Current REC Scholar

Dr. Chaney is an assistant professor at Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology (MIR) at Washington University in St. Louis. Her research is focused on the development and translation of novel non-invasive molecular imaging strategies to elucidate the inflammatory component of devastating neurological and inflammatory diseases. In particular, she is interested in the relationship between peripheral and central nervous system innate immune responses, and how this crosstalk affects disease development and progression. Dr. Chaney previously worked at Stanford University as a postdoctoral fellow and instructor in the radiology department. She earned her doctorate in neuroscience and neuroimaging from the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom.

• Email: achaney@wustl.edu

Dr. Colleen Frank is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Neurology. She works with Dr. Jason Hassenstab in the Cognitive Technology Research Laboratory where they study cognition in individuals with preclinical Alzheimer’s disease (AD) using highly sensitive assessments aimed at detecting the earliest stages of the condition. Prior to joining Washington University in St Louis in July 2025, Dr. Frank’s research primarily focused on age-related changes in decision making during normal aging. At WashU, she plans to extend her work to include pathological aging by investigating how financial and health-related decision making evolves in the years preceding and following an AD diagnosis.

Dr. Helen Hwang is an Instructor in the Department of Neurology. She obtained her MD/PhD degree from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and completed her neurology and fellowship training at Washington University. Dr. Hwang sees patients in the Movement Disorder Clinic at Washington University and conducts research on Lewy Body Dementia in the laboratory of Dr. Paul Kotzbauer. Her research focuses on CSF and tissue biomarkers of Parkinson's disease. She is also interested in potential small-molecule therapeutics for Parkinson’s disease and Lewy Body Dementia.

Dr. Kellen Petersen joined the Fluid Biomarker Core Lab in March 2024 as an Instructor in the Department of Neurology at Washington University in St. Louis. He received a PhD in Applied Mathematics from the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University. Following doctoral work, Dr. Petersen was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He applied statistical models and machine learning approaches to understand the relationship between biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease, cognition, and disease progression. Dr. Petersen has also worked on methods aimed at understanding AD heterogeneity as well as developing accurate diagnostic and prognostic tools for clinicians and researchers. His current interests are in understanding the relationship between AD blood-based biomarkers and cognition.

Dr. Julie Wisch is a quantitative scientist whose research focuses on modeling disease progression in Alzheimer disease. She holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering, where she developed expertise in control theory, mathematics, and state-space modeling, and has applied these tools to neuroimaging and biomarker data at Washington University in St. Louis since 2018. Her work has spanned sporadic, autosomal dominant, and Down syndrome–associated Alzheimer disease, integrating imaging and fluid biomarker data to better understand disease heterogeneity.