William Jagust, professor School of Public Health

William Jagust, M.D., is a professor at UC Berkeley's Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute and at the School of Public Health, where he holds the University Endowed Chair in Geriatrics and chairs the division of Community Health and Human Development. He is also a faculty senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. His research is focused on the use of positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to understand brain aging and dementia. His laboratory has pioneered in the use of MRI of hippocampal volume and PET imaging of brain glucose metabolism in studying Alzheimer's disease. Most recently his laboratory is engaged in studies that combine PET imaging of brain dopamine and beta-amyloid deposition with advanced structural and functional MRI techniques to define the basis of age-related cognitive decline.

Prior to joining UC Berkeley in 2004, Dr. Jagust was a faculty member at UC Davis, where he was director of its Alzheimer's Disease Center and chair of neurology at the School of Medicine. He has served on many review committees for the National Institutes of Health, including the National Institute on Aging's Neuroscience of Aging Review Committee. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the Annals of Neurology, Brain Imaging and Behavior, and Alzheimer’s Disease and Associated Disorders and is an associate editor of the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience He is a member of the Alzheimer's Association Neuroimaging Work Group and the leader of the PET imaging component of the NIH Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative.