Sarah Ackley is a clinical and pharmacoepidemiologist whose research focuses on Alzheimer’s disease and dementia and on improving the credibility of biomedical evidence.
Sarah's work combines epidemiologic methods, mathematical modeling, causal inference, and computational tools to evaluate treatments, biomarkers, and scientific claims in dementia research. Much of her research has been shaped by contemporary controversies in Alzheimer’s research, particularly debates surrounding the amyloid hypothesis and the evaluation of emerging pharmaceutical therapies.
Sarah’s work focuses on synthesizing available evidence using rigorous quantitative tools to determine drug efficacy and to evaluate whether biomarkers—such as amyloid clearance—can serve as reliable surrogate endpoints for cognitive outcomes in clinical trials. She also develops methods to assess the credibility of epidemiologic findings and to integrate evidence across randomized trials, observational studies, and genetic analyses. More broadly, her research aims to develop systematic approaches that clarify how biomedical knowledge is produced, interpreted, and communicated across disciplines.
Sarah received her BS in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and her PhD in Epidemiology from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She completed postdoctoral training in dementia epidemiology and quantitative methods at Boston University and UCSF. She currently leads the Computational Epidemiology Lab at the Brown University School of Public Health, which develops quantitative tools for dementia research and evidence evaluation. More information about the lab’s work can be found here.
| Wang J, Sims KD, Ackley SF, Chen R, Kobayashi LC, Hayes-Larson E, Mayeda ER, Buto P, Zimmerman SC, Graff RE, Glymour MM. "Association of cancer history with structural brain aging markers of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias risk." Alzheimer's & Dementia, vol. 20, no. 2, 2024, pp. 880-889. |
| Wang J, Hill-Jarrett T, Buto P, Pederson A, Sims KD, Zimmerman SC, DeVost MA, Ferguson E, Lacar B, Yang Y, Choi M, Caunca MR, La Joie R, Chen R, Glymour MM, Ackley SF. "Comparison of approaches to control for intracranial volume in research on the association of brain volumes with cognitive outcomes." Human Brain Mapping, vol. 45, no. 4, 2024, pp. e26633. |
| Hayes-Larson E, Ackley SF, Turney IC, La Joie R, Mayeda ER, Glymour MM, for the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative. "Considerations for Use of Blood-Based Biomarkers in Epidemiologic Dementia Research." American Journal of Epidemiology, vol. 193, no. 3, 2024, pp. 527-535. |
| Ackley S, Calmasini C, Bouteloup V, Hill-Jarrett TG, Swinnerton KN, Chêne G, Dufouil C, Glymour MM, MEMENTO Cohort Study Group and DPUK. "Contribution of Global Amyloid-PET Imaging for Predicting Future Cognition in the MEMENTO Cohort." Neurology, vol. 102, no. 6, 2024, pp. e208054. |
| Ackley SF, Wang J, Chen R, Power MC, Allen IE, Glymour MM. "Estimated effects of amyloid reduction on cognitive change: A Bayesian update across a range of priors." Alzheimer's & Dementia, vol. 20, no. 2, 2024, pp. 1149-1155. |
| Chen R, Wang J, Pederson AM, Prather AA, Hirst AK, Ackley S, Hokett E, George KM, Mungas D, Mayeda ER, Gilsanz P, Haneuse S, Whitmer RA, Glymour MM. "Evaluation of racial and ethnic heterogeneity in the associations of sleep quality and sleep apnea risk with cognitive function and cognitive decline." Alzheimer's & dementia (New York, N. Y.), vol. 10, no. 1, 2024, pp. e12441. |
