I am a social epidemiologist and my primary research focus pertains to how social and cardiovascular exposures from across the life-course influence cognitive function, Alzheimer's disease and other dementias, stroke and other related health outcomes in old age. In my work on cognitive aging, I also focus on minority populations. My ultimate research goal is to employ lifecourse models to better understand how modification of social and cardiovascular factors or their timing may reduce the burden of cognitive aging and dementia disparities. I am currently leading two NIH-funded R01 projects that use causal inference methods to understand determinants of dementia and selection biases.

Research Team

  • Katrina Kezios

    Postdoctoral Research Scientist

  • Xuexin Yu

    Postdoctoral Research Scientist

  • Calvin Colvin

    PhD Student

  • Neal Jawadekar

    PhD Studet

  • Antonio Bustillo

    PhD Student

  • Kaylie Moropoulos

    Program Coordinator

  • Kelly Chen

    Research Analyst

Mentorship and Lab Alumni

Postdoctoral Scholars/Fellows

Tali Elfassy, MPH, Phd. 02/2017-07/2018

Leslie Grasset, PhD. 03/2018-03/2019

Soohyun Kim, PhD. 06/2020-10/2021

Peiyi Lu, PhD. 07/2021-11/2023

PhD Advisory

Calvin Colvin: Epidemiology, Columbia University. 2023-Present

Neal Jawadekar: Epidemiology, Columbia University. 2020-Present

Sarah Al Omari: Epidemiology, American University of Beirut. 2021-Present

Jongseong Lee: Social Work, Policy and Analysis, Columbia University. 2022-2023

Precious Esie: Epidemiology, Columbia University. 2021-2022

Samual Swift: Epidemiology, University of Miami. 2016-2019

Tali Elfassy: Epidemiology, University of Miami

Medical Students

Sanna Alas: Columbia VP&S Medical Stuent

Masters Level Students

Isabel Nelson: MPH Epidemiology, Columbia University

Adina Zhang: MPH Biostatistics, Columbia University

Lanyu Zhang: MPH Biostatistics, Miami University

Contact me

az2567@cumc.columbia.edu
(734) 846-2836

Mailman School of Public Health, Epidemiology Dept.
722 W 168th St,
New York, NY, 10032