Prior Talks in the McCance Center Lecture Series

Watch recordings of prior talks on our McCance Center YouTube Playlist

Learn about our prior talks here:

  • 5/30/2025: Magdalena Opazo Breton, PhD
    Dr. Magdalena Opazo Breton, PhD, is a Visiting Scientist in the Department of Epidemiology, and a Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Senior Research Fellow/Nottingham Research Fellow in Mental Health & Clinical Neurosciences at the School of Medicine, University of Nottingham.
  • 5/12/2025: William Eimer, PhD
    Dr. William Eimer is the Instructor of Neurology at the Genetics and Aging Research Unit, and affiliated faculty member of the McCance Center for Brain Health, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
  • 4/28/2025: Edward Calabrese, PhD
    Dr. Edward J. Calabrese is a Professor of Toxicology at the University of Massachusetts, School of Public Health and Health Sciences, Amherst.
  • 4/14/2025: Chih-Chung “Jerry” Lin, PhD
    Dr. Jerry Lin is the Instructor of Neurology at the Genetics and Aging Research Unit, and affiliated faculty member of the McCance Center for Brain Health, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
  • 3/31/2025: Raja Bhattacharyya, PhD
    Dr. Bhattacharyya is an Assistant Professor of Neurology, Principal Investigator of Bhattacharya Lab in the Genetics and Aging Research Unit, and an affiliated faculty member of the McCance Center for Brain Health, Massachusetts General Hospital Neurology Department and Harvard Medical School.
  • 3/3/2025: Deepak Kumar Vijaya Kumar, PhD
    Dr. Deepak Kumar Vijaya Kumar is an Instructor of Neurology at the Genetics and Aging Research Unit, and affiliated faculty member of the McCance Center for Brain Health, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
Earlier Lectures
  • 12/09/24: Gene Bowman, ND, MPH
    Dr. Gene Bowman directs the Clinical Trials and Brain Nutrition Laboratory at the McCance Center for Brain Health, Mass General Hospital, Department of Neurology, and is an Instructor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School.
  • 10/28/24: Edmarie Guzman-Velez, PhD
    Dr. Edmarie Guzman-Velez is an Assistant Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.
  • 9/30/24: Talia Robinson, PhD
    Dr. Robinson is an Instructor in Neurology in the Division of Neuropsychology, MGB Departments of Neurology. Dr. Robinson’s clinical interests include aging and dementia and research interests are early detection of cognitive change in preclinical Alzheimer’s disease, as well as racial disparities in the risk of progression of Alzheimer’s.
  • 9/16/24: Dmitry Prokopenko, PhD
    Dr. Prokopenko is an Assistant Professor at the Genetics and Aging Research Unit, and affiliated faculty member of the McCance Center for Brain Health, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. His current research interests focus on the genetics of Alzheimer’s disease and statistical and computational problems in large-scale whole genome sequencing and other -omics data.
  • 8/19/24: JoAnn E. Manson, MD, MPH, DrPH, MACP, Chirag M. Vyas, MBBS, MPH, & Olivia I. Okereke, MD, SM
    JoAnn E. Manson, MD, MPH, DrPH, MACP is Professor of Medicine and the Michael and Lee Bell Professor of Women’s Health at Harvard Medical School, Professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Chief of the Division of Preventive Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH).

    Chirag M. Vyas, MBBS, MPH, is Instructor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School (HMS), and Instructor in Investigation at the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital.

