Interests
Kate Possin, PhD
Professor of Neurology
We need effective, scalable and adaptive solutions to reduce stigma, improve diagnosis, and support families in diverse communities.
Current Work
Kate is focused on improving diagnosis and care for patients with neurodegenerative disease. She has investigated the brain bases of cognitive decline, developed novel and practical methods for measuring cognition, and advanced a new model of dementia care. She is a practicing neuropsychologist at UCSF’s Memory and Aging Center clinic.
Personal Hero
The Atlantic Fellows
Words of Strength
Envisioning solutions
Vision
To reduce the scale and impact of dementia, we need effective solutions to reduce stigma, improve diagnosis, and support families that can be scaled and adapted to meet the needs of diverse communities.
Strategy
Kate's research is focused on patients with brain health disorders and their families. She has two major projects in this area: Care Ecosystem is a telephone-based care intervention, and UCSF Brain Health Assessment uses a software program to improve diagnosis.
Motivation
Kate is working with the fellows to address major challenges to cognitive assessment and dementia diagnosis. They are validating digital cognitive assessment tools in multiple languages and countries, which will improve the detection and diagnosis of dementia in diverse communities.
Education & Experience
Kate was awarded her PhD degree in clinical psychology from the University of California, San Diego in 2007. During her training at UCSD, she studied cognitive changes associated with Parkinson’s disease. She completed her internship in clinical neuropsychology at UCSF in the departments of psychiatry and neurology and her postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Neurology. She is a John Douglas French Alzheimer’s Foundation Endowed Professor in the Department of Neurology.
