Josh Volponi

Research Associate - Neuroscape

Address:

Room 510
UCSF – Mission Bay
Sandler Neuroscience Center
MC 0444, 675 Nelson Rising Lane
San Francisco, CA 94158

Email:

Joshua.Volponi@ucsf.edu

Curriculum Vitae:

PDF

Biography:

Josh grew up in the Bay Area and completed his B.A. in Molecular and Cell Biology, emphasis in Neurobiology at UC Berkeley in 2014 and began volunteering as a research assistant at Neuroscape (then called the Gazzaley Lab) that summer to administer neuropsychological assessments assessing baseline cognitive levels of older adults.

In 2016, Josh was hired as a research associate to coordinate the Body Brain Trainer Study, a longitudinal, adaptive training study integrating cognitive and physical elements, which was repeated with Older Adults, children, and patients with MS. This work showed enhancements in attention in both the Older Adult and Child populations. That same year, Josh began working in the field of remote research by coordinating the BRIGHTEN study, a mobile randomized controlled trial with bilingual individuals diagnosed with depression. This work demonstrated the potential of remote studies to reach typically underrepresented participants while allowing the recruitment of diverse populations.

Due to his experience with coordinating longitudinal training studies both in person and remotely, Josh began working as the Platform Manager for Nexus, Neuroscape's remote trials platform, in 2019. Josh's involvement in Nexus spans design, development, and study coordination, including translating study requests and requirements to actionable development tasks and iterating between researchers and the development team (Alternova) to continually improve Nexus. As of Q3 2023, Nexus hosts over 55 studies (at UCSF and collaborations).

In 2022, Josh was promoted to Clinical Research Coordinator and continues to manage Nexus while coordinating various studies and the Neuroscape Alliance, an international affiliation of like-minded translational neuroscience centers.

Featured Publications:

• Anguera, J.A., Volponi, J.J., Simon, A.J., Gallen, C.L., Rolle, C.E., Anguera-Singla, R., Pitsch, E.A., Thompson, C.J., Gazzaley, A. Integrated cognitive and physical fitness training enhances attention abilities in older adults NPJ Aging (2022)
• Anguera, J.A., Rowe, M.A., Volponi, J.J., Elkurdi, M., Jurigova, B., Simon, A.J., Anguera-Singla, R., Gallen, C.L., Gazzaley, A., Marco, E.J. Enhancing attention in children using an integrated cognitive-physical videogame: A pilot study NPJ Digital Medicine (2023)
• Pratap A, Homiar A, Waninger L, Herd C, Suver C, Volponi J.J., Anguera J.A., Areán P. Real-world behavioral dataset from two fully remote smartphone-based randomized clinical trials for depression. (PDF) Scientific Data (2022)
• Anguera, J.A., Schachtner, J.N., Simon, A.J., Volponi, J, Javed, S., Gallen, C.L., Gazzaley, A. Long-term maintenance of multitasking abilities following video game training in older adults Neurobiology of Aging (2021)
• Ziegler, D.A, Simon, A.J., Gallen, C.L., Skinner, S., Janowich, J.R., Volponi, J.J, Rolle, C.E., Mishra, J., Kornfield, J., Anguera, J.A., Gazzaley, A. Closed-loop digital meditation improves sustained attention in young adults Nature Human Behaviour (2019)
• Pratap, A., Renn, B.N., Volponi, J., Mooney, S.D., Gazzaley, A., Areán, P.A., Anguera, J.A. Using mobile apps to assess and treat depression in Hispanics and Latinos: Results from a fully remote and randomized clinical trial. Journal of Medical Internet Research (2018)