People

Veronica Santini, MD, MA, associate professor of neurology, clinical chief of Yale’s Movement Disorders Division, and chief of the Comprehensive Parkinson Disease Care Program, specializes in the clinical and multidisciplinary care of the most complex patients with autonomic dysfunction. Prior to joining Yale School of Medicine, she directed Stanford’s Huntington Disease and Ataxia Multidisciplinary Neurogenetics Clinic, a Huntington’s Disease Society of America Center of Excellence, where she oversaw a large team of specialists providing holistic, patient-centered care and similarly created other multispecialty integrated programs. To provide movement disorder patients with innovative therapies, Dr. Santini launched the Stanford Parkinson Disease Duopa Therapy program; delivered unified, seamless care for patients with multiple system atrophy (MSA); led the clinical trial investigation (and eventual FDA approval) for focused ultrasound thalamotomy for essential tremor; as well as therapeutic and neuroprotective trials for Parkinson’s disease, MSA, and Huntington’s disease. With this distinguished background, Dr. Santini was recruited to serve as the clinical chief of the Yale Movement Disorders Division and inaugural director of the Comprehensive Parkinson Disease Care Program. She leads the division to further optimize the human experience of those with movement disorders. In this role, Dr. Santini has built new methods of diagnostic evaluations, multidisciplinary care models, a longitudinal supportive care program (the “EmPOWERed with Parkinson” program), and developed community outreach strategies. She is simultaneously growing the faculty with diverse expertise, expanding training opportunities and the size of the movement disorders fellowship, and seamlessly integrating clinical research opportunities that impact quality of life. Since her arrival at Yale, the Movement Disorders Division has gained recognition as a world-class movement disorders center and is designated as a Mission MSA Center of Excellence and an American Parkinson Disease Association Center for Advanced Parkinson Research. The Movement Disorders Division has also been recognized as a Center of Excellence by Alpha Omega Alpha and a Parkinson’s Foundation Hospital Care Learning Collaborative. As an experienced medical educator, Dr. Santini has broadly addressed the needs of adult learners (including students, residents, fellows, and expert learners) and created novel andragogical approaches with wide dissemination within and outside the field of neurology. She taught all disciplines to medical students from their first to their graduating years and has been an influential educator for neurology residents and fellows. During her tenure as director of the Required Neurology Clerkship at Stanford, the course was ranked first in the Stanford School of Medicine and approximately 20% above national averages. Her national efforts have focused on increasing student understanding of neurologic disease and increasing the medical student pipeline into neurology. For the expert learner, Dr. Santini chaired the Continuing Medical Education (CME) Committee and guided programming as a member of the Congress Scientific Programming Committee of the International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society (MDS). As chair of the MDS CME Committee, she ensured compliance with the highest ACCME standards and expanded programming to over 40 CME activity offerings yearly with more than 150 credit hours. She oversaw two reaccreditations for the MDS, culminating in the ACCME’s designation of “Accreditation with Commendation.” As a result of this work, the society awarded her with the International 2023 President’s Distinguished Service Award. She has also served the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) educational needs on the Education Committee and the Meeting Management Committee. Due to her efforts, she has won numerous teaching awards, including the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation Award for Excellence in Pre-Clinical Teaching, the Lawrence H. Mathers Award for Exceptional Commitment to Teaching and Active Involvement in Medical Education, the Stanford Award for Excellence in Promotion of Humanism, and the Lysa Forno Excellence in Teaching award. Driven by a commitment to social justice and the desire to provide equitable health care, Dr. Santini has a long record of combining her clinical and educational efforts to launch global neurologic programs. She created and implemented a longitudinal, team-based clinical and educational program to provide care to the impoverished nation of Haiti. This program has delivered increased access for neurologic patients and continuity of care, as well as expansion of the clinical services and provider expertise since 2013. Education is a paramount component of the program and has focused on growing the knowledge of local providers and of medical students at the state university. This initiative began the first global health residency training program in neurology at Boston University and was a significant addition to the training programs at Stanford and Yale. In recognition of her leadership and advocacy work, Dr. Santini was selected as a 2016 American Academy of Neurology (AAN) Emerging Leader and a 2015 AAN Palatucci Advocate. She now serves as chair of the AAN’s Early Career Leadership Subcommittee, member of the Leadership Development Committee, and focuses on strategic development within the AAN Health Equity Strategic Initiative Work Group.

