Mary Sano

Mary Sano, PhD, United States
Past President

Mary Sano, PhD is a professor of psychiatry and Director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. She also serves as Director, Research and Development at the James J. Peters Veterans Administration Medical Center.

A neuropsychologist by training, Dr. Sano has been involved in designing and conducting clinical trials for the treatment and prevention of cognitive loss and dementia. She has also directed the development of neuropsychological assessment as outcomes for clinical trials in Spanish speakers in the United States and has developed methods for standardizing cognitive outcomes in clinical trial assessment in Europe and Asia. Her work also includes the development of methodologies to assess cognitive function in the elderly with special needs such as Down syndrome.

Dr. Sano is a major contributor to both national and international organizations on the care and treatment of those with dementia. She is a member of the Prevention Research Work Group for the Healthy Brain Initiative sponsored by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute of Aging (NIA), an invited speaker at the NIA’s workshop on Methodological Issues in Randomized Clinical Trials in the Elderly and an invited panel discussant for the United States Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Human Research Protections (SACHRP) on Inclusion of Individuals with Impaired Decision-making in Research. She is also the director of several National Institute of Health funded, multi-center clinical trials on prevention of Alzheimer disease. Dr. Sano has served as a reviewer for the NIA, National Center for Research Resources, National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, and National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.