Leadership | Alzheimer's Disease Research Center | UC Davis Health

Co-Director, UC Davis Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center
Professor and Division Chief of Epidemiology, Department of Public Health Sciences
rawhitmer@ucdavis.edu

Rachel Whitmer, Ph.D., is co-director of the UC Davis Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and director of the Population Brain Health Laboratory. Her research focuses on using epidemiological methods and population science to reduce inequities in brain aging, especially through studying dementia incidence, cognitive aging, and brain pathology in ethnoracial minority groups, those with diabetes mellitus, and individuals living beyond age 90. Whitmer is principal investigator of several NIH funded epidemiological cohort studies, KHANDLE (Kaiser Healthy Aging and Diverse Life Experiences), STAR (Study of Healthy Aging in African Americans), LifeAfter90, and SOLID (Study of Longevity in Diabetes), all of which examine life course mechanisms impacting brain health in multiethnic, diverse populations. Whitmer is also a PI of the US POINTER at UC Davis, the first multidomain behavioral intervention clinical trial to prevent cognitive decline funded by the Alzheimer’s Association. She is a member of the Graduate Group in Epidemiology and Public Health Sciences and is highly committed to mentoring, teaching, and promoting those underrepresented in research.

Co-Director, UC Davis Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center
Distinguished Professor, Department of Neurology
Victor and Genevieve Orsi Chair in Alzheimer's Research
cdecarli@ucdavis.edu

Charles DeCarli, M.D., co-directs of the UC Davis Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC), an NIH-funded Alzheimer’s research center. He also directs the Imaging of Dementia and Aging (IDeA) laboratory. His research focuses on using advanced structural and functional brain imaging to study normal aging, mild cognitive impairment and dementia, and the role of genetics, diversity, cerebrovascular and Alzheimer’s disease on these processes. He received the J. Allyn Taylor International Prize in Medicine—Imaging of the Aging Brain in recognition of his work. DeCarli also serves as principal investigator of the Diverse Vascular Cognitive Impairment and Dementia (Diverse VCID) study, which aims to recruit 2250 non-Hispanic white, Hispanic/Latino and Black African Americans to examine the impact of vascular brain injury on cognition from 17 sites across the United States. He is co-PI of the Study of Latinos Investigation of Neurocognitive Aging (SOL-INCA), a study of more than 6,000 Hispanic/Latinos with diverse heritage from four sites across the United States. DeCarli is involved in a number of other studies.

Associate Director, Alzheimer's Disease Research Center
Professor, Department of Neurology 
twingo@ucdavis.edu

Thomas Wingo, M.D., is a cognitive neurologist who specializes in diagnosis and initial management of people with mild memory or thinking disorders such as mild cognitive impairment and dementia. He is a human geneticist, data scientist, and neuroscientist whose work focuses on finding genetic and molecular causes of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and related dementing illnesses. He is the associate director of the UC Davis Alzheimer's Disease Research Center.