People

Dr. Ryan Darby's research interests involve using neurologic methods to investigate the anatomy, psychology, and philosophy involved in disorders of the brain.  In addition to being the lab's Principal Investigator, he runs the Vanderbilt Frontotemporal Dementia Clinic.

Tony Phan is a Clinical/Translational Research Coordinator in the Darby Lab. He graduated from Princeton University in 2018 with a concentration in Molecular Biology and a certificate in Engineering Biology. He is studying the neurological basis of different symptoms, such as psychosis and behavioral disturbance, in patients afflicted with Alzheimer's disease, behavioral-variant frontotemporal dementia, Lewy body dementia, and similar neurodegenerative disorders.

Jerica Reeder is a Clinical Translational Research Coordinator III in the Department of Neurology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She earned her bachelors of science in psychology with a minor in biology and sociology from Tennessee Technological University. Jerica is the lead coordinator for ALLFTD working with various dementia-related disorders such as Frontotemporal Dementia, Primary Progressive Aphasia, Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, Corticobasal Syndrome, FTD-Motor Neuron Disease and Alzheimer's Disease. In addition, she coordinators the clinical drug trial, Alector, enrolling GRN positive Frontotemporal Dementia Patient. Jerica co-facilitates the FTD support group and FTD community events. 

Katie Hay is a Neuroscience Program Analyst in the Department of Neurology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She earned her M.S. in Clinical Psychology from Loyola University Maryland, with a concentration in neuropsychology. Her research background is in behavioral pharmacology where her work focused on discovering more efficacious treatments for those with substance use disorders. Currently, she is serving in the Cognitive and Movement Disorders Lab exploring the effect of neurodegeneration on cognition, behavior and movement symptoms through studies that utilize neuroimaging techniques such as MRI and PET. Her studies focus on Parkinson's Disease, Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, Multiple Systems Atrophy, Dementia with Lewy Bodies, and others.

Siyi Wang serves as a Clinical/Translational Research Coordinator in the Darby Lab. Seh received her bachelor's degree from Vassar College with a major in psychological science. Her research interest includes cognitive symptoms in the neurodegenerative diseases, as well as measurements and interventions. Specifically, Siyi works with patients having frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) syndromes and populations having a significant family history or genetic causes of FTLD. In addition to clinical neuroscience, Siyi is also interested in promoting health equity and is actively involved in research on social determinants of health (SDOH).

Lindsey Keener is an upper level undergraduate at Vanderbilt University. She is majoring in psychology with a classics minor. Lindsey helps assist research study procedures by preparing study materials, data entry, IRB applications and shadowing research visits. In addition, she is pioneering her own project by examining the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) in patients with dementia.