| Buto PT, Wang J, La Joie R, Zimmerman SC, Glymour MM, Ackley SF, Hoffmann TJ, Yaffe K, Zeki Al Hazzouri A, Brenowitz WD. "Genetic risk score for Alzheimer's disease predicts brain volume differences in mid and late life in UK biobank participants." Alzheimer's & Dementia, vol. 20, no. 3, 2024, pp. 1978-1987. |
| Almeida ML, Pederson AM, Zimmerman SC, Chen R, Ackley S, Riley A, Eng CW, Whitmer RA, George KM, Peterson RL, Mayeda ER, Gilsanz P, Mungas DM, Farias ST, Glymour MM. "The Association Between Physical Activity and Cognition in a Racially/Ethnically Diverse Cohort of Older Adults: Results From the Kaiser Healthy Aging and Diverse Life Experiences Study." Alzheimer Disease & Associated Disorders, vol. 38, no. 2, 2024, pp. 120-127. |
| Wang J, Buto P, Ackley SF, Kobayashi LC, Graff RE, Zimmerman SC, Hayes-Larson E, Mayeda ER, Asiimwe SB, Calmasini C, Glymour MM. "Association between cancer and dementia risk in the UK Biobank: evidence of diagnostic bias." European journal of epidemiology, vol. 38, no. 10, 2023, pp. 1069-1079. |
| Ospina-Romero M, Brenowitz WD, Glymour MM, Westrick A, Graff RE, Hayes-Larson E, Mayeda ER, Ackley SF, Kobayashi LC. "Education, incident cancer, and rate of memory decline in a national sample of US adults in mid-to-later-life." Journal of geriatric oncology, vol. 14, no. 5, 2023, pp. 101530. |
| Chen R, Calmasini C, Swinnerton K, Wang J, Haneuse S, Ackley SF, Hirst AK, Hayes-Larson E, George KM, Peterson R, Soh Y, Barnes LL, Mayeda ER, Gilsanz P, Mungas DM, Whitmer RA, Corrada MM, Glymour MM. "Pragmatic approaches to handling practice effects in longitudinal cognitive aging research." Alzheimer's & Dementia, vol. 19, no. 9, 2023, pp. 4028-4036. |
| Duchowny KA, Ackley SF, Brenowitz WD, Wang J, Zimmerman SC, Caunca MR, Glymour MM. "Associations Between Handgrip Strength and Dementia Risk, Cognition, and Neuroimaging Outcomes in the UK Biobank Cohort Study." JAMA Network Open, vol. 5, no. 6, 2022, pp. e2218314. |
| Ackley SF, Glymour MM. "Comment on "Effect of reduction in brain amyloid levels on change in cognitive and functional decline in randomized clinical trials: An updated instrumental variable meta-analysis"." Alzheimer's & Dementia, 2022. |
| Ackley SF, Lessler J, Glymour MM. "Dynamical Modeling as a Tool for Inferring Causation." American Journal of Epidemiology, vol. 191, no. 1, 2022, pp. 1-6. |
| Hayes-Larson E, Shaw C, Ackley SF, Zimmerman SC, Glymour MM, Graff RE, Witte JS, Kobayashi LC, Mayeda ER. "The Role of Dementia Diagnostic Delay in the Inverse Cancer-Dementia Association." The Journals of Gerontology: Series A, vol. 77, no. 6, 2022, pp. 1254-1260. |
| Dang KV, Rerolle F, Ackley SF, Irish AM, Mehta KM, Bailey I, Fair E, Miller C, Bibbins-Domingo K, Wong-Moy E, Glymour MM, Morris MD. "A Randomized Study to Assess the Effect of Including the Graduate Record Examinations Results on Reviewer Scores for Underrepresented Minorities." American Journal of Epidemiology, vol. 190, no. 9, 2021, pp. 1744-1750. |
| Ackley SF, Hayes-Larson E, Brenowitz WD, Swinnerton K, Mungas D, Fletcher E, Singh B, Whitmer RA, DeCarli C, Maria Glymour M. "Amyloid-PET imaging offers small improvements in predictions of future cognitive trajectories." NeuroImage. Clinical, vol. 31, 2021, pp. 102713. |
| Gold AL, Meza E, Ackley SF, Mungas DM, Whitmer RA, Mayeda ER, Miles S, Eng CW, Gilsanz P, Glymour MM. "Are adverse childhood experiences associated with late-life cognitive performance across racial/ethnic groups: results from the Kaiser Healthy Aging and Diverse Life Experiences study baseline." BMJ Open, vol. 11, no. 2, 2021, pp. e042125. |
| Ackley SF, Zimmerman SC, Brenowitz WD, Tchetgen Tchetgen EJ, Gold AL, Manly JJ, Mayeda ER, Filshtein TJ, Power MC, Elahi FM, Brickman AM, Glymour MM. "Effect of reductions in amyloid levels on cognitive change in randomized trials: instrumental variable meta-analysis." BMJ, vol. 372, 2021, pp. n156. |
