Jeffrey L. Cummings, MD, is the director of the Mary S. Easton Center for Alzheimer's Disease Research at UCLA. The Center has an active drug discovery, drug development and clinical trials program and fosters imaging, genetics, clinical and neuroscience research.  Dr. Cummings also directs the Deane F. Johnson Center for Neurotherapeutics (JCNT) at UCLA.  This unique enterprise supports clinical trials across CNS diseases and provides education and training programs for academicians and pharmaceutical personnel.  Dr. Cummings' research and leadership contributions in the field of Alzheimer's disease have been recognized through the Henderson Award of the American Geriatrics Society (2006), the Research Award of the John Douglas French Alzheimer's Research Foundation (2008), and the Ronald and Nancy Reagan Research Award of the national Alzheimer's Association (2008).  He was featured in the Gentleman's Quarterly (June 2009) as a "rockstar of science."
Dr. Cummings is the author of the Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI) which has become the most commonly used tool for characterizing behavioral disturbances in dementia syndromes and for measuring the effect of anti-dementia therapies on neuropsychiatric symptoms in Alzheimer's disease and other dementias.  Dr. Cummings is an experienced clinical trialist with expertise in clinical trial design and analysis, global trial implementation, and trial outcome measures.  He is a member of the Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study and of the oversight committee of the NINDS Neuroprotection in Parkinson's Disease program.
Dr. Cummings completed Neurology residency and a Fellowship in Behavioral Neurology at Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts.  US training was followed by a Research Fellowship in Neuropathology and Neuropsychiatry at the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, Queen Square, London, England.  At UCLA he holds The Augustus S. Rose Professorship of Neurology and is Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences.  He is past president of the Behavioral Neurology Society and of the American Neuropsychiatric Association.  Dr. Cummings has authored or edited 30 books and published over 500 peer-reviewed papers.