Meet Our Team
Principal Investigator
Andrea Gilmore-Bykovskyi
Associate Professor and Associate Vice Chair for Research in the BerbeeWalsh Department of Emergency Medicine
She/Her
My personal interests center around understanding, promoting, and protecting wellbeing, personhood, and meaning in the lives of persons with dementia – as they and their caregivers define it. My research program is broadly shaped by this deep-rooted interest and generally aims to understand, document, and address approaches to care delivery that hinder or effectively optimize meaningful patient and caregiver outcomes. Largely, this research operates at the intersections of care delivery, equity, and ethics and employs a range of methodologies and data sources.
Another major interest of mine is the role non-cognitive (i.e. neuropsychiatric) symptoms and their management play in disease experiences and progression. I am most proud of the students and staff I have had the privilege to work with and learn from, and of the things they are doing to build knowledge and create change.
My sincere hope is that our research and outreach efforts will contribute to improvements in approaches to care and research for those impacted by dementia.

Clark Benson
Lab Manager
He/Him
Interests: designing interventions for acute psychiatric patients

Laura Block
Lab Manager
She/Her
Interests: cognition and the role of
mental health

Meghan Botsch
Graduate Research Assistant
She/Her
Interests: speech language pathology

Alison Coulson
Research Program Coordinator
She/Her
Interests: hospice and palliative care for vulnerable populations

Ashley Delaurelle
Undergraduate Research Assistant
She/Her
Interests: global health, nursing, dementia research

Kayla Dillon
Research Specialist
She/Her
Interests: occupational therapy, patient centered research and practices

Jess Fehland
Research Specialist
She/Her
Interests: speech language pathology, audiology, person-centered care

Aayush Goud
Undergraduate Research Assistant
He/Him
Interests: behavioral mechanisms of various neurodegenerative conditions, metacognition, and brain-computer interfaces

Meghan Haas
Graduate Research Assistant
She/Her
Interests: intellectual and developmental disabilities and aging

Max Hsu
Undergraduate Research Assistant
He/Him
Interests: developmental psychology and the affordability of healthcare

Dalton Lee
Research Program Assistant
He/Him
Interests: cognition and incentive response across ages

Kristin Merss
Project Assistant
She/Her
Interests: prison healthcare, aging in prisons, transitions

Kevin Phalphouvong
Undergraduate Research Assistant
He/Him
Interests: critical care, family medicine, care in underrepresented minority groups

Morgan Schmit
Reserach Coordinator
She/Her
Interests: cognitive degeneration in the aging population and neuroplasticity

Maggie Schneider
Undergraduate Research Assistant
She/Her
Interests: emergency medicine, care for vulnerable populations, neurodegenerative diseases

Paria Seyyedmirza
PhD Candidate
She/Her
Interests: dementia caregivers’ well-being and support

Inem Uko
Research Coordinator
He/Him
Interests: emergency medicine, precision oncology

Laura Vergenz
Graduate Research Assistant
She/Her
Interests: health education, patient activation, chronic health management
Alumni
Johanna Balas
BS
Pratiksha Bhagat
MS-ECON
Stephanie Brandsma
MSW
Michelle Burns
BSN, RN
Britta Chelgren
BSN, RN
Quinton D. Cotton
PhD, MSSA
Amy Devine
JD, MSW, BA
Amanda DeWitt
MLS
Olivia Diedrich
BS
Amanda Friz
PhD
Haley Fuhr
BS
Anna Gries
BSN, RN
Danielle Harris
BSN, RN
Melissa Hovanes
BSN, RN
BS, MD Candidate
Yuanyuan Jin
PhD, RN
Rachel Johnson
BS, MD Candidate
Lilli Kay
MSW
Jessie Kendall
BSN, RN
Savannah Kind
BA
Victoria Knoke
MSW, Doctoral Candidate
Lydia Lemmenes
BSN, RN
Jordan Madden
BSN, RN
Kelly McGinn
RN, MPH
Shannon Mullen
BS, BSN
Jen Orshak
PhD, BSN, RN
Megan Peck
BS
Rioghna Pittock
.
Emily Ploch
BSN
Morgan Schmit
BA
Maya Staehler
BSc
Brady Stroik
BSN
Kelly Sweeney
BA
Devin Truong
.
Lily Walljasper
BS
Sophie Wellmann
.
Resources & Partners
Connect with Us
We are always seeking to connect with others who share our commitment to promoting high-quality, equitable care and research for diverse groups affected by Alzheimer’s and dementia.
Gilmore-Bykovskyi Lab
Feedback, questions or accessibility issues: brainhealthteam@medicine.wisc.edu
