Katherine A. Gifford, PsyD

Associate Professor, Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine

Biography

Dr. Katherine Gifford is a clinical neuropsychologist and an Associate Professor in the Department of Anatomy & Neurobiology at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine. She is a Investigator within the Precision Brain Health Initiative (https://www.bumc.bu.edu/pbhi/) and the Framingham Heart Study- Brain Aging Program. Dr. Gifford’s research focuses on disorders of aging, dementia, and developing tools for early detection of cognitive impairment. Her research incudes a specific emphasis on understanding subjective cognitive decline in older adults, or when people start to notice changes in their own memory and thinking. She is involved in independent and collaborative research projects that improve early identification of unhealthy aging, clinical phenotyping of abnormal brain aging (i.e., Alzheimer's disease and related disorder), and health care education to improve primary care management of dementias.

Before joining the BUSM faculty, she was an Associate Professor (tenured) of Neurology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Co-Director of the Vanderbilt Sports Concussion Center, and Clinical Core Co-Leader of the Vanderbilt Exploratory Alzheimer's Disease Center. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in psychology at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY and her doctoral degree in clinical psychology from the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, FL. She completed her pre-doctoral internship in neuropsychology at the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, MI. Her postdoctoral fellowship in neuropsychology was completed at Boston University and at Vanderbilt University.

Publications

  • Published 10/27/2025

    Seto M, Clifton M, Gomez ML, Coughlan G, Gifford KA, Jefferson AL, De Jager PL, Bennett DA, Wang Y, Barnes LL, Schneider JA, Hohman TJ, Buckley RF, Dumitrescu L. Sex-specific associations of gene expression with Alzheimer's disease neuropathology and ante-mortem cognitive performance. Nat Commun. 2025 Oct 27; 16(1):9466. PMID: 41145521.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 10/1/2025

    Bolton CJ, Khan OA, Liu D, Pechman KR, Gifford KA, Hohman TJ, Blennow K, Zetterberg H, Jefferson AL. Combining plasma p-tau231 and glial fibrillary acidic protein produces higher discriminative accuracy for amyloid positivity than other blood-based biomarker combinations. Alzheimers Dement. 2025 Oct; 21(10):e70796. PMID: 41065027.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 9/22/2025

    Gogniat MA, Khan OA, Ratangee B, Bolton CJ, Zhang P, Liu D, Pechman KR, Yates A, Gaynor LS, Eaton J, Peterson A, Gifford KA, Hohman TJ, Blennow K, Zetterberg H, Jefferson AL. Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Associations of Neighborhood Disadvantage With Fluid Biomarkers of Neuroinflammation and Neurodegeneration. Neurology. 2025 Oct 21; 105(8):e214280. PMID: 40982775.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 9/1/2025

    Bolton CJ, Zhang P, Nair D, Liu D, Davis LT, Pechman KR, Shashikumar N, Wilhoite S, Roby D, Beeson C, Komorowski H, Gifford KA, Hohman TJ, Blennow K, Zetterberg H, Jefferson AL. Mild kidney dysfunction affects the predictive accuracy of blood-based biomarkers for neuropsychological and neuroimaging outcomes over a 9 year follow-up period. Alzheimers Dement. 2025 Sep; 21(9):e70651. PMID: 40970383.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 8/1/2025

    Phillips JM, Dumitrescu LC, Archer DB, Regelson AN, Mukherjee S, Lee ML, Choi SE, Scollard P, Trittschuh EH, Kukull WA, Biber S, Mez J, Mahoney ER, Clifton M, Libby JB, Walters S, Bush WS, Engelman CD, Lu Q, Fardo DW, Widaman KF, Buckley RF, Mormino EC, Sanders RE, Clark LR, Gifford KA, Vardarajan B, Cuccaro ML, Pericak-Vance MA, Farrer LA, Wang LS, Schellenberg GD, Haines JL, Jefferson AL, Johnson SC, Albert MS, Keene CD, Saykin AJ, Risacher SL, Larson EB, Sperling RA, Mayeux R, Goate AM, Renton AE, Marcora E, Fulton-Howard B, Patel T, Bennett DA, Schneider JA, Barnes LL, Cruchaga C, Hassenstab J, Belloy ME, Andrews SJ, Resnick SM, Bilgel M, An Y, Beason-Held LL, Walker KA, Duggan MR, Klinedinst BS, Crane PK, Hohman TJ. Novel modelling approaches to elucidate the genetic architecture of resilience to Alzheimer's disease. Brain. 2025 Aug 01; 148(8):2714-2729. PMID: 40111762.

    Read at: PubMed

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Websites

Education

  • Florida Institute of Technology, PsyD
  • Florida Institute of Technology, MS
  • Skidmore College, BA

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