Clemens Scherzer, M.D. is a physician-scientist and the Stephen & Denise Adams Professor of Neurology, and Professor of Genetics and Neuroscience at Yale School of Medicine. He heads the Stephen & Denise Adams Center for Parkinson’s Disease Research of Yale School of Medicine, an inter- departmental center building the future of precision medicine for Parkinson’s through genomics and AI, and the American Parkinson Disease Association Center for Advanced Research. In his clinical practice he is the Academic Chief of the Division of Movement Disorders and directs the Yale Harvard Biomarkers Study (YHBS). Prior to his recruitment to Yale in 2024, Scherzer was Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, where he headed the Neurogenomics Lab (2003-2023) and developed the inter-divisional Brigham & Women’s Hospital Precision Neurology Program (2017-2023). Under his leadership, two US institutions – first Brigham & Women’s Hospital (since 2017-) and then Yale (2024- ) – were nationally recognized for the first time in their histories as research centers of excellence by the American Parkinson Disease Association. Scherzer uses genomics and big data to develop a new, predictive, preventive precison medicine for Parkinson's disease. His interdisciplinary lab includes bioinformatics engineers, geneticists, biologists, and clinicians. The lab's goal is to build a Parkinson AI engine that matches drugs and tests to a patient based on a search of his entire biology. This transformative research is powered by the Yale Harvard Biomarkers Study, with more than 4,000 participants one of the largest longitudinal biobanks for Parkinson's in the world. To understand how the human genome encodes human brain cells in health and disease, Scherzer is leading the $15 million Parkinson Cell Atlas in 5D with two awards from the ASAP Foundation. This initiative is decoding the genetic software of millions of brain cells and searches for glitches that cause disease. He is a pioneer in precision neurology, whose research led to the discovery of genetic drivers, biomarkers, and therapeutic targets, and clinical trials. Scherzer, a graduate of the University of Vienna Medical School, completed internship and neurology residency at Emory University (under Lasker Laurate Mahlon DeLong, MD, PhD and Allan Levey, MD, PhD), and movement disorders and genomics fellowship training at Harvard. He received the Dr. Paul Beeson and the George C. Cotzias Memorial Awards, and was awarded an honorary master degree from Harvard University. He contributed to the launch of a foundational network of Parkinson’s biobanks and the Accelerating Medicines Partnership-PD in the US, which form the national backbone for precision neurology research for PD. He co-founded the Harvard Biomarkers Study (HBS) in 2008 and contributed to the launch of the Michael J. Fox Foundation’s PPMI (on the founding Advisory Committee), and the NIH’s PDBP (as inaugural Co-Chair). He served on the Parkinson Vision Setting Panel of the U.S. Department of Defense, and is on the Steering Committee of the NINDS Parkinson's Disease Biomarkers Program and the Scientific Advisory Board of the American Parkinson Disease Foundation. He serves on the Editorial Boards of Neurogenetics and Biomarkers in Medicine. His research has been featured in international and national news media such as Scientific American, Washington Post, Bloomberg, US News & World Reports, and NOVA Next. Research from the Scherzer laboratory has led to the discovery of genetic drivers (e.g. distinct types of GBA mutations in 10% of patients; Annals of Neurology, 2016; Lancet Neurology, 2017), biomarkers, and therapeutic mechanisms (e.g. beta2-adrenoreceptor as regulator of the alpha-synuclein gene; Science, 2017), and is inspiring clinical trials. Scherzer revealed that the genetics of disease progression --- the main driver of patients’ wellbeing and clinical trials --- and the genetics of susceptibility importantly differ (Nature Genetics, 2021). His landmark systems transcriptomics study on defects in PGC1alpha-regulated bioenergetics genes in prodromal Parkinson's neuropathology (Science Translational Medicine, 2010) was highlighted as “a glimpse into the future of biomedicine”. To decode how the human genome codes our brain cells in health and disease, Scherzer is mapping a Parkinson Cell Atlas in 5D (PD5D) using high-resolution spatial, multiome, sub-cellular, and single-cell genomics combined with single-cell expression Quantitative Trait Locus analysis in millions of brain cells and thousand brains. While virtually everything we know about the human brain is based on just the 1.2% of the human genome that encodes proteins, his group found that actually as much as 64% of the genome are actively transcribed in our brain cells. Scherzer believes that this massive, hidden RNA software underlies the complexity of the human brain and neuropsychiatric disease (e.g. Nature Neuroscience, 2018; Nature Communications, 2023). For Alzheimer’s disease, he made the seminal discovery of SORL1 (LR11, SORLA) gene activity changes (Archives of Neurology, 2004), which is widely recognized as a top Alzheimer’s gene and “Amyloid-beta traffic cop.”

