UC San Francisco researcher Kristine Yaffe, MD, has been selected by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as the recipient of the 2021 Robert S. Gordon, Jr. Lectureship Award in recognition of her work in the epidemiology of cognitive aging and dementia, as well as her innovative research on the modifiable risk factors of dementia and their potential for furthering prevention efforts. She will receive her award and deliver a lecture titled "Epidemiology of Cognitive Aging: Why Observational Studies Still Matter" on February 10, 2021, as part of the NIH Director’s Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series.
Yaffe is the Roy and Marie Scola Endowed Chair 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 the chief of neuropsychiatry and director of the Memory Evaluation Clinic at the San Francisco VA Medical Center and director of the UCSF Center for Population Brain Health.
As an internationally recognized expert in the epidemiology of dementia and cognitive aging, Yaffe has served as the principal investigator on multiple grants from NIH, the U.S. Department of Defense, and several foundations, and delivered testimony as a subject expert to the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging. Her work focuses on the identification of modifiable risk factors—including cardiovascular and metabolic risk factors, sleep disturbances, and traumatic brain injury—and the critical role they play not just in late life, but across the entire lifespan. Her work has also provided important insight into the pathways that increase dementia risk.
Yaffe served as co-chair of the National Academy of Medicine’s Committee on Cognitive Aging, which assessed the public health dimensions of cognitive aging and released a report, “Cognitive Aging: Progress in Understanding and Opportunities for Action,” in 2015, and was appointed to the Governor's Task Force on Alzheimer's Prevention and Preparedness by California Governor Gavin Newsom in 2019. She was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2019 and has received numerous awards in recognition of her work, including the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry’s Distinguished Scientist Award, the American College of Psychiatrists' Research Award in Geriatric Psychiatry, and the American Academy of Neurology’s Potamkin Prize for Alzheimer’s Research.
NIH established the Robert S. Gordon, Jr. Lectureship in 1995 to recognize scientists who have contributed significantly to the field of epidemiology or clinical trials research. The lectureship is given annually on the recommendation of the NIH Epidemiology and Clinical Trials Interest Group and is organized by the NIH Office of Disease Prevention. It is named in honor of Robert S. Gordon, Jr., MD, a former assistant surgeon general of the U.S. Public Health Service and special assistant to former NIH director James Wyngaarden, MD.