    Olivia I. Okereke, MD, SM, is Terry and Jean de Gunzburg MGH Research Scholar 2021-2026, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and the director of Geriatric Psychiatry and Director of the MGH Psychiatry Center for Racial Equity and Justice in the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital.
  • 8/05/2024: Ana Griciuc, PhD
    Dr. Ana Griciuc is the Assistant Professor of Neurology at the Genetics and Aging Research Unit, and affiliated faculty member of the McCance Center for Brain Health, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
  • 7/22/24: Se Hoon Choi, PhD
    Dr. Choi is an Assistant Professor of Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital and in the Genetics and Aging Research Unit as well as an affiliated faculty member of the McCance Center for Brain Health.
  • 7/8/24: David L. Perez M.D., M.M.S.c.
    Dr. David Perez is a faculty member in the Departments of Neurology and Psychiatry at the Massachusetts General Hospital. He is the director of the Functional Neurological Disorders Clinic in the Cognitive Behavioral Neurology Unit and affiliated with the Neuropsychiatry Unit at the Massachusetts General Hospital.
  • 6/24/24: Mark Albers, MD, PhD
    Dr. Mark Albers is a Physician Investigator (Cl) of Neurology at Mass General Research Institute, Assistant Neurologist of Neurology Department at Massachusetts General Hospital, and Assistant Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. He specializes in memory and olfactory disorders.
  • 4/29/24: Pamela Bowen, PhD, MS
    Dr. Bowen is Associate Professor of Nursing at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and is a certified family nurse practitioner.
  • 4/15/24: Jonathan Rosand, MD, MSc
    Dr. Jonathan Rosand is a vascular and critical care neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, Professor of Neurology at Harvard and Associate Member of the Broad Institute, and co-founder of McCance Center for Brain Health.
  • 4/1/24: Thomas Leung, MD
    Dr. Leung is Head of the Division of Neurology and Assistant Dean (Education) for the faculty of Medicine at The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
  • 3/18/24: Doo Yeon Kim, PhD
    Dr. Doo Yeon Kim is an Associate Professor of Neurology and affiliated faculty member of the McCance Center for Brain Health, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
  • 3/4/24: Sarah Ibrahim, RN, MN, PhD, CHSE
    Dr. Ibrahim is a Quality Improvement Innovation Educator in the Jay and Sari Sonshine Centre for Stroke Prevention & Cerebrovascular Brain Health at Toronto Western Hospital and a Scientific Associate IV in the Program for Health System and Technology Evaluation in the Toronto General Hospital Research Institute, University Health Network.
  • 2/5/24: Kyla Shea, PhD
    Dr. Shea is a Scientist I at the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University and an Associate Professor in the Biochemical and Molecular Nutrition Program at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy.
  • 1/22/24: Kyoko Konishi, PhD
    Dr. Konishi is an Instructor in the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital.
  • 1/8/24: Hiroko Dodge, PhD, FGSA
    Dr. Dodge is Senior Investigator at the Mass General Research Institute, Director of Research Analytics in the Department of Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital, and Member of the Faculty, Harvard Medical School. Dr. Dodge’s laboratory examines how social interactions can enhance neuroplasticity and cognitive functions using a series of behavioral intervention trials.
  • 12/11/23: Christa J. Nehs, PhD
    Dr. Nehs is Assistant Investigator in the Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care, and Pain Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and Assistant Professor of Anesthesia at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Nehs’ laboratory examines metabolic interventions to alleviate the metabolic-immune dysregulation that occurs in the aging brain to improve sleep and general anesthesia safety in the elderly and eventually to treat neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s disease.
  • 5/15/23: Jonathan Jackson, PhD
    Dr. Jackson is the Executive Director of the Community Access, Recruitment, and Engagement (CARE) Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School
  • 4/3/23: Jose Galluci, MD, MSc
    Dr. Galluci is the Director of Video EEG and ECT Services at the Institute of Psychiatry at Universidade de São Paulo
  • 3/20/23: Alzheimer’s Clinical and Translational Research Unit (ACTRU) Team
    ACTRU aims to be an academic nexus and operational core facility for basic, translational, and clinical neurosciences, neuroimaging, and therapeutics.
  • 3/6/23: Maria Franceschini, PhD
    Dr. Franeschini is a Professor in Radiology at the Harvard Medical School.
  • 2/6/23: Edith Wakida, BIFA, MA, MRA, PhD, and Celestino Obua, PhD
    Dr. Wakida is the founding Head of the Office of Research Administration and pioneer Research Administrator in the Faculty of Medicine at Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST) in Uganda.
    Dr. Obua is the Vice Chancellor of Mbarara University of Science and Technology, and a Professor of Pharmacology and Therapeutics with a PhD in Pharmacology, and a Fellow of the Uganda National Academy of Sciences
  • 1/23/23: Vladimir Hachinski, CM, MD, DSc, FRCPC, FCAHS, FAHA, FAAN, FRSC
    Dr. Hachinski is a Professor of Neurology and Epidemiology in the Department of Clinical Neurological Sciences at Western University
  • 1/9/23: Martin Picard, PhD
    Dr. Picard is an Associate Professor of Behavioral Medicine at the Columbia University Department of Neurology.
  • 12/19/22: Bonnie Wong, PhD, Massachusetts General Hospital: Interventional Neuropsychology: Prescribing for brain health 
  • 12/5/22: Erin Dunn, ScD, MPH, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital: Childhood adversity and mental health: Identifying opportunities to reduce risk and promote resilience across the life course 
  • 11/7/22: Bastien Guerin, PhD, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital: Improvements in dose delivery of transcranial focused ultrasound for neuromodulation 
  • 10/24/22: Ileana De Anda-Duran, MD, MPH, Department of Epidemiology at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine: Vascular Risk Factors and Cognitive function: The Bogalusa Heart Study 
  • 9/12/22: Lucia Crivelli, PhD, FLENI: Brain Health in Latin America: From Lifestyle Interventions to the Impact of COVID-19 
  • 7/25/22: Randy Buckner, PhD, Harvard University: Rationale and Opportunities for Precision Exploration of Brain Change Within Individuals
  • 6/27/22: Claus Reinsberger, MD, PhD, Brigham & Women's Hospital
  • 6/13/22: Ana-Maria Vranceanu, PhD, Founding Director of the Center for Health Outcomes and Interdisciplinary Research (CHOIR) at Mass General, and Valery Feigin, MD, MSc, PhD, FAAN, Director and Professor of the National Institute for Stroke and Applied Neurosciences, AUT University of Auckland

