Leadership & Advising

Steering Committee

The Hope Center Steering Committee is comprised of Hope Center faculty members who provide advice and guidance on operations including funding, education, core/shared resources and research programs.

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Scientific Advisory Board (SAB)

SAB members provide unique perspectives to help guide the Hope Center in its mission.

Dan Geschwind, MD, PhD

University of California, Los Angeles

Dan Geschwind is the Gordon and Virginia MacDonald Distinguished Professor of Human Genetics, at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. He is director of the Neurogenetics Program and the Center for Autism Research and Treatment (CART) and co-director of the Center for Neurobehavioral Genetics at UCLA. His laboratory is working to improve understanding of human neuropsychiatric diseases such as autism and neurodegenerative diseases, and their relationship to the range of normal human higher cognitive function.

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Jeffery Kelly, PhD

The Scripps Research Institute

Jeffery Kelly is the Lita Annenberg Hazen Professor of Chemistry and Chair, Department of Molecular and Experimental Medicine at the Scripps Research Institute.  The central theme of research in his laboratory is to understand the chemistry and biology of protein folding and the competition between protein folding, misfolding and aggregation, the latter two processes being associated with a spectrum of human diseases.

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Laura Ranum, PhD

University of Florida

Laura Ranum is Professor of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, and Director of the Center for NeuroGenetics.  Her laboratory uses human genetics to define the molecular causes of neurological disorders (such as ataxia) and mouse models to understand how these mutations cause neurons in the brain to die.

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Marc Tessier-Lavigne, PhD

Stanford University

Formerly President of the Rockefeller University, Marc Tessier-Lavigne was named President of Stanford University in 2016.  He is a pioneering neuroscientist in the areas of nerve cell responses to injury and the mechanisms underlying nerve cell death with the goal of developing therapies for brain injury and neurodegenerative

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Ryan Watts, PhD

Denali Therapeutics

Ryan Watts is co-founder of Denali Therapeutics, and serves as President and CEO.  Previously he was Director of Neuroscience at Genentech where his group pursued two broad areas of translational and basic research: establishment and maintenance of the blood-brain barrier, with a focus on the ability of large molecules to transverse this physiological barrier; and developing potential therapeutics for Alzheimer’s disease and elucidating the nature of this disease by pursing a molecular understanding of genetic discoveries.