Sepideh Shokouhi, Ph.D.

Sepi Shokouhi is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Center for Cognitive Medicine. She completed her Ph.D. in biomedical engineering at Stony Brook University in New York after completing her Masters of Engineering degree at TU-Graz in Austria (major: physics). In 2011, she received a K99-R00 fellowship from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB). The overall goal of her current research is to develop novel biomarker concepts and computational methodologies for pharmacologic-imaging in Alzheimer’s disease.  While her primary expertise is in positron emission tomography (PET), she has expanded her research activities to a broad range of computational multi-modal data analysis strategies that combine the techniques of structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), functional MRI (fMRI), digital biomarkers, PET, neuropsychology, and cognitive neuroscience to understand the anatomic, functional, and neurochemical bases of changes in cognition and behavior in normal and pathological aging. Her current research focuses on developing and validating novel amyloid and tau imaging methodologies to explore the relationships between early cognitive symptoms, sleep, tau/Aβ burden in normal and pathological. One of her primary research objectives is to determine how sex-specific differences in the brain’s functional and structural organization will affect the progression of AD pathologies. Her recent research on sex-specific differences in the spread of tauopathy across brain regions was highlighted at Alzheimer’s Association International Conference news media press conference followed by national and global media exposure.  Dr. Shokouhi is the recipient of the 2017 Tracy Lynn Faber Memorial Award by the Computer & Instrumentation Council of the Society of Nuclear Medicine & Molecular Imaging for her accomplishments in computational brain imaging research.