People

Nicoletta holds a Ph.D. in Psychological Sciences and Education from the University of Trento and a Master’s in Linguistics and Cognitive Studies from the University of Siena. Her research bridges theoretical linguistics and cognitive neuroscience to investigate how linguistic information is processed in the brain across different populations, including healthy and brain-injured monolingual and bilingual adults, using methods such as eye-tracking, EEG, and neuroimaging.

Jessica de Leon, MD, is an assistant professor and behavioral neurologist who specializes in language disorders across the lifespan. She received her undergraduate degrees in neuroscience and Spanish at the Johns Hopkins University and an MD with thesis degree at UCSF. She then completed her medicine internship, neurology residency, and behavioral neurology fellowship at UCSF.

Eugenie Mamuyac joined the UCSF Dyslexia Center's Multitudes project in September 2021. Now, she primarily works with Dr. de Leon as a research coordinator and administers the CATS (Cognitive Assessments for Tagalog Speakers) battery. Prior to UCSF, Eugenie received her Master's degree in Asia Pacific Studies (International Studies) at the University of San Francisco. Her research interests include bilingualism and acculturation.

Luis completed his medical studies at Universidad del Rosario, Colombia. He worked in the “Cedesnid” public foundation for people with low economical resources, disabilities, and neurological diseases in Bogota, Colombia. Luis received his master's degree in Neurology from the Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina. In the final year of his residency, he was selected to do a rotation in the Memory and Aging Unit at Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau in Barcelona, Spain.

Rochelle-Jan (RJ) Reyes, MPH, is a first generation Filipina-American raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. They are a staff research associate at UCSF and a UCSF PROPEL Scholar. She received their BS for Physiology at San Francisco State University and performed computational research in Genetics. Afterwards, they obtained a MPH at the University of California San Diego, with an emphasis in Epidemiology. She aims to obtain a PhD in Epidemiology with a focus on investigating and promoting cardiovascular health in the Filipino community.