| Leng Y, Ackley SF, Glymour MM, Yaffe K, Brenowitz WD. "Genetic Risk of Alzheimer's Disease and Sleep Duration in Non-Demented Elders." Annals of neurology, vol. 89, no. 1, 2021, pp. 177-181. |
| Ackley SF, Elahi F, Glymour MM. "Instrumental variable meta-analysis of aggregated randomized drug trial data for evaluating proposed target mechanisms." BMJ, vol. 372, 2021, pp. n346. |
| Filshtein TJ, Li X, Zimmerman SC, Ackley SF, Glymour MM, Power MC. "Proof of Concept Example for Use of Simulation to Allow Data Pooling Despite Privacy Restrictions." Epidemiology, vol. 32, no. 5, 2021, pp. 638-647. |
| Peterson RL, George KM, Gilsanz P, Ackley S, Mayeda ER, Glymour MM, Mungas DM, DeCarli C, Whitmer RA. "Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Young Adulthood and Midlife Cardiovascular Risk Factors and Late-life Cognitive Domains: The Kaiser Healthy Aging and Diverse Life Experiences (KHANDLE) Study." Alzheimer Disease & Associated Disorders, vol. 35, no. 2, 2021, pp. 99-105. |
| Ospina-Romero M, Brenowitz WD, Glymour MM, Mayeda ER, Graff RE, Witte JS, Ackley SF, Lu KP, Kobayashi LC. "The Association Between Cancer and Spousal Rate of Memory Decline: A Negative Control Study to Evaluate (Unmeasured) Social Confounding of the Cancer-memory Relationship." Alzheimer Disease & Associated Disorders, vol. 35, no. 3, 2021, pp. 271-274. |
| Ackley SF, Pilewski S, Petrovic VS, Worden L, Murray E, Porco TC. "Assessing the utility of a smart thermometer and mobile application as a surveillance tool for influenza and influenza-like illness." Health informatics journal, vol. 26, no. 3, 2020, pp. 2148-2158. |
| Ospina-Romero M, Glymour MM, Hayes-Larson E, Mayeda ER, Graff RE, Brenowitz WD, Ackley SF, Witte JS, Kobayashi LC. "Association Between Alzheimer Disease and Cancer With Evaluation of Study Biases: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis." JAMA Network Open, vol. 3, no. 11, 2020, pp. e2025515. |
| Brenowitz WD, Filshtein TJ, Yaffe K, Walter S, Ackley SF, Hoffmann TJ, Jorgenson E, Whitmer RA, Glymour MM. "Association of genetic risk for Alzheimer disease and hearing impairment." Neurology, vol. 95, no. 16, 2020, pp. e2225-e2234. |
| Peterson RL, Gilsanz P, George KM, Ackley S, Glymour MM, Mungas DM, Whitmer RA. "Differences in association of leisure time activities and cognition in a racially/ethnically diverse cohort of older adults: Findings from the KHANDLE study." Alzheimer's & dementia (New York, N. Y.), vol. 6, no. 1, 2020, pp. e12047. |
| Worden L, Ackley SF, Zipprich J, Harriman K, Enanoria WTA, Wannier R, Porco TC. "Measles transmission during a large outbreak in California." Epidemics, vol. 30, 2020, pp. 100375. |
| Hayes-Larson E, Ackley SF, Zimmerman SC, Ospina-Romero M, Glymour MM, Graff RE, Witte JS, Kobayashi LC, Mayeda ER. "The competing risk of death and selective survival cannot fully explain the inverse cancer-dementia association." Alzheimer's & Dementia, vol. 16, no. 12, 2020, pp. 1696-1703. |
| Johansson MA, Apfeldorf KM, Dobson S, Devita J, Buczak AL, Baugher B, Moniz LJ, Bagley T, Babin SM, Guven E, Yamana TK, Shaman J, Moschou T, Lothian N, Lane A, Osborne G, Jiang G, Brooks LC, Farrow DC, Hyun S, Tibshirani RJ, Rosenfeld R, Lessler J, Reich NG, Cummings DAT, Lauer SA, Moore SM, Clapham HE, Lowe R, Bailey TC, García-Díez M, Carvalho MS, Rodó X, Sardar T, Paul R, Ray EL, Sakrejda K, Brown AC, Meng X, Osoba O, Vardavas R, Manheim D, Moore M, Rao DM, Porco TC, Ackley S, Liu F, Worden L, Convertino M, Liu Y, Reddy A, Ortiz E, Rivero J, Brito H, Juarrero A, Johnson LR, Gramacy RB, Cohen JM, Mordecai EA, Murdock CC, Rohr JR, Ryan SJ, Stewart-Ibarra AM, Weikel DP, Jutla A, Khan R, Poultney M, Colwell RR, Rivera-García B, Barker CM, Bell JE, Biggerstaff M, Swerdlow D, Mier-Y-Teran-Romero L, Forshey BM, Trtanj J, Asher J, Clay M, Margolis HS, Hebbeler AM, George D, Chretien JP. "An open challenge to advance probabilistic forecasting for dengue epidemics." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 116, no. 48, 2019, pp. 24268-24274. |
