People

Marilu Gorno Tempini, MD, PhD

Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry
Charles Schwab Distinguished Professorship in Dyslexia and Neurodevelopment
Director, Language Neurobiology Laboratory
Co-Director, UCSF Dyslexia Center
Co-Director, UCSF Dyslexia Center and the UCSF|UC Berkeley Schwab Center for Dyslexia and Cognitive Diversity
Neurology

Dr. Maria Luisa Gorno Tempini is a behavioral neurologist, currently directing the Language Neurobiology laboratory of the UCSF Memory and Aging Center and serving as the neurology lead of the UCSF Dyslexia Center. She obtained her medical degree and clinical neurology specialty training in Italy, and has a PhD in the neuroimaging of language from University College London.

Maya Bardorf, BA

Assistant CRC
Neurology

Maya graduated from Middlebury College in 2024 with a B.A. in neuroscience and a minor in art history. During her time at Middlebury, she contributed to a research project investigating gender and sex differences in visuospatial abilities among children using the JLAP task. Maya also spent a summer as a research assistant in the Hammack Laboratory of Behavioral Neuroscience at the University of Vermont, where she studied the neurobiological underpinning of anxiety-like and depression-like behaviors.

Phaedra Bell, PhD

Program Lead UCSF Dyslexia Ctr
Neurology

After over a decade in education leadership, teaching, leading teams, and developing programs in the arts, humanities, and medical education, I am using these skills to translate neuroscience research into programs and products that tackle inequity in health and education. As an Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Global Brain Health, I worked with colleagues at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center, the Division of Geriatrics, and at Trinity College Dublin to develop protocols for intervening in modifiable risk factors for dementia across the life course with a focus on marginalized older people.

Rian Bogley

Database Architect
Neurology

Rian graduated from UC Santa Barbara in 2018 with a B.S. in Biology and has over five years of research experience at UCSF. As the ALBA Language Neurobiology Lab and Dyslexia Center's Database Architect, he develops and implements database systems for both teams, leveraging his experience in data management, data analysis, and neuroimaging.

Ellie Carpenter

Clinical Research Coordinator
Neurology

Originally from Austin, Ellie graduated from the University of San Francisco with her BA in psychology in 2023. At the University of San Francisco, Ellie was a research assistant in the Learning and Memory Lab where she studied thought suppression and the rebound effect. She was also a research assistant in the Social Cognition Lab where she examined moral outrage in virtual settings. 

Jessica de Leon, MD

Assistant Adjunct Professor
Neurology

Dr. Jessica de Leon received her undergraduate degrees in neuroscience and Spanish at Johns Hopkins University and an MD with thesis degree at UCSF. She then completed a medicine internship and neurology residency at UCSF, where she served as chief resident. She completed a fellowship in behavioral neurology and is currently an assistant professor at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center (MAC). Her research focuses on how bilingualism, language typology, and genetics affect the symptoms, neuroimaging, and progression of primary progressive aphasia and related neurodegenerative disorders.

Zoe Ezzes

Research Speech-Language Pathologist
Neurology

Zoe is a speech-language pathologist at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center with a B.S. in Cognitive Science with specialization in neuroscience from UC San Diego and an M.S. in Speech-Language Pathology from Vanderbilt University. She conducts diagnostic speech and language assessments for research participants at the ALBA Lab and UCSF Dyslexia Center, and she also provides speech and language therapy for patients with PPA in treatment research in collaboration with the Aphasia Research and Treatment Lab (ARTLab) at the University of Texas at Austin.

Melina Flores

HR Specialist & Executive Administrative Assistant
Neurology

Erica Gutmann, MS, SLP

Research Speech Language Pathologist

Erica is a pediatric speech-language pathologist in the UCSF Dyslexia Center. She has a B.S. in Human Development from UC Davis and an M.S. in Speech-Language Pathology from Boston University. Erica has worked with students with language-based learning disorders in both outpatient and school settings. Her research interests in developmental language and reading disorders are at the intersection of neurocognition, education, and clinical practice.

Sarah Inkelis, PhD

Assistant Professor
Neurology

Sarah Inkelis is an assistant professor at the UCSF Dyslexia Center. She earned her PhD in Clinical Psychology at the SDSU/UC San Diego Joint Doctoral Program and completed her internship in pediatric neuropsychology at the UCLA Semel Institute. Her research at UCSF will focus on understanding the phenotype of dyslexia across the lifespan.

Robin Irey, PhD

Specialist

Robin Irey is an educational research specialist at the UCSF Dyslexia Center. She earned a PhD in Special Education from the UCB/SFSU joint doctoral program and previously earned a Master's and Teaching Credential from USF. Her research interests are informed by her previous experience as a special education classroom teacher and include early reading acquisition and development, reading intervention, metalinguistic underpinnings of reading, cognitive processes of reading, morphological awareness, and assessment.

Margo Kersey

Research Data Analyst
Neurology

Margo graduated from UCLA with a B.S. in Applied Mathematics and a minor in Cognitive Science. She has previously worked at UCLA’s Computational Vision and Learning Lab and German research center Forschungszentrum Jülich. Margo currently works in the Dyslexia Center, with a focus on math cognition and neuroimaging.

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