Dr. Bamford is an Associate Professor in Pediatrics and Neurology. He attended medical school at the University of Utah and completed his residency at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical; Center, receiving specific training in general pediatrics and pediatric neurology at the Neurological Institute of New York and Columbia University. He received a professorship at Columbia University and later worked as a physician-scientist at Seattle Children’s Hospital and the University of Washington. After spending 13 years in Seattle, he moved to Connecticut in 2015, where he cares for children with neurological disease at Yale University School of Medicine. As Section Chief of Pediatric Neurology, Dr. Bamford oversees a growing and expanding division that is dedicated to serving the children of New England.Dr. Bamford is an NIH-funded physician-scientist who spends time investigating the cause and treatment of neurological diseases in children. Dr. Bamford specializes in the treatment of children with movement disorders and uses novel optical techniques, electrophysiology, and behavioral experiments in the laboratory to determine how part of the brain called the basal ganglia, encodes normal learning and disturbances in movement. The basal ganglia represent a part of the brain that is involved in a number of debilitating neuropsychological diseases, including Tourette syndrome, tic disorder, Parkinsonism, Huntington disease, and substance dependence. He is examining the synaptic mechanisms that underlie these diseases and is evaluating pharmacological alternatives that will help improve treatment for those in need.

A 1978 YSM graduate, I am a neurologist/clinical trialist with sub-specialty in Movement Disorders. After 7 years heading the Parkinson and Movement Disorders program at New York-Hospital Cornell, I have spent the majority of his career as an executive in the pharmaceutical industry, leading teams in the areas of neurodegenerative, neuropsychiatric and retinal disorders at Regeneron, Elan, Cytokinetics and Bristol-Myers Squibb.  Most recently I led a team at Biogen that advanced 3 new compounds into the clinic for potential treatment of Parkinson’s disease. At Biogen I also established a clinical research program in inherited ataxias. My research activities have encompassed efforts to develop novel clinical outcome measures and biomarkers, including digital health technologies for clinical trials. I have served as chair of the ADNI Private Partner Scientific Board, the Industry Scientific Advisory Board of the Michael J. Fox Foundation-sponsored Parkinson Progression Markers Initiative, and as industry co-chair of the Critical Path for Parkinson’s consortium.  I have authored or-co-authored over 100 papers and book chapters, mostly in the area of neurological and opthalmological therapeutics , especially therapeutic development for Movement Disorders

