I am interested in understanding how aging in the nervous system of healthy patients differs from those with Alzheimer’s Disease and related dementias. Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) offer an unprecedented opportunity to study complex genetic disease. One of the current limitations in using these cells to model late-onset diseases is the inherent young age of hPSC-derived cell types. The goal of my research is to identify how specific age-associated changes in the brain are capable of driving neurodegeneration, and to improve stem cell-based models of age-related disorders.