| Deiner MS, Fathy C, Kim J, Niemeyer K, Ramirez D, Ackley SF, Liu F, Lietman TM, Porco TC. "Facebook and Twitter vaccine sentiment in response to measles outbreaks." Health informatics journal, vol. 25, no. 3, 2019, pp. 1116-1132. |
| Ackley SF, Lee RS, Worden L, Zwick E, Porco TC, Behr MA, Pepperell CS. "Multiple exposures, reinfection and risk of progression to active tuberculosis." R. Soc. open sci., vol. 6, no. 3, 2019, pp. 180999. |
| Kelly JD, Worden L, Wannier SR, Hoff NA, Mukadi P, Sinai C, Ackley S, Chen X, Gao D, Selo B, Mossoko M, Okitolonda-Wemakoy E, Richardson ET, Rutherford GW, Lietman TM, Muyembe-Tamfum JJ, Rimoin AW, Porco TC. "Projections of Ebola outbreak size and duration with and without vaccine use in Équateur, Democratic Republic of Congo, as of May 27, 2018." PLoS ONE, vol. 14, no. 3, 2019, pp. e0213190. |
| Winter K, Klein NP, Ackley S, Cherry JD. "Comment on "The impact of past vaccination coverage and immunity on pertussis resurgence"." Science Translational Medicine, vol. 10, no. 472, 2018. |
| Ackley SF, Hacker JK, Enanoria WTA, Worden L, Blumberg S, Porco TC, Zipprich J. "Genotype-Specific Measles Transmissibility: A Branching Process Analysis." Clinical Infectious Diseases, vol. 66, no. 8, 2018, pp. 1270-1275. |
| Grantz KH, Chabaari W, Samuel RK, Gershom B, Blum L, Worden L, Ackley S, Liu F, Lietman TM, Galvani AP, Prajna L, Porco TC. "Spatial distribution of leprosy in India: an ecological study." Infectious diseases of poverty, vol. 7, no. 1, 2018, pp. 20. |
| Ackley SF, Hargrove JW. "A dynamic model for estimating adult female mortality from ovarian dissection data for the tsetse fly Glossina pallidipes Austen sampled in Zimbabwe." PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, vol. 11, no. 8, 2017, pp. e0005813. |
| Ackley SF, Mayeda ER, Worden L, Enanoria WTA, Glymour MM, Porco TC. "Compartmental Model Diagrams as Causal Representations in Relation to DAGs." Epidemiologic methods, vol. 6, no. 1, 2017. |
| Deiner MS, Worden L, Rittel A, Ackley SF, Liu F, Blum L, Scott JC, Lietman TM, Porco TC. "Correction: Short-term leprosy forecasting from an expert opinion survey." PLoS ONE, vol. 12, no. 12, 2017, pp. e0189976. |
| Worden L, Schwartz IB, Bianco S, Ackley SF, Lietman TM, Porco TC. "Hamiltonian Analysis of Subcritical Stochastic Epidemic Dynamics." Computational and mathematical methods in medicine, vol. 2017, 2017, pp. 4253167. |
| Ali FS, Stein JD, Blachley TS, Ackley S, Stewart JM. "Incidence of and Risk Factors for Developing Idiopathic Macular Hole Among a Diverse Group of Patients Throughout the United States." JAMA Ophthalmology, vol. 135, no. 4, 2017, pp. 299-305. |
| Deiner MS, Worden L, Rittel A, Ackley SF, Liu F, Blum L, Scott JC, Lietman TM, Porco TC. "Short-term leprosy forecasting from an expert opinion survey." PLoS ONE, vol. 12, no. 8, 2017, pp. e0182245. |
| Enanoria WT, Worden L, Liu F, Gao D, Ackley S, Scott J, Deiner M, Mwebaze E, Ip W, Lietman TM, Porco TC. "Correction: Evaluating Subcriticality during the Ebola Epidemic in West Africa." PLoS ONE, vol. 11, no. 6, 2016, pp. e0157068. |