Dr. Hawong is a Movement Disorders Neurologist. She treats patients with various movement disorders including Parkinson’s Disease, essential tremor, tic disorders/ Tourette’s syndrome, dystonia, ataxia, chorea, etc. Dr. Hawong also has a strong background the areas of Deep brain stimulation (DBS), MRI-guided focused ultrasound, and botulism toxin injection administration. Dr. Hawong is closely involved in the Yale Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders Multidisciplinary Deep Brain Stimulation Clinic. She is very proficient in programming the various platforms of DBS such as Abbot, Boston Scientific, and Medtronic. Dr. Hawong also engages in researching the role of deep brain stimulation in patients with levodopa induced dyskinesia in the setting of Parkinson’s Disease. She is currently involved in AAV-GAD gene therapy for advanced Parkinson’s Disease as well. Dr. Hawong’s interest in Neurology became apparent at a young age when her beloved grandmother, who raised her, developed Alzheimer’s Disease. She admired her grandmother who taught her about the value of helping others. Dr. Hawong also recants that “During the Korean War, my city was the only one that survived from the North Korean attack and my grandmother cooked for hundreds of people. “She always said that helping others was a noble thing.”. The memory of her grandmother’s gift of helping others shaped her path to enter the physician scientist program in medical school. Dr. Hawong was able to garner the clinical skills to treat patients and research the genetic therapy in Parkinson’s Disease using AAV-parkin. As an osteopathic physician Dr. Hawong strongly believes in the whole body and mind approach to care. “I treat the patient rather disease process and try to learn about them as much as I can. I also try to understand their lifestyle, support systems, and adversities,” she says. Dr. Hawong speaks Korean and English fluently. Her hobbies include ballet, yoga, and hiking.

Dr. Brian Koo is director of the Yale Center for Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS) and of the Connecticut Veterans Affairs sleep laboratory. Dr. Koo is a physician-scientist, boarded in both neurology and sleep medicine, and his clinical and research interest lies at the intersection between these two disciplines. Following his clinical training, Dr. Koo completed a 2-year Sleep Disorders Epidemiology & Neurobiology research fellowship at Case Western Reserve University in 2008 and shortly after was recruited to Yale to join the Sleep Disorders division and Department of Neurology. Dr. Koo is an international expert in the sleep-related movement disorders and in particular, RLS, periodic limb movements during sleep and REM behavior disorder. Dr. Koo is a clinical leader in the field, having served on the 2024 American Academy of Sleep Medicine task force to revise the guidelines for the treatment of RLS. He also serves on the medical advisory board of the RLS Foundation. Dr. Koo’s research laboratory studies the neurobiological underpinnings of RLS, the neurophysiologic significance of periodic limb movements during sleep (PLMS) and the role of gut inflammation in REM behavior disorder (RBD). Dr. Koo has shown that patients with RLS compared to those without RLS have lower levels of cerebrospinal fluid beta-endorphin and higher levels of melanocyte stimulating hormone, the latter sensitizing to pain and spurring movement. The Koo lab has also shown that PLMS are associated with fluctuations in ventilation and are a significant contributor to obstructive sleep apnea. Dr. Koo was the first to describe that RBD has increased prevalence among those with inflammatory bowel disease and is actively studying the role of gut inflammation and the gut microbiome in the progression of RBD to overt synucleinopathy. Dr. Koo’s ultimate goal is to leverage the clinical insights gained through patient care to enhance treatment strategies, and at the same time apply these insights to advance understanding of the mechanisms underlying sleep-related neurological disease.

Leron is a Physician Assistant in the Functional Neurosurgery and Movement Disorders sections of the departments of Neurosurgery and Neurology, respectively. She sees patients who are considering neuromodulation, in particular deep brain stimulation (DBS), to treat movement disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and essential tremor. She works closely with patients throughout the DBS evaluation process and does post-surgical DBS programming, ensuring a holistic and comprehensive approach to patient care. She also sees patients who are considering surgical options for functional pain syndromes such as trigeminal neuralgia.

Dr. Patel is a board-certified Neurologist with subspecialty training in Movement Disorders. He obtained his medical degree from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, where he also completed his residency in Neurology and served as Chief Resident. He subsequently completed a 2 year fellowship in Movement Disorders at Mount Sinai Hospital. He treats patients with a variety of complex movement disorders, including Parkinson's disease, essential tremor, dystonia, tics, myoclonus and chorea. He has a particular interest in the use of Deep Brain Stimulation and botulinum toxin in the treatment of movement disorders.

Alice Rusk, MD is a neurologist at the Yale School of Medicine who specializes in movement disorders, including Parkinson’s disease, essential tremor and gait disorder.Dr. Rusk strives to give patients as much face-to-face time as possible. “It takes time to understand what each person is going through,” she says. She finds it helpful to have a conversation with patients about treatment options so they will feel comfortable and invested in the plan, which is tailored to each person. “Patients will be treated differently based on the different symptoms they might have,” she says. “And I try to provide as much information as possible, including strategies they can use to manage their condition,” she says. Dr. Rusk’s goal is for patients to feel comfortable enough to ask questions. “I want them to know we’re working as a team.”