2/12/2021: Neuroimaging Symposium

This symposium, sponsored by the McCance Center, the Martinos Center and Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology, highlighted advances in neuroimaging technologies and methods for applying machine learning to increasingly large-scale data sets with the goal of providing non-invasive, reliable indicators of brain health, resilience and vulnerability before clinical manifestations of disease. Speakers included Randy Gollub, MD, PhD, Director of Imaging Science, McCance Center for Brain Health, Simon Eickhoff, MD, PhD, Director of the Institute of Systems Neuroscience, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf and many others.

Watch recorded talks

7/15/2020: Machine Learning (ML) Generated Indices of ‘Brain Health’ from Medical Images

Presented on July 15, 2020 by trainees in the MIT Health Sciences Technology (HST) division to their peers and faculty of the Neuroimaging Training Program.

Advances in technologies that enable human brain imaging to inform clinical care are proliferating at an astounding pace. The half-day virtual symposium, “Machine Learning (ML) Generated Indices of ‘Brain Health’ from Medical Images,” opened with an expert overview of the field followed by succinct reviews of a range of topics relevant to the use of neuroimaging to improve and/or maintain brain health. These include applications of machine learning to high-fidelity brain image reconstruction, statistical techniques for robust analysis of brain data, machine learning applications to treatment design, and ethical and regulatory challenges to deploying any of these solutions. Each of the graduate student presenters selected their specific topic to harmonize across the goal of the symposium and their own thesis project domain.

The program was sponsored by the McCance Center for Brain Health at MGH, as part of our mission to harness these advances to identify and study neuroimaging indicators of brain health. As these presentations make clear, while there is still significant work to be done before neuroimaging becomes a cornerstone of primary care, the value of neuroimaging to yield meaningful information about brain health is unquestionable.

Watch recorded talks

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