| Enanoria WT, Liu F, Zipprich J, Harriman K, Ackley S, Blumberg S, Worden L, Porco TC. "The Effect of Contact Investigations and Public Health Interventions in the Control and Prevention of Measles Transmission: A Simulation Study." PLoS ONE, vol. 11, no. 12, 2016, pp. e0167160. |
| Blumberg S, Worden L, Enanoria W, Ackley S, Deiner M, Liu F, Gao D, Lietman T, Porco T. "Assessing Measles Transmission in the United States Following a Large Outbreak in California." PLoS currents, vol. 7, 2015. |
| Yam W, Davis E, Ackley S, Evans M, Mavalvala N. "Continuously tunable modulation scheme for precision control of optical cavities with variable detuning." Optics letters, vol. 40, no. 15, 2015, pp. 3675-8. |
| Enanoria WT, Worden L, Liu F, Gao D, Ackley S, Scott J, Deiner M, Mwebaze E, Ip W, Lietman TM, Porco TC. "Evaluating Subcriticality during the Ebola Epidemic in West Africa." PLoS ONE, vol. 10, no. 10, 2015, pp. e0140651. |
| Ackley SF, Liu F, Porco TC, Pepperell CS. "Modeling historical tuberculosis epidemics among Canadian First Nations: effects of malnutrition and genetic variation." PeerJ, vol. 3, 2015, pp. e1237. |
| Hargrove JW, Ackley SF. "Mortality estimates from ovarian age distributions of the tsetse fly Glossina pallidipes Austen sampled in Zimbabwe suggest the need for new analytical approaches." Bulletin of entomological research, vol. 105, no. 3, 2015, pp. 294-304. |
| Liu F, Enanoria WT, Zipprich J, Blumberg S, Harriman K, Ackley SF, Wheaton WD, Allpress JL, Porco TC. "The role of vaccination coverage, individual behaviors, and the public health response in the control of measles epidemics: an agent-based simulation for California." BMC Public Health, vol. 15, 2015, pp. 447. |
| O'Brien KS, Blumberg S, Enanoria WT, Ackley S, Sippl-Swezey N, Lietman TM. "Antibiotic use as a tragedy of the commons: a cross-sectional survey." Computational and mathematical methods in medicine, vol. 2014, 2014, pp. 837929. |
| Gao D, Amza A, Nassirou B, Kadri B, Sippl-Swezey N, Liu F, Ackley SF, Lietman TM, Porco TC. "Optimal seasonal timing of oral azithromycin for malaria." The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, vol. 91, no. 5, 2014, pp. 936-942. |
| DeFlores LP, Ganim Z, Ackley SF, Chung HS, Tokmakoff A. "The anharmonic vibrational potential and relaxation pathways of the amide I and II modes of N-methylacetamide." The Journal of Physical Chemistry B, vol. 110, no. 38, 2006, pp. 18973-80. |
Sarah's work combines epidemiologic methods, mathematical modeling, causal inference, and computational tools to evaluate treatments, biomarkers, and scientific claims in dementia research. Much of her research has been shaped by contemporary controversies in Alzheimer’s research, particularly debates surrounding the amyloid hypothesis and the evaluation of emerging pharmaceutical therapies.
Sarah’s work focuses on synthesizing available evidence using rigorous quantitative tools to determine drug efficacy and to evaluate whether biomarkers—such as amyloid clearance—can serve as reliable surrogate endpoints for cognitive outcomes in clinical trials. She also develops methods to assess the credibility of epidemiologic findings and to integrate evidence across randomized trials, observational studies, and genetic analyses. More broadly, her research aims to develop systematic approaches that clarify how biomedical knowledge is produced, interpreted, and communicated across disciplines.
| Year | Degree | Institution |
|---|---|---|
| 2018 | PhD | University of California, San Francisco |
| 2008 | BS | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| PHP 2190 - Epidemiologic Synthesis and Application |
| PHP 2490 - Methods in Pharmacoepidemiology |
