United States Department of Veterans Affairs
United States Department of Veterans Affairs

Center for Imaging of Neurodegenerative Diseases

Study Recruitment & Assessment

Jennifer HlavinJennifer Hlavin, M.S.
Study Recruitment & Assessment Supervisor
Study Coordinator

Jennifer Hlavin received her BA in Psychology from Ohio Wesleyan University, where she was involved in semantic memory research. She later earned an MS in Counseling from Syracuse University. Jennifer has worked in HIV dementia research at Ohio State University and in HIV case management in Syracuse, New York.

Jennifer joined the CIND in 2002 as a member of the assessment team, performing clinical psychological and neuropsychological evaluations for several research studies. Since 2004 she has been the supervisor for all subject recruitment, scheduling and psychological assessment. She is also the coordinator for the Prediction of Cognitive Decline Study, a longitudinal study aimed at determining which brain changes best predict cognitive decline in older adults.



Linda AbadjianLinda Abadjian, Ph.D.
Clinical Assessor

Linda Abadjian received her BA in Government with an emphasis in International Economics from the University of San Francisco. She interned at the San Francisco District Attorney’s in the Family Support Bureau and decided to pursue a career in psychology. She received her MS in Clinical Psychology at San Francisco State University and did research in alternative methods of psychotherapy with children. She received her Ph.D. from the Wright Institute in Berkeley. Her past research interests have included female marital satisfaction, intimacy and couples and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Linda joined the CIND in 2004 as a clinical assessor for the Gulf War studies. She currently conducts psychological evaluations and neuropsychological assessments for both Gulf War studies and the aging studies. She has expanded her interests to include the impact of PTSD, HIV and aging on cognitive functioning.



Charles E. McCarthy
Senior Recruiter

Charles McCarthy received both his Bachelor of Science Degree (Sociology) and Master of Science Degree (Interdisciplinary Studies) from the University of Oregon. He has extensive experience in social service programs as well as corporate Human Resources background.. He joined the Weiner Group in 1999 as Recruiter for an HIV & Alcohol Research Project. Charlie is currently responsible for recruitment on a number of studies, to include Prediction of Cognitive Decline and two separate Gulf War Health Studies.


Erin Marie Ramage
Staff Research Associate III

Erin Ramage graduated from San Diego State University in 2003 with a BA in Psychology. She received her Masters in Physiological Psychology Research from San Francisco State University (SFSU) in 2005. Currently she is teaching statistics courses in the Psychology Department at SFSU as well as a Psychopharmacology course at the New College of California.

Erin came to the Center for Imaging of Neurodegenerative Diseases (CIND) to pursue her desire to be involved with research in clinical neuroscience. Her primary role at CIND is coordinating research for the Gulf War Illness projects as well as administering cognitive tests to research participants and clinic patients. In her spare time you will find her four wheeling or trekking a glacier in her home state, Alaska.


Cheryl ShirleyCheryl Shirley
Staff Research Associate

Cheryl Shirley received her BA in Psychology and Anthropology from UC Berkeley in 2006. Prior to working at CIND, Cheryl was a Research Assistant at the Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at UC Berkeley working on vision studies using EEG. She joined CIND in June 2006, and her primary responsibilities are scheduling participants for MRI’s and other research procedures. The projects that interest her most search for predictors of neurodegenerative illnesses, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, using 1.5 Tesla and 4 Tesla MRI methodology.



Leona WilcoxLeona Wilcox
Staff Research Associate I

Leona received her Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Cal Poly State University in San Luis Obispo in 2004. Leona joined CIND in June of 2006 as a research assistant and her primary responsibility is the administration of neuropsychological tests to the research participants of various studies of cognitive decline and Gulf War Illness.



Jami Witherspoon
Staff Research Associate

Jami Witherspoon received her B.A. in Psychology and Photography from Syracuse University in 2005.

Jami joined the CIND in February 2006 as the lab IRB coordinator. She is also involved in coordination, recruiting and neuropsychological evaluation for a study on cognitive function in the aged.