Dr. Grill is Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior and Neurobiology and Behavior at UCI. He is the Carla Liggett and Arthur S. Liggett, MD, Endowed Chair, in honor of Frank M. LaFerla in the School of Biological Sciences at UCI. Dr. Grill holds leadership positions at UCI and in national Alzheimer’s disease research networks. He is the Chair of the Internal Ethics Committee for the Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study. He co-Chairs the same Committee and co-leads the Recruitment Engagement and Retention Unit for the Alzheimer’s Clinical Trial Consortium (ACTC). He is the Co-Director of the Institute on Methods and Protocols for Advancement of Clinical Trials in ADRD (IMPACT-AD) and serves on the Scientific Advisory Boards for the Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement (WAM) and Hilarity for Charity (HFC). He is also the Clinical Trials section editor for Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association.

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Dr. Salazar is an Associate Project Scientist and epidemiologist who joined UCI MIND in 2018. He received his undergraduate degree in Biology from New York University with a minor in Neuropsychology. He then obtained a master’s in public health (MPH) focusing on health policy and management from Columbia University, where he developed a keen interest in health disparities research. With T32 support at Columbia, he continued further doctoral work and received a PhD in Epidemiology. He completed postdoctoral training in Aging at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Dr. Salazar is centrally interested in understanding the social production of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias in vulnerable populations, particularly Hispanics/Latinos. His goal is to raise awareness and address the social determinants of Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr. Hye-Won (Grace) Shin is the Director of Asian American Community Outreach at UCI Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders (UCI MIND) where she develops scientific evidence-based community education programs and conducts research studies in both English and Korean. As a biomedical engineer with a chemical engineering background and clinical translational research experience, Dr. Shin’s research interest at UCI MIND is on biomedical and social interventions for reducing racial and ethnic disparities in medical research, specifically among Asian Americans. Dr. Shin is a Community Advisory Board member for federally funded research entitled, CARE (Collaborative Approach for Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders Research and Education) registry by representing Somang Society, a nonprofit organization serving Korean American older adults and their family caregivers.

Dr. Shin has published 30+ research papers in prestigious peer-reviewed journals; 80+ domestic and international conference presentations, and has written multiple successful research grants. In addition, she is an inventor on four issued patents. Dr. Shin has been invited to serve as a National Institute of Health extramural grant reviewer and has served as a referee for peer-reviewed journals including the IEEE Sensors Journal, Journal of Breath Research, the Journal of Applied Physiology, European Respiratory Journal, and the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine to provide expert evaluations on the research of fellow scientists. In parallel, Dr. Shin serves as the Director of Korea Relations at the UCI Office of Global Engagement and the Chief Scientific Officer & Chief Global Affairs Officer at RIIID Medical Group.

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Dr. Witbracht is an Associate Project Scientist and a research nutritionist who joined UCI MIND in 2015. She received a BS in Cell Biology and a PhD in Nutritional Biology from UC Davis. Her research interests include understanding decision-making around enrolling in Alzheimer’s disease clinical trials (Witbracht et. al. 2020), behavior modification of AD modifiable risk factors, and retention strategies in recruitment registries. Dr. Witbracht also helps to coordinate education and outreach activities for UCI MIND.

Adrijana joined UC Irvine in 2009, having received both her undergraduate degree in Sociology and her master’s degree in Biomedical and Translational Science from UC Irvine (zot, zot, zot!). Her primary role at the Grill Lab is to work with researchers interested in utilizing the Consent-to-Contact (C2C) Registry. Additionally, Dr. Grill and Adrijana manage the Accrual and Retention Consult Service (ARCS) as part of UC Irvine’s Institute for Clinical and Translational Science (ICTS).

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Eunji is a 1^st year graduate student in the labs of Drs. Joshua Grill and Daniel Gillen in the UCI Neurobiology and Behavior Program. She holds a master’s degree in psychology from Pepperdine University. Her research interest includes study designs in Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders (ADRD) clinical trials and participant recruitment experiences from neighborhoods based on area deprivation index (ADI).

Edwin joined UCI MIND in 2022. He graduated from UC Irvine with a double major in Psychology & Social Behavior and Criminology. After graduating, he worked in the Development in Social Context (DISC) lab as a research assistant gaining experience working with Spanish speaking families. He is currently working in increasing the community engagement and outreach efforts towards the Latino population in Orange County and finding ways to facilitate their recruitment into research.

Melany joined UCI MIND in 2023. She graduated from UC Davis with B.A. in Psychology. She has worked as a research assistant prior to joining the Grill lab. Melany conducts research studies in both English and Spanish and assists in coordinating outreach events to the communities. She is interested in health disparities and aims to pursue higher education in Clinical Psychology.

Deanna Dang joined UCI MIND in 2023. She graduated from California State University of Fullerton with a Bachelor of Science in Human Services. She was a retired social worker from the Social Services Agency of Orange County prior to joining the Grill lab. She is also a volunteer Community Educator with the Alzheimer’s Association OC Chapter. She attends several community events, especially among the Vietnamese community, to deliver education program and to raise awareness about Alzheimer’s disease/dementia. She performs various tasks to help cultivate and support the research UCI MIND actively engages in, including community outreach, recruitment, and Vietnamese interpreting and translation.

Kenny joined UCI MIND in 2024. He graduated from Johns Hopkins University in the Summer of 2023, with a Masters of Engineering, in Applied Biomedical Engineering. He helps to conduct various studies for the Grill lab and perform various tasks to help cultivate and support the research UCI MIND actively engages in. His research interests include understanding factors that contribute to health disparities in the Asian American community and finding ways to improve recruitment into research of people who identify with this ethno-racial group.

Valerie joined UCI MIND in 2024. She graduated from Vanderbilt University in May 2024 with a B.A. in Neuroscience and Medicine, Health, and Society. She assists with tasks for various research studies including patient recruitment and community outreach. Prior to joining the Grill Lab, she worked as an undergraduate researcher in the Critical Illness, Brain Dysfunction, and Survivorship (CIBS) Center at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Her research interests include neuropsychological outcomes of brain disorders and research participation in cognitive studies.