Helena M. Blumen

Helena M. Blumen, Ph.D., holds the title of Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine (Geriatrics) and the Saul R. Korey Department of Neurology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She specializes in cognitive neuroscience, focusing on optimizing gait and cognition in aging populations through interventions like social dancing, motor imagery, and collaborative memory strategies. Her research integrates neuroimaging techniques and clinical methods to address mobility and cognitive decline in older adults.

Dr. Blumen completed her Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology at Stony Brook University (2008) and an MS in Clinical Research Methods at Albert Einstein College of Medicine (2018). She has held prestigious fellowships, including a T32 NIH/NIA postdoctoral position at Columbia University Medical Center (2011) and a neuroimaging fellowship at Albert Einstein (2013). She coordinates neuroimaging data for multiple NIH/NIA-funded studies, with a current focus on trajectories of brain, gait, and cognitive decline in aging and pre-dementia populations.

Her honors include a NIH/NIA Career Development Award (1K01AG049829-01A1) and the 2015 American Geriatrics Society Outstanding Junior Research Manuscript Award for her work on neural correlates of imagined walking. She leads a lab exploring interventions to improve cognition and mobility in older adults, with findings disseminated through her Twitter account @BlumenAgingLab.