Samantha E. John, PhD
Assistant Professor Department of Brain Health School of Integrated Health Sciences UNLV Population Health & Health Equity Initiative
Dr. Samantha John is a licensed clinical psychologist (NV #PY0930) with specialty training in geropsychology and adult/geriatric neuropsychology. She directs the Cognitive Aging & Neuropsychological Equity Lab within the Department of Brain Health. Dr. John joined UNLV in the fall of 2019 as part of the UNLV Population Health and Health Equity Initiative, a group of multidisciplinary faculty conducting action-oriented and community-based research to understand and reduce health disparities. Dr. John is interested in how we interpret outcomes and patterns from neuropsychological assessment to explain cognitive aging processes within diverse groups. Her research aims to improve the prediction, measurement, and diagnosis of cognitive change and neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease. Her program of research includes three complementary areas: 1) modeling the causative and contributing factors in neurodegenerative disorders that predict disease risk and resilience; 2) improving the measurement of patient outcomes and neuropsychological functioning through test development and advanced psychometrics; and 3) examining health disparities in cognitive aging to encourage recruitment and retention into scientific research and eliminate barriers to treatment.
Dr. John earned her doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology with a curricular emphasis in geropsychology from the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. She completed an APA-accredited internship in Geriatric Neuropsychology with the UCLA Semel Institute of Neuroscience and Human Behavior, and completed her training with a postdoctoral fellowship in Neuropsychology with the Emory University School of Medicine and Goizueta Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. She is active in both research and clinical practice.
Office: HRC/MSM-407 Email:Samantha.john@unlv.edu Phone: 702-895-4580