Lab Members

Dr. Riley Bove - principal investigator

Riley’s first academic passion was anthropology, which she pursued at Harvard College (Phi Beta Kappa), and through a Fulbright grant in Mali. She obtained her MD from Harvard Medical School in 2007, completed her residency in the combined Massachusetts General Hospital – Brigham and Women’s Hospital Neurology program, a clinical research fellowship at the Partners MS Center, and a Masters Degree through Harvard Medical School’s Clinical Investigator Training Program. She has received research support from the NIH and the National MS Society, among others. Riley is board-certified in Neurology and joined the UCSF Faculty in 2015. Her publication record can be found here and here.

Fellows

Dr. Valerie Block

Dr. Valerie Block – fellow

Dr. Block trained as a physical therapist (PT) in Barcelona (Spain), then practiced as a neuro PT clinician until 2013. She completed her doctorate at UCSF/SFSU in 2016. During her first postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Gelfand, she carried out a longitudinal observational study (FITriMS), evaluating the utility of continuous physical activity monitoring in people with MS to determine patient function and predict clinical changes. Dr. Block is currently funded by an NMSS Career Transition Award, working with Dr. Bove to identify the best digital tools to remotely monitor bladder and walking difficulties in people with MS. Her publication record can be found here.

Dr. Wan-Yu Hsu

Dr. Wan-Yu Hsu – fellow

Wan-Yu received her PhD in Brain Science in 2014 and did her post-doctoral training in Neuroscape lab at UCSF. Before joining the Bove Lab in 2019, she was a clinical scientist at Halo Neuroscience, Inc. She’s interested in neuromodulation and developing novel neuro-technology-based approaches to the diagnosis and treatment of people living with MS. Dr Hsu is currently funded through an NMSS Fellowship. Her research work can be found here.

Dr. Alyssa Nylander – fellow

Alyssa studied biology and neuroscience at Harvard College, where she graduated cum laude in 2008. She earned her MD and PhD in the MSTP program at Yale University, where she completed her graduate work in the lab of Dr. David Hafler and graduated in 2017. She completed her neurology residency training at UCSF in 2021. She is board-certified in Neurology and is currently a UCSF Neuroimmunology translational research fellow. Dr. Nylander is currently funded through an NMSS Clinician Scientist Award. Her research focus is on cognition and remyelination in multiple sclerosis and pre-clinical MS models.

Graduate Students

Arpita Gopal, DPT - graduate student

Arpita studied neuroscience at UCSD before earning a DPT from UCSF/SFSU in 2019. She is pursuing a PhD in Rehabilitation Science with an emphasis on Clinically Informed Neurosciences. Arpita’s thesis focuses on the assessment of hand function and dexterity in people with MS. She is interested in neurotechnology, remote monitoring tools, and wearable devices. Outside of the lab, she enjoys experimenting in the kitchen, yoga, and a good thriller novel! Her publication record can be found here. Other links: LinkedIn, Twitter

Dr. Helga Taylor

Helga Taylor, MD - graduate student

Dr. Taylor trained as a clinician in Romania at the University Of Medicine And Pharmacy of Tirgu-Mures. After receiving her MD degree, she is now pursuing her Master’s degree in Clinical Research at UCSF. Dr. Taylor joined the Bove Lab in August 2020. She is working with Dr. Bove on a pilot study exploring the influence of exogenous hormones, menstrual cycle, and birth control on Multiple Sclerosis symptoms in women (MenseS). She is also involved in various other projects within the Bove Lab that aim to improve clinical care while developing her skills in research design, statistical analysis, and leadership.

Data and Development Team

Narender Sara - lead software engineer

Narender received a Master’s in Computer Science from Saint Joseph’s University in 2013 and an MBA in Information Technology from Goldey-Beacom in 2018. He joined the Bove Lab in summer 2022 as a technical lead for BRIDGE, a precision medicine platform integrated with the electronic health record, and Open MS BioScreen, an openly available application for tracking and understanding Multiple Sclerosis. Narender is interested in advancing digital health care platforms and developing software for clinicians and patients. Other links: LinkedIn

Nicolette Miller - software engineer

Nicolette received her BS in Computer Science from UC Santa Cruz in 2019. She joined the Bove Lab in 2020 and is currently working on BRIDGE, a precision medicine platform integrated with the electronic health record, and Open MS BioScreen, an openly available application for tracking and understanding Multiple Sclerosis. Nicolette is interested in the intersection of healthcare and technology, and loves working on such impactful applications. Other links: LinkedIn, Github

Shane Poole

Shane Poole - bioinformatics engineer

Shane studied computer science at 42 Silicon Valley, finishing in 2020 after working as a chemist with the EPA for three years. He completed his undergrad with a BS in Biotechnology from the University of Houston. Shane joined the Bove lab in December 2020 and is working on projects in clinical data management and exploration. He is interested in the application of computational techniques to increase clinical understanding, novel therapeutic targets, and patient outcomes for genetic diseases. His publication record can be found here. Other links: LinkedIn

Jim Rowson - expert volunteer

Jim Rowson received his PhD in Computer Science from Caltech in 1980. He has a 40 year career developing and shipping software in both Electronic Design Automation and the web. He retired in 2022 from YouTube where he was part of the team that recommends videos for the YouTube homepage. Jim is volunteering in the hope of helping researchers in Alzheimer's and other degenerative diseases.