Dr. Schaefer is a graduate of Brown University and The Ohio State University College of Medicine, and an alumna of the Yale Neurology Residency and Movement Disorders Fellowship Programs. She has a particular interest in medical education, and completed a Masters of Health Sciences with a focus on medical education in 2019. She has designed an interactive, video-based online training curriculum in movement disorders for residents and medical students that is used by learners all over the world. She serves as co-founder and deputy editor of the MDS podcast, launched January 2019, founder and producer of Neurology Nuts and Bolts: Constructing your Career podcast, launched February 2022, serves as the Movement Disorders Section Head of the Annual Academy of Neurology Resident In-Service Training Examination (RITE) Committee, and as the CME editor for the Movement Disorders Journal. She started a virtual high school neuroscience club called The Grey Matter Project that engages high school students around the world with lectures, career panels, and projects related to neurology and the neurosciences. She has been the Movement Disorders Fellowship Director since 2018 and was the Associate Program Director for the Adult Neurology Residency from 2018-2025 before taking on the role of Program Director.

Dr. Tinaz attended medical school at the University of Istanbul Cerrahpasa Faculty of Medicine, Istanbul, Turkey. As a clinical research fellow at the Behavioral Neurology and Movement Disorders Division at the Department of Neurology, Istanbul University, she was an associate investigator and member of the clinical team of the first epidemiological study on Alzheimer's disease in Turkey. She expanded her skills to include neuroimaging as a graduate student of the Program in Neuroscience and Cognitive Neuroimaging Laboratory at Boston University. She completed her residency training in Neurology at the Boston University Medical Center. During her fellowship in the Human Motor Control Section at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, she was involved in the clinical evaluation and care of patients with the full spectrum of movement disorders including Parkinson's disease, dystonia, Tourette's syndrome, essential tremor, and psychogenic movement disorders. She was also the lead investigator of several multimodal neuroimaging projects using functional and structural MRI, and Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy. Dr. Tinaz is a board-certified neurologist and treats patients with various movement disorders with a particular interest in Parkinson's disease. She also conducts multimodal neuroimaging research in movement disorders.

Dr. Vives-Rodriguez is a movement disorders and cognitive-behavioral neurologist at Yale Medicine. She cares for patients with various movement disorders such as tremor, Parkinson’s disease, tics, and dystonia. She also specializes in treating patients with memory and other cognitive disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease, Dementia with Lewy bodies, and frontotemporal dementias. Dr. Vives-Rodriguez grew up and completed her medical and residency training in Costa Rica, graduating Magna Cum Laude from the University of Costa Rica. She spent time prior to her fellowship as an attending physician in neurology at the Max Peralta Hospital in Cartago, Costa Rica. In 2018, she completed a 2-year subspecialty training in movement disorders at Yale New Haven Hospital. After her fellowship at Yale and motivated by a further understanding of neurodegenerative disorders, she pursued training in cognitive behavioral neurology in Boston. She then completed 3 years of subspecialty training in cognitive behavioral neurology at Boston University/VA Medical Center. During her training, Dr. Vives-Rodriguez focused on translational and clinical neuroscience research of neurodegenerative disorders, including Parkinson’s disease, Wilson’s disease, and Alzheimer’s disease focusing on structural and functional brain changes and their relation to clinical manifestations. Dr. Vives-Rodriguez is particularly interested in the behavioral and cognitive aspects of movement disorders and early diagnosis of neurodegenerative disorders.

Dr. Zuchowski is a fellowship-trained movement disorders specialist. She cares for patients with all types of movement disorders including Parkinson's disease, tremor, dystonia, Huntington's disease, tics, functional movement disorders, and more. She performs botulinum toxin injections for conditions such as spasticity, dystonia, and hemifacial spasm. Outside of her clinical work, she is a medical educator interested in curriculum innovation for cross-specialty education, mentorship, and serves as the associate program director for the movement disorders fellowship.