Dr. Jeff Bronstein, MD, PhD
Welcome Keynote | Director, UCLA Movement Disorders Clinic
Dr. Stephanie Leal, PhD
Director of the UCLA Neuroscience of Memory, Mood, & Aging Laboratory
Dr. Keith Vossel, MD, MSc
Director, UCLA Alzheimer's Disease Research Center - Biomarkers in Neurodegenerative Diseases (ADRC-BIND) Study
Jeff Bronstein received his M.D. and Ph.D. from UCLA in 1988 as a recipient of the Medical Scientist Training Program Award. He completed a residency in Neurology and fellowship training in Movement Disorders at UCLA. He is the Director of the Movement Disorders Program at UCLA and Professor of Neurology and Molecular Toxicology. His interests and expertise include the management of Parkinson's disease (PD) and other movement disorders, surgical treatment of PD, and developing new therapies for patients.
Dr. Stephanie Leal is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Integrative Biology and Physiology and the Department of Psychology at UCLA. She is also Director of the Neuroscience of Memory, Mood, and Aging Laboratory. Prior to UCLA, she received her Bachelor's in Biopsychology from UCSB in 2011 and her Ph.D. in Psychological & Brain Sciences from Johns Hopkins University in 2016. Her lab performs basic and translational research to understand how our memory system works and how this system goes awry in memory and mood disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and depression. Beyond understanding, Dr. Leal aims to test a variety of interventions to alleviate memory and mood deficits in disease. Her research utilizes state-of-the-art neuroimaging techniques and sensitive cognitive paradigms to understand brain-behavior relationships.
Dr. Vossel is a nationally recognized leader in Alzheimer’s disease and dementia research and serves as Professor of Neurology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Dr. Vossel received a master’s degree in biomedical engineering and medical degree with highest honors from the University of Tennessee. He completed a neurology residency at Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where he served as a chief resident. Dr. Vossel completed his fellowship training in behavioral neurology and dementia research at the UCSF and Gladstone Institutes. His work has led to important discoveries that are reshaping how we understand Alzheimer’s disease. Notably, he identified silent epileptic activity during sleep that can accelerate cognitive decline, and he has led clinical trials showing that targeted treatments may improve memory and problem-solving in some patients.
