Dr. Melissa J. Armstrong, MD, MSc is the Director of the Mangurian Clinical-Research Headquarters for Lewy Body Dementia at the University of Florida. She joined the UF Department of Neurology in 2015.

Dr. Armstrong graduated from Illinois Wesleyan University in 1995 with a major in chemistry and a minor in philosophy. She completed medical school at the Stritch School of Medicine (Loyola University Chicago), where she subsequently completed a preliminary residency year in internal medicine and her neurology residency. Following her residency, she worked as a general neurologist at Loyola University Medical Center before pursuing fellowship training in movement disorders. Dr. Armstrong was a clinical and research fellow at the highly respected Morton & Gloria Shulman Movement Disorders Centre in Toronto, Ontario (Canada) from 2008 through 2011 where she was an Edmond J. Safra Fellow in Movement Disorders. She also completed an MSc in clinical epidemiology and health care research at the University of Toronto Institute for Health Policy Management and Evaluation. Dr. Armstrong worked as an assistant professor in the Division of Movement Disorders at the University of Maryland from 2012 until moving to the University of Florida in 2015. During this time, she co-authored the book, “Parkinson’s Disease: Improving Patient Care” (Oxford American Neurology Library 2014). She was also recognized as part of the American Academy of Neurology’s Emerging Leaders Forum (2013-2014). In addition to her work in the field of movement disorders, she serves as an evidence-based medicine methodology consultant for the American Academy of Neurology, working on their clinical practice guideline development program.

At the University of Florida, Dr. Armstrong directs the Mangurian Clinical-Research Headquarters for Lewy Body Dementia, one of 25 centers in the United States recognized as a Lewy Body Dementia Association Research Center of Excellence (2017 to current). She also serves on the Lewy Body Dementia Association Scientific Advisory Council. Dr. Armstrong’s Lewy body dementia research focuses on the lived experience of disease for individuals with Lewy body dementia and their families, ranging from patient and caregiver priorities for care to hospital outcomes to end-of-life experiences.

Florida in 2000. He subsequently joined the faculty of the University of Florida as an Assistant Professor of Neurology upon completion of this fellowship and has remained with the department since.

Dr. Burks is also a staff physician at the Malcom Randall and Lake City Veteran Administration Health Care Centers.  He is co-director of the North Florida/South Georgia multiple Sclerosis Center of Excellence.

Dr. DeKosky, a prominent Alzheimer’s disease and traumatic brain injury researcher and UF alumnus, came to UF in July 2015 as the institute’s deputy director and professor of neurology in the College of Medicine. Prior to joining the McKnight Brain Institute, Dr. DeKosky was vice president and dean of the University of Virginia School of Medicine from 2008 to 2013, and was then appointed emeritus professor of neurology . Prior to becoming dean at UVA, he spent 18 years at the University of Pittsburgh in roles that included chair of the department of neurology and director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. As a researcher, Dr. DeKosky focused on understanding the neurochemistry, neuroimaging, treatment and prevention of Alzheimer’s disease in both his laboratory and in clinical research. He also co-authored the first report of the dementia associated with traumatic brain injuries among professional football players and published extensively in basic research of TBI.. At UF, Dr. DeKosky did graduate work in psychology and neuroscience, received a medical degree in 1974 and following an internship at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, returned to UF to complete a residency in neurology, followed by a fellowship in neurochemistry at the University of Virginia Center for Neurosciences.

Dr. Kenneth M. Heilman received his M.D. degree from the University of Virginia in 1963 and subsequently spent two years training in Internal Medicine at Cornell University Medical Center (Bellevue). During the Vietnam War he joined the Air Force and was Chief of Medicine at NATO Hospital, Izmir, Turkey. When he was discharged from the service, he took a Neurology residency and fellowship at the Harvard Neurological Unit (Boston City) with Dr. Derek Denny-Brown and then with Dr. Norman Geschwind. After completing his residency and fellowship, he joined the faculty at the University of Florida in 1970, as an Assistant Professor. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1973 and Professor in 1975. He received an endowed chair in 1990 making him the first James E Rooks, Jr. Professor of Neurology. In 1998, he was in the first group of the faculty to be awarded the title of Distinguished Professor. He is also a professor of Clinical and Health Psychology.

Dr. Heilman is an active clinician who is Director of the Memory and Cognitive Disorder Clinics. His primary clinical interests are in attentional, emotional and cognitive disorders. His expertise as a clinician has been recognized by being listed in every edition of the Best Doctors in America as well as other publications. Dr. Heilman is also an educator. In addition to teaching medical and psychology students, he is active in resident education and has been director of a post doctoral program that has trained more than 70 post doctoral fellows. The majority of these fellows now hold academic positions in this and other universities. Several of Dr. Heilman’s former fellows are now leaders in academic Neurology and Neuropsychology. Dr. Heilman also has an active research program. He is the author of several texts, and has more than 600 books, chapters and articles in peer reviewed journals.

