Franchesca Arias, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
About Franchesca Arias
Dr. Franchesca Arias is originally from Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic. Dr. Arias is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Clinical and Health Psychology at the University of Florida and an AlzSTARS Scholar with the 1Florida Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. She completed her Ph.D. at Fordham University with a specialization in clinical neuropsychology. At Fordham University, Dr. Arias worked under Dr. Monica Rivera Mindt’s mentorship to examine cognition and health disparities in adults from socioeconomically and ethnoracially underrepresented groups with opioid use disorders. Subsequently, Dr. Arias completed her clinical internship and an NIA-funded T32 postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Florida (UF). During her postdoctoral fellowship, Dr. Arias received specialty training in perioperative cognition. Subsequently, she worked with Dr. Sharon Inouye at the Aging Brain Center of the Hebrew SeniorLife, exploring the contribution of social determinants of health on cognitive changes in older adults.
Teaching Profile
Clinical Profile
Dr. Arias is a bicultural and bilingual (English and Spanish) Clinical Neuropsychologist who provides neuropsychological services to patients with diverse cognitive and behavioral conditions at the Fixel Institute for Neurological Diseases. Dr. Arias spearheads the cross-cultural neuropsychological efforts in the Department of Clinical and Health Psychology at UF. She evaluates patients 21 and older in English and Spanish. In addition, she evaluates monolingual, English-speaking patients, with suspected neurodegenerative conditions (such as Alzheimer’s Disease). Thus, referrals from Neurology, Oncology, Geriatric Medicine, and Primary care will be accepted.
- Clinical Health Psychology
- Alzheimer disease
- Delirium
- Memory loss
- Neurocognitive disorder
- Stroke
Research Profile
Dr. Arias’ research interests center around the intersection between cognitive aging, contextual and socioeconomic factors, and medical conditions in older adults. Specifically, her work explores social determinants of health and their role in propelling or interfering with, healthy cognitive aging in patients from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Dr. Arias has received funding from the Alzheimer’s Association (2019-AARFD-644816) and the National Institute on Aging (NIA; Diversity Supplement to Grant No. P01AG031720; PI: Inouye) to identify contextual-level factors that increase the vulnerability for acute and long-term cognitive decline to explore social determinants of health in the context of acute changes in cognition in older adults presenting for major, non-cardiac, surgery.
0000-0002-5448-6849
Publications
Grants
Contact Details
- Business:
- (352) 273-9794
- Business:
- farias2@ufl.edu
- Business Mailing:
-
PO Box 100165
GAINESVILLE FL 32610 - Business Street:
-
1225 CENTER DR
GAINESVILLE FL 32610