures of vascular disease in populations; genetic and environmental determinants of atherosclerosis; inflammatory precursors of diabetes and heart disease; cardiovascular health of women and minority populations; mechanisms relating socio-economic status to cardiovascular health and successful aging, and applications of electronic health records in population research.

Assistant Director, Carolina Geriatric Education Center & Carolina Geriatric Workforce Enhancement Program

Stroke, Intracranial Aneurysms, AVMs, Cerebrovascular Disease

Our primary focus is on understanding how the positive reinforcing effects of drugs drive repetitive drug-seeking behavior and promote the transition from use to abuse.

Research focuses on the design and dissemination of effective, scalable health promotion interventions to enhance complex older adults’ functional capacity and ability to age in place.

I am board certified as a Gerontological Clinical Nurse Specialist which segues nicely to my research interests of polypharmacy, and the impact of exercise on activities of daily living. I am very much interested in quality improvement in care delivery, health outcomes, and quality of life for the older adult population.

Clinical Core Leader of the Duke & UNC ADRC

Synaptic Transmission and Plasticity; Identification of neuronal substrates that underlie alcohol and drug abuse induced behaviors; and Determining the impact of stress on neuronal circuitry important for emotional behavior.

Clinical Interests: Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, Synucleinopathies, Tauopathies Research Interests: Molecular basis of neurodegeneration; Aging; Signal Transduction

Mouse models for human diseases, genes that modify disease progression

Investigating the neurodegenerative aspect of progressive multiple sclerosis. Identifying biomarkers of neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration.

1) investigating the role of neuroinflammation and abnormal protein aggregates in the pathogenesis of AMD and developing relevant treatments 2) visual function testing in dry AMD with the goal of establishing functional endpoints for future clinical studies in early AMD 3) elucidating the use of novel retinal imaging biomarkers for early diagnosis of aging diseases (AMD and Alzheimer’s disease), including through the use of artificial intelligence (machine and deep learning).