Dr. Rincon-Limas received a bachelor degree on Biopharmaceutical Chemistry from the Autonomous University of Tamaulipas in Reynosa, Mexico. He also obtained a Master’s degree in Microbiology and a summa cum laude Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and Genetic Engineering at the Autonomous University of Nuevo Leon in Monterrey, Mexico. He then moved to Baylor College of Medicine in Houston to conduct his postdoctoral training in the Department of Human and Molecular Genetics, where he got training in Neurogenetics and Neurobiology. He got his first Faculty position in the Department of Neurology and the Mitchell Center for Neurodegenerative Disorders at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, and then moved to the University of Florida to join the Department of Neurology at the McKnight Brain Institute. He has a joint appointment in the Department of Neuroscience and is also a member of the UF Genetics Institute, the Center for Translational Research in Neurodegenerative Disease (CTRND), and the Center for Neurogenetics.

I received degrees in chemical physics and political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, attended the University of Florida College of Medicine, trained in neurology at the University of Florida, and completed a fellowship in behavioral neurology with Kenneth M. Heilman. I have been a member of the faculty of the UF College of Medicine since 1987 and have provided clinical care, taught residents and medical students, and pursued research, primarily in behavioral neurology, neuroplasticity, and neurorehabilitation. My particular research interest has been in the application of parallel distributed processing theory to understand the neural basis of cognitive function, its breakdown with brain injury (particularly in the realm of language), and to develop cognitive rehabilitation strategies. Since 2013, I have been Associate Chief of Staff for Research at the Malcom Randall VA Medical Center.

Dr. Bhavana Patel, DO, MS is currently an assistant professor in the Division of Movement disorders and Behavioral Neurology at the University of Florida. She joined the UF Department of Neurology and the Fixel Institute in 2019.

Dr. Patel graduated from Butler University in 2008 with a double major in chemistry and Spanish, followed by a Master’s degree in Biology at Purdue University in Indianapolis. She completed medical school at the West Virginia School of Osteopathic medicine in 2013, followed by a preliminary internal medicine year and neurology residency at University of Kansas in 2017. During her residency she received awards for her residency research projects and was recognized by the medical student body for her excellence in teaching. In her final year of training she served as Chief Resident.

Upon completion of her neurology training she pursued a two year fellowship in Movement Disorders at University of Florida from 2017-2019. She has a personal connection to Dementia with Lewy Bodies and during her training she completed additional clinical and research training in Lewy Body disease under the mentorship of Dr. Melissa Armstrong. In 2018 she was the inaugural recipient of the Clinical Research Training Scholarship in Dementia with Lewy Bodies from the American Brain Foundation and the Mary E. Groff Charitable trust, in collaboration with the American Academy of Neurology. She is currently in the process of completing her 2 year Lewy Body Dementia research grant and has multiple research publications in development.

Dr. Patel’s research interests include Lewy body dementia, neurostimulation for movement and cognitive disorders, along with a strong interest in improving the delivery of healthcare to patients with Lewy body disease. Currently part of her research focuses on understanding how patients with Lewy body dementia and caregivers are receiving care in Florida. She has a specific interest in improving specialty access to patients with Lewy body disease using telemedicine.

She has presented her research at multiple international conferences including 2019 International Lewy Body Dementia Conference, International Congress of Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorder Society, Academy of Neurology, and the 5th World Parkinson Congress.

She has presented an education session about Lewy body disease at the annual 2019 statewide Florida Neurological Society meeting.

She serves on the Board of Directors for the Florida Society of Neurology.

Neal Weisbrod is a clinician educator with a focus on inpatient neurology and palliative care. He trained at the University of Rochester, New York for undergraduate education, medical school, and neurology residency. During neurology residency he developed a passion for high quality doctor-family communication in serious illness and went on to complete a fellowship in palliative care at the University of California, Los Angeles. His clinical focuses are neurohospitalist and palliative care consult practice. In the realm of education he enjoys teaching neurological localization and diagnostic decision making in addition to equipping trainees with the skills to navigate challenging conversations about serious illness and effectively manage symptoms at all stages of illness.

Dawn Bowers is a Professor and clinical/research neuropsychologist in the Departments of Clinical & Health Psychology and Neurology at the University of Florida. She is a UF Research Foundation Professor, the Director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at the Fixel Institute, and neuropsychology director for the UF Movement Disorders and Neurorestoration program. Dr. Bowers received her Ph.D. from the University of Florida, interned at Boston University/Boston Veterans Administration Hospital (with an externship at the Framingham Heart Project), and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in behavioral neurology at the University of Florida. She is internationally known for her expertise in neurocognitive and emotion processing changes associated with Parkinson disease and other neurollogic disorders. Her research has spanned  laterality, attention and memory, and neuropsychology of emotion using TMS, ERP, psychophysiology, near infrared stimulation, computational modeling, and face digitizing. She has received continuous research funding by NIH and other foundations since 1981. She has over 175 peer-reviewed research articles, over 250 peer-reviewed research presentations, 1 co-authored book, and 1 clinical test.   She is strongly committed to clinical and research training of predoctoral and post-doctoral fellows and is MPI of an NINDS-funded T32 in Interdisciplinary Training in Movement Disorders and Neurorestoration. She sees patients clinically for neuropsychological assessment and intervention one day a week at the Fixel Center.

Dr. Glenn E. Smith is Chair and Elizabeth Faulk Professor of the Department of Clinical and Health Psychology at the University of Florida. He is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. A board-certified neuropsychologist, Dr. Smith has been a practicing clinician for over 30 years and has authored or co-authored over 200 original articles, 14 book chapters, and 2 books on the neuropsychology of cognitive aging and dementia.