Leadership

Jessica Z.K. Caldwell, PhD, ABPP/CN is co-Director of the Center for Neurodegeneration and Translational Neuroscience and Director of the Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement Prevention Center at Cleveland Clinic and Assistant Professor at Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine and Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute.

Dr. Caldwell earned her A.B. with highest honors in psychology at Princeton University, and her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology with a minor in neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. She completed predoctoral internship at Harvard University/Massachusetts General Hospital and postdoctoral fellowship in neuropsychology and neuroimaging at Brown University. She currently holds a primary academic appointment as Assistant Professor of Medicine at Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University, in the Department of Neurology. She also holds a secondary appointment as Assistant Professor at Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute, in the Department of Neurosciences

Dr. Caldwell has published 25 peer reviewed manuscripts and presented posters and talks more than 70 times at national and international conferences. She holds an R01 grant from the National Institute on Aging that examines stress and estrogen effects on inflammation and functional MRI variables in women at risk for Alzheimer’s disease.

Her passion is understanding sex differences in Alzheimer’s disease biomarkers, and bringing lifestyle modification for Alzheimer’s disease risk reduction to mainstream clinical practice. She serves on the Advisory Group on Risk Evidence Education for Dementia (AGREED), the editorial board of the Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology and the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, and is an active member of the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference Sex and Gender and Diversity and Disparities Professional Interest Areas. She frequently serves as a media expert on Alzheimer’s disease in women, with recent commentary in US News and World Report, Prevention, Fortune, and Neurology Live.

Jefferson Kinney PhD, is co-Director of the Center for Neurodegeneration and Translational Neuroscience. He also is the Founding Chair of the Department of Brain Health and holds the Reg Grundy and Joy Chambers-Grundy Chair for Brain Health in the Department of Brain Health, School of Integrated Health Sciences, University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV). He is the Director of the Pam Quirk Brain Health and Biomarker Laboratory as well as the Cellular and Molecular Brain Research Laboratory in the Department of Brain Health. Dr. Kinney earned his Ph.D. at Colorado State University and was awarded an Intramural Research Training Fellowship at the National Institute of Mental Health investigating the biology and behavior of transgenic mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease. He was then selected as the Helen Dorris Fellow in the Department of Neuropharmacology at The Scripps Research Institute where he conducted research on molecular mechanisms in neurological disorders. He joined the UNLV faculty in 2007. Dr. Kinney’s primary research focuses is on investigations of cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying Alzheimer’s disease as well as the investigation of candidate biomarkers in neurodegenerative disorders. Dr. Kinney’s translational research approach combines preclinical model investigations of disease mechanisms that may serve as new therapeutic targets as well as discovering novel biomarkers that can be used in detection, diagnosis, and evaluation of treatment efficacy of Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders. Dr. Kinney’s research provides a foundation for understanding the risk of developing AD and the utility of personalized treatment approaches to preserve brain health.

Dr. Jeffrey L. Cummings is the associate director of the Center for Neurodegeneration and Translational Neuroscience

Dr. Cummings is Founding Director, Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas, Nevada and Cleveland, Ohio. He is the Camille and Larry Ruvo Chair of the Neurological Institute of Cleveland Clinic and Professor of Medicine (Neurology), Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University. Dr. Cummings is Principal Investigator/Director of the NIH/NIGMS-funded Center for Neurodegeneration and Translational Neuroscience.

Dr. Cummings is a world-renowned Alzheimer’s researcher and leader of clinical trials. He has been recognized for his research and leadership contributions in the field of Alzheimer’s disease through the Henderson Award of the American Geriatrics Society (2006), the Ronald and Nancy Reagan Research Award of the national Alzheimer’s Association (2008), and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Society for Behavioral and Cognitive Neurology (2017). In 2010, he was honored by the American Association of Geriatric Psychiatry with their Distinguished Scientist Award. He was featured in the Gentleman’s Quarterly (June 2009) as a “Rockstar of Science.”

Dr. Cummings’ interests embrace clinical trials, developing new therapies for brain diseases, and the interface of neuroscience and society.

Dr. Cummings completed Neurology residency and a Fellowship in Behavioral Neurology at Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts. US training was followed by a Research Fellowship in Neuropathology and Neuropsychiatry at the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, Queen Square, London, England. Dr. Cummings was formerly Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry at UCLA, Director of the Mary S. Easton Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research at UCLA, and Director of the Deane F. Johnson Center for Neurotherapeutics at UCLA. He is past president of the Behavioral Neurology Society and of the American Neuropsychiatric Association. Dr. Cummings has authored or edited 39 books and published over 700 peer-reviewed papers.