Meet The Team

Dr. Manning is a board certified clinical neuropsychologist and serves as the Director of the Memory Disorders Neuroclinical Trials for the UVA Department of Neurology. She is also the founding co-Director of the Virginia Alzheimer’s Disease Center, the C.A.R.D. Lab, and founding Director of the UVA Memory and Aging Care Clinic. Her research interests include multiple aspects of behavioral neuroscience with special emphasis on Alzheimer’s disease and caregivers.

Virginia T. Gallagher, PhD is the Co-Director of the CARD Lab, Assistant Professor of Neurology, and a neuropsychologist. She has research and clinical expertise in understanding and treating the cognitive, psychological, and health impacts of cognitive decline among patients and their caregivers. She is particularly interested in understanding and supporting the needs of caregivers often underrepresented in research (for example, young adult caregivers, rural caregivers, sandwiched caregivers).

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Virginia Gallagher Google Scholar profile

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Dr. Reilly’s research focuses on dementia care partner science and risk and protective factors for neurodegenerative conditions. Clinically, she works at UVA Health’s Memory and Aging Care Clinic (MACC), primarily conducting neuropsychological evaluations and clinical interventions with individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia of various etiologies .

Dr. M. Agustina Rossetti, PhD, ABPP is a certified bilingual adult neuropsychologist and Assistant Professor of Neurology at the University of Virginia. She is a native Spanish-speaker from Argentina. From early on in her training, she was determined to make cross-cultural neuropsychology a central part of her career, and she enjoys supporting and caring for Spanish-speaking patients. She is also the co-director of the Huntington’s Disease Center of Excellence and the Neuropsychology Fellowship program.

Colleen completed her undergraduate studies in Psychology at Mary Baldwin College. She joined the Memory Disorders Division of the University of Virginia’s Adult Neurology department in 2005. She has over 19 years of experience coordinating clinical trials for various types of neurodegenerative diseases, including but not limited to Alzheimer ’s disease, Lewy Body Dementia, Frontotemporal Dementia, and Mild Cognitive Impairment.

Mika graduated from Radford University with a BS in Psychology in 2004. He started his love of research while working at Yale University in the Division of Addictions. Over the course of his career he has worked abroad in Europe as an English teacher as well as a community support professional and counselor. He is now working for UVA neurology in the Memories Division as a Clinical Research Coordinator. Outside of work, Mika loves to create and play music and spend time with his family.

Mel is a graduate from the University of Alabama with research experience in analytical chemistry. She spent the past year working in home healthcare recruiting in the Hampton Roads area. Her hope for her research work is to find patients and care partners that have been previously excluded from clinical research.

Chris studied cognitive science and statistics at the University of Virginia. She joined the Brain Institute at UVA as a clinical research coordinator following her graduation in 2024. She helps support the CARD lab’s research involving care providers for people with memory and thinking challenges.

Ashleigh is a fourth-year undergraduate neuroscience & economics student from Pittsburgh, PA. She loves learning about neurological disorders and how the brain drives human behavior. In the C.A.R.D. Lab, she helps with study recruitment, data collection/analysis, publication writing, and outreach. Her research interests include insomnia among dementia patients and their caregivers as well as determinants of caregiver health in disadvantaged communities.

Ryan C. Thompson, PhD is a first-year clinical neuropsychology postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Neurology at UVA Health and a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Virginia Alzheimer’s Disease Center. His research interests are focused on non-pharmacological interventions for patients with cognitive decline, psychosocial interventions for care partners of persons with dementia, and characterizing longitudinal trends in cognitive performance and related health outcomes across the lifespan to improve early detection of cognitive decline.

Anna Arp is Clinical Research Coordinator in the UVA Brain Institute and is certified as a Clinical Research Professional. She has 10 years of experience managing research trials of all shapes and sizes in across multiple fields. Her current work focuses on research in Alzheimer's disease and related dementias as well as support for care partners.

Jessica received her Masters of Social Work and Graduate Certificate in Aging Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University. She has spent the majority of her career guiding and supporting families who are caregivers for, or are living with, some form of dementia. She is currently a Care Coordinator in UVA’s Neurology Department Memory and Aging Disorders Clinic, and prior to that, held a similar role at the Alzheimer’s Association in Richmond. When the weather cooperates, you can also find Jessica in her yard.

Dr. Williams is a social and behavioral scientist and Professor at the University of Virginia, School of Nursing. Her background and PhD are in human development and family studies. Her research focuses on quality of life among older adults with dementia and their family caregivers, chronic disease management for older adults, and culturally appropriate community-based interventions among African American/Black adults. As a community-based researcher, her research further concentrates on using an equity approach to understanding the social and environmental determinants of health that impact health care access and treatment of disease for older adults and their family caregivers with a particular eye on minoritized and under-resourced populations.