Dr. Lisa Mosconi, PhD

Dr. Lisa Mosconi, PhD, is associate professor of Neuroscience in Neurology and Radiology at Weill Cornell Medicine/NY-Presbyterian Hospital, where she serves as director of the Alzheimer’s Prevention Program at Weill Cornell Medicine, which includes the National Institute of Health (NIH)-funded Women’s Brain Initiative, the award-winning Alzheimer’s Prevention Clinic, and the Alzheimer’s Prevention Clinical Trials Unit. Previously, she was a faculty member at New York University (NYU) School of Medicine.  

Dr. Mosconi currently serves as Program Director of ‘CARE – Cutting Alzheimer’s Risk through Endocrinology’ at Wellcome Leap, working directly with Dr. Regina Dugan, the former director of DARPA and Wellcome Leap CEO. CARE is a $50M research program aimed at cutting the lifetime risk of Alzheimer’s among women by half, reducing risk for 330 million women globally and preventing an estimated 55 million Alzheimer’s cases among women by 2050. 

Dr. Mosconi holds a PhD degree in Neuroscience and Nuclear Medicine. A world-renowned neuroscientist, she ranks in the top 1% of scientists of the past two decades by official metrics. Recognized by The Times as one of the 17 most influential living female scientists and honored in ELLE 100: Women That Are Changing The World, Dr. Mosconi has been praised as “the Mona Lisa of Neuroscience” by ELLE International.  

Dr. Mosconi is the second female neuroscientist to deliver a formal speech at an official White House policy event, which took place on December 13, 2024, during the White House Conference on Women’s Health Research. 

Dr. Mosconi’s research is focused on the early detection and prevention of cognitive aging and Alzheimer’s disease in at-risk individuals, especially women, using brain imaging techniques such as positron emission tomography and magnetic resonance imaging. She is passionately interested in how risk of memory loss and dementia can be prevented through the combination of appropriate medical care and lifestyle modifications involving diet, physical and intellectual fitness.  

Dr. Mosconi helped to popularize the notion that “Sex hormones are brain hormones” and “Menopause impacts the brain just as much as the ovaries”. 

She is the author of the New York Times, USA Today, Canada #1 Health & Fitness, The Sunday Times (UK), Der Spiegel (Germany), and La Veja (Brazil) bestselling THE MENOPAUSE BRAIN (2024); of the instant New York Times, USA Today, Publishers Weekly, and Der Spiegel bestselling THE XX BRAIN (2020); and international bestselling BRAIN FOOD (2018) — which have been published in over 32 countries. Dr. Mosconi’s popular TED talk “How menopause affects the brain” has been viewed over 4 million times since its release.