Kristine Yaffe, MD
UC San Francisco and SF VA Health Care System (SFVAHCS) researcher Kristine Yaffe, MD, was one of a select group of global leaders in dementia and cognitive aging research invited to participate in "The Memory: A Symposium Addressing the Opportunities and Challenges of an Aging Global Population," a symposium focusing on brain health organized at the request of the late Pope Francis.
The event, held May 9-10, 2025, at the Palazzo San Calisto in Vatican City, was co-organized by AARP and dedicated in the former pontiff's honor. In her role as the AARP Global Council on Brain Health Governance Committee Chair, Yaffe was featured as a distinguished speaker and discussed strategies for maintaining cognitive and brain health across the life course.
Yaffe is the Roy and Marie Scola Endowed Chair, Leon J. Epstein, MD, Chair in Geriatric Psychiatry, and a professor of psychiatry, neurology, and epidemiology at UCSF, as well the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences' vice chair for the Weill Institute for Neurosciences. She is also director of the UCSF Center for Population Brain Health.
Internationally recognized expert in the epidemiology of dementia and cognitive aging, and a leader in identifying modifiable risk factors for dementia that serve as a foundation for prevention, Yaffe pioneered early investigations on the roles of estrogen, physical activity, and cardiovascular factors in dementia risk. More recently, her research group has led work on the connections between Alzheimer disease and other dementias and traumatic brain injury, sleep disorders, and life course exposures.
In recognition of her accomplishments, Yaffe has received several prestigious honors, including the American Academy of Neurology’s Potamkin Prize for Alzheimer’s Research in 2017, election to the National Academy of Medicine in 2019, the NIH Robert S. Gordon, Jr. Award in Epidemiology in 2021, and the Department of Veterans Affairs John B. Barnwell Award for Achievement in Clinical Research in 2022.
About UCSF Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
The UCSF Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute are among the nation's foremost resources in the fields of child, adolescent, adult, and geriatric mental health. Together they constitute one of the largest departments in the UCSF School of Medicine and the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, with a focus on providing unparalleled patient care, conducting impactful research, training the next generation of behavioral health leaders, and advancing diversity, health equity, and community across the field.
UCSF Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences conducts its clinical, educational, and research efforts at a variety of locations in Northern California, including the UCSF Nancy Friend Pritzker Psychiatry Building; UCSF Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital; UCSF Health medical centers and community hospitals across San Francisco; UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals in San Francisco and Oakland; Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center; the San Francisco VA Health Care System; UCSF Fresno; and numerous community-based sites around the San Francisco Bay Area.
About the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences
The UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, established by the extraordinary generosity of Joan and Sanford I. "Sandy" Weill, brings together world-class researchers with top-ranked physicians to solve some of the most complex challenges in the human brain.
The UCSF Weill Institute leverages UCSF’s unrivaled bench-to-bedside excellence in the neurosciences. It unites three UCSF departments—Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Neurology, and Neurological Surgery—that are highly esteemed for both patient care and research, as well as the Neuroscience Graduate Program, a cross-disciplinary alliance of nearly 100 UCSF faculty members from 15 basic-science departments, as well as the UCSF Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases, a multidisciplinary research center focused on finding effective treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, frontotemporal dementia, Parkinson’s disease, and other neurodegenerative disorders.
About UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is exclusively focused on the health sciences and is dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. UCSF Health, which serves as UCSF’s primary academic medical center, includes top-ranked specialty hospitals and other clinical programs, and has affiliations throughout the Bay Area.
