Minerva Meese is a Research Assistant in the ALBA Language Neurobiology Lab of the UCSF Memory and Aging Center. She is also a licensed Speech-Language Pathologist.  Minerva provides clinical speech pathology expertise and linguistic analysis support for research into the assessment, diagnosis and treatment of Primary Progressive Aphasia.   She supported ALBA lab research that resulted in three publications in JAMA Neurology, Behavioral Neurology and the Journal of Neuroscience. These include research into PPA treatment with Maya Henry, PhD; The identification of features of non-fluent/agrammatic PPA with underlying CBD or PSP pathology with Miguel Santos-Santos, MD; Analysis of frontal white matter tracts for sustained speech production in PPA, with Maria Luisa Mandelli, PhD; and Paper accepted for ASHA Convention 2020- Motor speech and linguistic features differ in nfvPPA caused by underlying PSP v. CBS pathology, with Ariane Welch (convention canceled).

With the Dyslexia Center’s Multitudes Project, Minerva has been instrumental in piloting on-site protocols for our study of our emergent Web-based early identification system for children who may struggle with reading. Her travels throughout the State of California with this team have made crucial contributions to our developmental and validation studies of both English and Spanish language measures.

Areas of Interest:  Communication Disorders Across the Lifespan; Motor Speech Disorders;  Neuroscience and Literacy; Bilingualism.