Micah Savin
Micah is a biracial non-binary postdoctoral research scientist and geriatric neuropsychology fellow at the Butler Columbia Aging Center. Micah holds expertise in the study of the brain and behavior with specialization in age-associated processes of neurobehavioral decline (e.g., dementia), health disparities, and HIV.
Micah completed their MS in clinical research and a PhD in clinical psychology with a specialization in quantitative statistics, major area of study in clinical neuropsychology, and clinical internship in geropsychology. Historically, Micah’s work has focused on the social and clinical mechanisms of brain health disparities in HIV and aging, with a focus on social determinants of neurobehavioral decline and the integration of relevant frameworks for minoritized ethnoracial, sexual, and gender identities. This included the co-founding of an international research collaboration for Indigenous health disparities, Wisdom Workgroup for Indigenous Neuropsychology Global Strategies. Micah expanded upon this collaboration for their dissertation and found that American Indian and Alaskan Native participants exhibited faster trajectories of cognitive aging, a disparity that was amplified by immunosenescence in those with HIV.
Micah’s overarching ambition as a clinical-scientist are two-fold: 1) to equitably identify modifiable social and molecular mechanisms of neurobehavioral decline, and 2) to disseminate culturally tailored interventions for biological aging across at-risk populations.
Micah has been recently awarded the Research in Emerging Areas Critical to Human Health LRP from the National Institute on Aging (NIA).
Contact at ms6870@cumc.columbia.edu.