Botagoz Aimagambetova, MD

Dr. Botagoz Aimagambetova was born in Kazakhstan, where she also completed most of her education. She received her MD in Karaganda State Medical Academy in 2005, where she also completed her internship in Internal Diseases and residency in Cardiology. After receiving her clinical degree, she continued to study ultrasound and functional evaluation of cardiovascular diseases. She received training in heart and chest surgeries at Edith Wolfson Medical center, Holon, Israel, and in the Department of Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Surgery in Kaunas, Lithuania. Dr. Aimagambetova is trained in a full range of noninvasive diagnostic cardiac exams, such as Holter monitoring of ECG and blood pressure, treadmill test, veloergometry, stress testing, transthoracic and transesophageal echocardiography, and ultrasound of aorta and brachycephalic arteries. Her primary research interest is the determination of cardiovascular risk factors in the etiology of neurodegenerative processes in an elderly population. Dr. Aimagambetova received a master’s in clinical and translational research at the University of Miami under the mentorship of Dr. Rundek.  In November of 2025, she was appointed an Evelyn F. McKnight Neurocognitive Scholar. 

Fernando Ferrier, Ph.D.

Dr. Fernando Ferrier completed his undergraduate training in Neuroscience at the University of Miami, graduating magna cum laude, and went on to earn his PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. He conducted his doctoral research in the laboratory of Dr. Miguel Perez-Pinzon.
His research focuses on mechanisms of cognitive recovery following cardiac arrest and stroke, with particular emphasis on neural circuit dynamics, neuromodulation, and oscillatory activity. Using a multidisciplinary approach that includes electrophysiology, behavioral analyses, and histological methods, his work examines how interventions such as physical exercise and resveratrol promote neural resilience and functional recovery after ischemic brain injury.
Dr. Ferrier will continue his research as a postdoctoral scholar in the T32 mentored research training program Cross–Disciplinary Research Opportunity for Training in AD/ADRD Science (CrossROADS) in the laboratory of Dr. Perez-Pinzon, where he aims to further investigate circuit-level mechanisms underlying neuroprotection and cognitive restoration.

Karlon H. Johnson Jr. PhD

Karlon Howard Johnson Jr., PhD, is a CrossROADS Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, where he studies the connection between vascular health, multimorbidity, and Alzheimer’s disease. He earned his PhD in Epidemiology at the University of Miami, where his research on discharge communication and post-stroke outcomes was supported by the PhRMA Foundation Value Assessment and Health Outcomes Research Fellowship. As a CrossROADS scholar, Dr. Johnson is mentored by Dr. Tatjana Rundek, whose leadership in stroke and neurovascular research guides his transition into Alzheimer’s disease research. His project aims to develop a more accurate operational definition of Alzheimer’s disease using structured and unstructured EHR data from the UM Epic system, utilizing LLMs and natural language processing. He also investigates the temporal trajectories of both traditional and non-traditional multimorbidities, along with individual risk and protective factors that influence Alzheimer’s disease development. A key part of his work is understanding how these multimorbidity and risk trajectories vary across demographic groups and contribute to disparities in AD detection and prediction. Dr. Johnson plans to create an interdisciplinary research program that promotes equitable, data-driven approaches to dementia prevention and early diagnosis.”

Jose Alfredo Santiago, MD

Dr. Santiago was born in Puerto Rico and completed his undergraduate training in
Chemical Engineering at the University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez. He pursued his
medical sciences education at Touro College of Medicine in New York and earned his
MD from the American University of the Caribbean.

Before joining the University of Miami, Dr. Santiago served as a Research Associate at
the Chicago Medical School, where he identified novel RNA blood-based biomarkers for
Parkinson’s disease and atypical parkinsonian syndromes. His discoveries led to the
founding of NeuroHub Analytics, a company dedicated to high-throughput genomic
analysis, biomarker discovery, and therapeutic target identification for
neurodegenerative diseases.

Dr. Santiago has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications focused on
neurodegeneration. He is recognized for his work on diagnostic biomarkers for
Parkinson’s disease and for elucidating molecular pathways that link Parkinson’s
disease and diabetes.

He is currently a CrossROADS T32 Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of
Neurology at the University of Miami, under the mentorship of Dr. Ihtsham Ul Haq. His
ongoing research investigates vascular contributions and comorbidities to cognitive
decline in Parkinson’s disease.

Jack Stahl Ph.D.

Dr. Stahl was born in Detroit, Michigan and spent much of his childhood wondering how the mind works. With a strong early interest in neuroscience, he moved to Miami at the age of 17 to pursue undergraduate studies in biochemistry and psychology at the University of Miami. His research career began during his junior year when he joined the lab of Dr. Claudia Rodrigues to investigate the role of endothelial dysfunction on neuroinflammation. After earning a dual degree, Dr. Stahl continued his scientific training in the lab of Dr. Claes Wahlestedt at the University of Miami’s Center for Therapeutic Innovation where he completed a PhD in neuroscience. With a personal motive to develop a disease-modifying therapeutic for Alzheimer’s Disease, Dr. Stahl’s dissertation work was focused on developing multi-targeting oligonucleotide therapeutics for Alzheimer’s Disease and other neurological disorders. His work resulted in the formation of a biotechnology company, Tinker Therapeutics, which was awarded the first-place prize in Eli Lilly’s Genetic Medicine Grand Challenge in 2024. Today, Dr. Stahl is continuing his work on therapeutic development as a CrossROADS T32 postdoctoral scholar under the mentorship of Dr. Wahlestedt, and Dr. Tatjana Rundek with an ongoing focus on treatments for Alzheimer’s Disease and other neurological disorders.

Carla Gibbs, Ph.D.

Dr. Gibbs is a T32 CrossROADS scholar mentored by Dr. Girardin Jean-Louis and Dr. Tatjana Rundek. Dr. Carla Gibbs was born in Miami, FL. She received her Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences with an emphasis in Biochemistry from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, in May 2023. She is trained in a broad scope of science immunology techniques, and contemporary molecular biology research methods. These techniques include DNA genetic engineering, flow cytometry, and pre-clinical research. She completed her graduate training in the Laboratory of Cancer Biology and Genetics (LCBG) at the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health (NCI-NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland. Dr. Gibbs has many years of experience in scientific outreach and as a scientific policy advocate.
Her expertise is in inflammatory and epigenetic pathways, which now include novel pathways in neurodegenerative diseases. Through identifying biomarkers at the intersection of inflammation and sleep disturbances, Dr. Gibbs uses bioinformatic tools and artificial intelligence to develop our understanding of neurodegenerative disease by mining data retrieved from NIH-R01 funded studies, ESSENTIAL and MOSAIC.

Mohammad Nafeli Shahrestani, MD

Dr. Nafeli was born in Iran, and moved to Rome, Italy at age 19 to pursue a medical education. Driven by his keen interest in the study of the aging brain and neurodegeneration, in his last year of medical school, he was sent to the University of Maryland, Baltimore, as a research scholar, where he completed his M.D.  graduation thesis about Alzheimer’s Disease. A few months after graduating summa cum laude from Tor Vergata University of Rome, he joined the Neurology Department at the University of Miami as a postdoctoral research scholar. He is in the postdoctoral T32 mentored research training program: Cross–Disciplinary Research Opportunity for Training in AD/ADRD Science: CrossROADS. Under the leadership of Dr. Tatjana Rundek, he is researching Vascular Contributions to Cognitive Impairment and Dementia (VCID), investigating how compromise in cardiovascular system mechanisms and blood abnormalities may contribute to the development of diseases that cause cognitive decline.