This work is supported by a grant from the National Institute of Health (NIDCD R56DC020700).

Dr. Maria V. Ivanova, PhD is an Associate Researcher at the University of California Berkeley. Her previous research has focused on identifying structural and functional brain lesions that cause language and cognitive deficits in aphasia and uncovering neural changes that promote recovery post-stroke.  Dr. Ivanova, as the Principal Investigator on this project, is excited to bring together an amazing multi-disciplinary team to create and implement a new exercise intervention for stroke survivors, realizing her vision of exercise being an integral part of holistic stroke recovery. She  is optimistic that the innovative HI-FIIV exercise program can significantly improve the physical, cognitive, and mental health of individuals with aphasia.

Dr. Christian Thompson, PhD is a Professor of Kinesiology at the University of San Francisco and an Affiliate Researcher with UCSF Medical Center.  Dr. Thompson’s research in exercise programming for older adults has included many modalities and populations including high intensity interval training (HIIT) for stroke survivors, movement based video games for cognitive improvement, balance training for community-dwelling older adults and sport-specific training for older athletes.  Dr. Thompson is the co-creator of the HI-FIIV exercise program and is the primary exercise leader of training sessions in the APEX project.  He believes that this innovative and engaging exercise program may both improve outcomes associated with post-stroke aphasia and have a beneficial effect on overall quality of life for those who participate.

Dr. Erica Pitsch, DPT, is a Clinical Professor and Neurology Division Lead at the Department of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science at UCSF.  She is a certified physical therapist who specializes in caring for patients with neurologic conditions. Dr. Pitsch has over 20 years of clinical and research experience in working with different clinical populations including stroke. She believes that exercise and movement are often the best medicine, and have the potential of making a lasting impact on the patient’s quality of life and functional abilities; they just require more time than taking a pill. She envisions the current project as a pathway to providing more evidence-based exercise interventions to patients with various neurologic conditions. Dr. Pitsch is the co-creator of the HI-FIIV exercise program. She will be contributing to the APEX project by continuously monitoring safety of participants throughout the intervention and additionally accommodating those with specific motor deficits.

Dr. Cathra Halabi, MD is an Associate Professor of Neurology at UCSF. She is a vascular neurologist who cares for patients hospitalized with neurovascular emergencies such as ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke. She is also the founding director of the UCSF Neurorecovery Clinic and co-founding director of the related Post-Acute Traumatic Brain Injury Program; these clinics care for patients recovering from acquired neurologic injuries such as stroke and traumatic brain injury (TBI). In addition to exercise interventions, her research interests include more fully characterizing the consequences of stroke and TBI to identify prognostic factors and treatment targets. She routinely prescribes exercise as a treatment for her patients as part of a multidisciplinary team and is excited to one day bring evidence-based HI-FIIV exercise program directly to the clinical space for patients with aphasia and other post-injury sequelae.

Dr. Michelle Gravier, Ph.D., CCC-SLP is an Associate Professor in the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences at California State University East Bay and a licensed medical speech-language pathologist with over 15 years of experience working clinically with adults with aphasia. As the director of the Neurocognitive Research on the Rehabilitation of Language (NRRL) Laboratory and the Research Director of the CSU East Bay Aphasia Treatment Program, her research primarily focuses on the development and refinement of interdisciplinary adjunctive approaches to maximizing language treatment outcomes in aphasia and improving quality of life for those living with aphasia. Dr. Gravier will be contributing to the APEX team by overseeing the collection and analysis of speech-language outcome data.

Dr. Ioannis Pappas, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Research Neurology at the University of Southern California. He has a background in computational neuroscience and MRI imaging physics. His interest lies in using MRI and PET to investigate markers for neurodegenerative disease and stroke. He is a co-Investigator and project lead in multiple NIH-funded projects that use brain imaging across different sites. He has also contributed to novel imaging acquisition analysis methods for measuring perfusion and cerebrovascular burden. He is hoping to bring his expertise to the APEX program by using neuroimaging to assess brain changes in aphasia recovery as a function of exercise. He is hoping that sophisticated imaging sequences will enable to uncover subtle function changes in specific brain circuitry that can boost language and cognitive outcomes.

Ferdaus Ghafury<fghafury@dons.usfca.edu> is an international student-athlete from Germany, studying Kinesiology at the University of San Francisco. He currently works in a research laboratory at UCSF Department of Surgery, Center for Stem Cell and Regeneration Medicine, where the team aims to find alternatives to the limited availability of liver transplants through stem cell therapy. His passion for exercise and regenerative medicine has led him to APEX project, where he works alongside his mentor, Dr. Thompson, to learn and prepare for medical school.

Vanessa Anderson, BA <vanderson@berkeley.edu> is currently a medical student at Columbia Vagelos College of Physicians and Students. Vanessa helped pilot an early version of the APEX program in healthy older adults for her honors thesis as an undergraduate at UC Berkeley under the mentorship of Dr. Ivanova. She presented the results of this pilot study at the 2024 annual American College of Sports Medicine conference. She now continues to support data collection and data analysis.

Devan Melwani <devanmelwani@berkeley.edu> is a second-year undergraduate student at UC Berkeley studying Molecular and Cellular Biology and Data Science. Devan has done previous research on the psychological implications of COVID-19 on sleep quality. Devan currently works at Amgen, a biotech company in South San Francisco, working with their lab operations team. For the APEX project, he has managed data collection and analytics of psychological measures. Devan has also created promotional video materials for the project and completed a literature review of exercise intervention studies in stroke.

William Anderson <williamscotttr@gmail.com> is a senior at Miramonte High School and began volunteering at the Berkeley Aphasia Recovery Lab in the summer of 2024. He is interested in what we can learn about how our brains process language from studying aphasia and exploring novel therapies and treatments to help people living with chronic aphasia. He’s excited to be working on the APEX project, having so far helped launch the APEX website and conduct a literature review.