Career path: Raquel's career trajectory has been propelled at every step by exceptional mentors and colleagues. She completed her undergraduate degree in Neuroscience with an Honors Thesis in Human Communication under the mentorship of Robert Krauss at Columbia University in New York City, receiving early induction into Phi Beta Kappa and graduating Summa Cum Laude in 2003. For three undergraduate summers, she was an intern in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate and Neuroscientist David H. Hubel MD (1926-2013), a humanist, mensch, and lifelong explorer with an insatiable curiosity and indefatigable patience and perseverence, who taught her what it means to be a scientist. She completed her MD at Harvard Medical School, including a 5th year as a Doris Duke Clinical Research Fellow under the mentorship of Jeremy Schmahmann MD, from whom she learned the neurological examination and what it means to be a physician-scientist, graduating Cum Laude with Honors in Neurology in 2008. She completed her neurology residency at the University of California San Francisco in 2012, including a 6-month Shupin Research Fellowship under the mentorship of Bill Seeley MD, from whom she learned to never ever utter the words "global cortical atrophy" (better to look harder for those brain regions that are selectively vulnerable to atrophy) and the important diffference between "syndrome" and "pathology."  She completed her behavioral neurology clinical fellowship at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center in 2013 under the mentorship of Bruce Miller MD from whom she learned how to evaluate patients with neurodegenerative diseases and that the best science happens when you enable others to do their best work. She completed a VA Advanced Research Fellowship in dementia epidemiology at the San Francisco VA Medical Center in 2015 under the mentorship of Kristine Yaffe MD from whom she learned how to conduct high-impact clinical research, write papers and grants, and mentor junior scientists. She joined the UCSF Department of Neurology as an Assistant Professor and received a 5-year Beeson K23 grant from NINDS in 2015 (primary mentor Kristine Yaffe MD; secondary mentor Geoffrey T Manley), completed additional advanced training in clinical research methods and biostatistics at the UCSF Clinical and Translational Science Institute in 2017, received her first 5-year R01 grant from NINDS in 2019 (followed by R01 equivalent grants from the Veterans Health Administration and U.S. Department of Defense), and was promoted to Associate Professor In Residence at UCSF in 2021. From Geoff Manley, she learned the difference between a mentor and a sponsor and that transformative science can only happen when everyone plays in the sandbox together. In September 2022, she became Director of Clinical Research at the Sagol Neuroscience Center at Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, Israel. In 2025, she was appointed as an Associate Professor in the Department of Neurology at the Tel Aviv University School of Medicine. https://eng.sheba.co.il/Raquel-C-Gardner 

Clinical experience: Raquel has 14 years of experience as a practicing neurologist in the United States (2008-2022), including 10 years of experience as a dementia neurologist at UCSF and the San Francisco VA Medical Center where she was an attending neurologist in the SFVA Memory Evaluation Clinic. While she no longer has a regular clinical practice, she serves as a volunteer neurologist at Sheba Medical Center providing consultations on-request for patients with war-related traumatic brain injury (TBI), she is a member of the Anti-Amyloid Treatment Committee for the Memory Clinic, and she continues to evaluate patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), dementia, and TBI in the context of her current research studies.

Collaborative networks: Raquel is a TRACK-TBI investigator, a prior LIMBIC-CENC co-investigator, a member of the executive committee of the International initiative for TBI Research (InTBIR), a contributor to the latest ACS TQIP TBI Management Guidelines, a contributor to the NINDS TBI Reclassification Initiative, and a current member of the working groups to create version 3.0 of the NINDS TBI Common Data Elements. She maintains close collaborative ties to the UCSF Memory and Aging Center and the UCSF Brain And Spinal Injury Center via ongoing active collaborative projects. She is increasingly establishing collaborations with European investigators and CENTER-TBI investigators. With David Menon, she currently leads a large multi-national multi-disciplinary collaborative working-group of European and Israeli investigators who are all committed to increasing clinical and translational research in older adults with TBI.