Negin Sattari

I am a cognitive and translational neuroscientist whose research examines how sleep-dependent neural dynamics interact with aging, sex, and reproductive hormonal transitions to shape brain plasticity, memory, and vulnerability to Alzheimer's disease. My work integrates sleep neurophysiology, cognitive assessment, wearable and remote-monitoring technologies, and fluid biomarkers to identify early mechanisms and markers of cognitive vulnerability and resilience across the adult lifespan. My NIH/NIA K99/R00 research program investigates whether sex differences in sleep neurophysiology are associated with Alzheimer's disease biomarker burden and sleep-dependent memory outcomes in older adults, and whether menopause-related hormonal changes alter these relationships during midlife.

A central focus of this program is the temporal coordination of NREM sleep oscillations, including slow oscillation–spindle coupling, as a systems-level mechanism supporting neural plasticity and memory. This work positions sleep neurophysiology as both a mechanistic window into early Alzheimer's disease vulnerability and a potentially modifiable target for intervention. A major strength of my research program is its translational and technology-enabled approach.

I use laboratory and home-based sleep assessment, wearable and mobile health tools, remote cognitive testing, and minimally invasive blood collection to study neural, physiological, and cognitive processes in real-world settings. Through collaborations in digital health, and biomarker science, I aim to develop multimodal approaches that characterize changes in sleep, cognition, physiology, and health behavior over time and inform individualized risk assessment and intervention strategies. I am also deeply committed to teaching, mentorship, and interdisciplinary training.

I have taught introductory and upper-division psychology and cognitive neuroscience courses and mentored undergraduate, postbaccalaureate, and graduate trainees in EEG and sleep methods, study design, data analysis, scientific writing, and research presentation. My teaching and mentoring emphasize intellectual confidence, scientific independence, quantitative reasoning, and clear communication while preparing trainees to work across disciplinary boundaries in neuroscience, aging, women's brain health, and neurodegenerative disease research.

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Sleep, Cognitive Aging, and Neurodegeneration Lab at University of California Irvine, Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior (2021-09 – Present)

• Lead human neuroscience studies examining sleep neurophysiology, memory, aging, sex differences, and Alzheimer's disease risk.
• Develop EEG and sleep-analysis pipelines for polysomnography, home-based sleep recordings, and large-scale clinical sleep datasets.
• Integrate sleep EEG, cognitive outcomes, clinical variables, and fluid biomarkers to identify sleep-based markers of brain vulnerability and resilience.
• Supervise and mentor graduate students, undergraduate researchers, and research staff across multiple projects.
• Contribute to NIH grant development, manuscript preparation, interdisciplinary collaborations, and translational research strategy.
• Developed an independent NIH-funded research program on sleep, sex differences, menopause, and Alzheimer's disease risk.
• Led analyses integrating sleep EEG, cognition, APOE genotype, and AD biomarkers.
• Contributed to grant development and interdisciplinary collaborations across sleep, aging, digital health, and women's brain health.

Study Coordinator at University of California Irvine, Sleep and Cognition Lab (2017-09 – 2021-08)

• Designed and coordinated human sleep and cognition studies examining memory, sex hormones, aging, and sleep-dependent plasticity.
• Developed behavioral tasks, study protocols, data collection procedures, and analysis workflows for laboratory and remote research.
• Recruited, trained, and supervised undergraduate research assistants in study implementation, data management, and scientific communication.
• Organized reading groups, statistics tutoring, graduate school preparation workshops, and computer-skills workshops to support trainee development.

Led a team of graduate and undergraduate students at University of California Irvine (2020-01 – Present)

• Led graduate and undergraduate trainees in developing a mobile application for remote data collection and cognitive memory assessment.
• Supported scalable approaches for technology-enhanced cognitive testing and remote human subjects research.

CEM Summer Internship Mentor at University of California Irvine (2018-06 – 2018-08)

Mentoring high school students in scientific data collection and data analysis.

Lab Manager at University of California Riverside, Sleep and Cognition Lab (2014-01 – 2015-12)

Training, recruiting and leading research assistants, collecting data, developing data analysis scripts.

Research Assistant at University of California Merced, Cognition Lab (2012-01 – 2014-12)

Development of an automatic web search script to collect data from Web of Knowledge website using MATLAB, PYTHON and SQL.

Adjunct Faculty Instructor in Psychology at California State University Long Beach (2023-01 – 2023-05)

Course: General Psychology

Recipient of Summer 2021 UCI-DTEI Graduate Fellowship at University of California Irvine (2021-06 – 2021-08)

Guide UCI faculty transitioning courses to a post-pandemic world and promoting inclusive pedagogy.

Adjunct Faculty Instructor in Psychology at University of California Irvine (2019-06 – 2019-08)

Course: PSYCH fundamental.

Adjunct Faculty Instructor in Psychology at Chapman University (2018-09 – 2019-05)

Course: Development Across the Lifespan.

Teaching Assistant at University of California Irvine (2018-09 – 2021-12)

Courses: Sleep and Consciousness, Human Memory, Intro to Psych, Psych Fundamental, Research Method.

Teaching Assistant at University of California Riverside (2015-01 – 2017-12)

Courses: Psych I, Psych II.

PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience – University of California Irvine (2017-01 – 2021-06)

M.A. in Cognitive Psychology – University of California Riverside (2015-01 – 2017-06)

B.S. in Computer Science – Sadjad University of Technology, Iran (2004-01 – 2008-06)

Postdoctoral Fellow in Psychiatry and Human Behavior – University of California Irvine (2021-08)