Study Personnel

Annika Anderson - research coordinator

Annika received a BA in Neurobiology and Gender and Women’s Studies from UC Berkeley in 2018. She joined the Bove Lab in the summer of 2018 and is currently working on projects in hormone and gender-based approaches to care in the MS community. She is interested in the intersections of gender and health. Her publication record can be found here.

Will Rowles - research coordinator

Will received his BA in Neuroscience with a focus in neuropharmacology and computational drug design from Pitzer College in 2017. He joined the Bove Lab summer 2017 and is currently working on projects in digital health. Will is interested in the integration of technology and humanistic medicine to better understand, diagnose, and treat patients with neurological diseases. His publication record can be found here.

Kanishka Koshal - program manager

Kanishka received her BDS (Bachelor of Dental Surgery) from Institute of Dental Sciences, India. An interest in population health and preventive care led her to pursue an MSc in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She joined UCSF in 2018 and has worked with various clinical and research teams since. She is currently responsible for end-to-end project management of the BRIDGE and DeepNeuro Projects. In her free time, she enjoys travel and yoga.

Former Lab Members

Kira McPolin

Kira McPolin – research coordinator

Erica Schleimer - lead software engineer

Erica joined the Bove Lab in 2017 and is the technical lead for BRIDGE, a precision medicine platform integrated with the electronic health record, and Open MS BioScreen, an openly available application for tracking and understanding Multiple Sclerosis. In addition, she advises the MS group on a number of technical solutions. Erica is interested in digital health innovation and developing applications that can help improve care accessibility, delivery, and patient outcomes. Erica was recognized with the School of Medicine STAR Achievement Award and is currently studying for a Master's degree in Information and Data Science at UC Berkeley.

Jessica Singh - specialist

Tanya Krishnakumar - bioinformatics programmer

Tanya graduated from UC Berkeley with a BS degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in May 2017. Tanya particularly loves the intersection of Computer Science and Statistics to model, analyze, and predict information. Tanya is also fascinated with Health+tech and loves to see how technology impacts medicine. Tanya contributed significantly to our data extraction program from the EMR, using natural language processing to identify relapses from clinical notes.

Chelsea Chen

Chelsea is a student at UC Berkeley pursuing a BA in psychology, focusing on clinical and biological psychology. She is interested in the intersection of neuroscience and psychology, particularly in how behavior can be used to assess an individual's neurological well-being. She intends to pursue a career in health care after graduate/medical school. While interning in the Bove Laboratory, Chelsea prepared a first-author paper on https://msard-journal.com/retrieve/pii/S2211034820300468

Alyssa Li

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Kelsey Rankin - assistant specialist

Kelsey received her BA in Developmental and Regenerative Biology from Harvard University in 2015. She joined Dr. Bove’s research program at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and moved to UCSF in 2016 when Dr. Bove took a position here. Kelsey worked on a joint project between the Chan and Bove Labs. She has recently transitioned to Mayo Medical School. Kelsey's project assessed the oligodendrocyte differentiation and subsequent remyelination potential of a targeted compound discovered in a high-throughput screen, and culminated in a platform talk at AAN 2017 and a first-author paper.

Gitanjali Das - intern summer 2017

John Morrissey - research coordinator 2016-2017

John received his BA in International Relations from Stanford University, and is now a medical student at Dartmouth. John worked within the MS research team as a clinical research coordinator, and with Dr. Bove to investigate the usage of technology in assessing, treating and diagnosing patients with Multiple Sclerosis. He contributed to a number of projects as a coordinator including: Videogame-Based Digital Therapeutic and Toward a low-cost, in-home, telemedicine-enabled assessment of disability in multiple sclerosis.

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Priya Garcha - research coordinator, 2016-2018

Priya received her B.A. in Psychology with an emphasis in Neuroscience from Chico State University in 2015. While in the Lab, she worked on various projects relating to digital health tools in the Multiple Sclerosis community, contributing to several papers and abstracts including: Videogame-Based Digital Therapeutic, Clinic to in-home telemedicine reduces barriers to care, and Toward a low-cost, in-home, telemedicine-enabled assessment of disability in multiple sclerosis. She is now pursuing a career in psychology with a focus on vulnerable and under-represented persons within the health care system.

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Léa Bourgade - intern summer 2017

Mia Carleton

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Jason Dierkhising - intern summer 2016

UC Berkeley Students

MTM Students

Four talented Masters in Translational Medicine Program students (2016-2017) worked on Open MS BioScreen as their Capstone project. Christine Rachel Joseph focused on ethical and social implications. Zian 'Zane' Liu focused on regulatory compliance and IP, identifying strategies that would mitigate regulatory burden. Stephanie Nemec's focus was enhancing user interaction. And Arash Nourian tackled architecture development.

Fung Fellowship Students

Four UC Berkeley students with diverse backgrounds were embedded in our group as part of the Fung Fellowship for Wellness and Technology Innovation: Apollo Jain, Megha Majumder, Alankrita Dayal, and Joshua Price (left to right). They share a collective vision of leveraging technological advancements to improve diagnosis and treatment processes for patients and are each individually committed to applying their particular skillsets to push this vision into reality.