Yaakov Stern is the Florence Irving Professor of Neuropsychology in the Departments of Neurology and Psychiatry, as well as the Taub Institute for the Research on Alzheimer’s Disease and the Aging Brain and the Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center, at Columbia University Irving College of Physicians and Surgeons. He is chief of the Cognitive Neuroscience Division of the Department of Neurology.
Dr. Stern earned his B.A. in Psychology from Touro College, and his Ph.D. from the Experimental Cognition program of City University of New York.
His research focuses on cognition in normal aging and in diseases of aging, particularly Alzheimer’s disease. Furthermore, this research was crucial to identifying and clarifying the nature of cognitive reserve, which is a theory that explains individual differences in the susceptibility to age-and disease-related brain changes.
Dr. Stern also leads a large scale imaging study to identify unique neural networks underlying the major cognitive abilities affected by aging, and another long-term study that models the heterogeneity of Alzheimer’s disease. His research approach includes classic neuropsychological and cognitive experimental techniques, with a strong focus on functional imaging. He has published over 700 peer-reviewed papers, numerous chapters, and edited a book on cognitive reserve.
