People

Jeffrey L. Cummings, MD, ScD, is Chair of the ACTC Neuropsychiatric Symptoms Committee.

Dr. Cumming is Vice Chair of Research, UNLV Department of Brain Health. He is Founding Director of the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Professor of Medicine (Neurology), Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University. Dr. Cummings is Principal Investigator/Director of the NIH/NIGMS-funded Center for Neurodegeneration and Translational Neuroscience.

Dr. Cummings is a world-renowned Alzheimer’s researcher and leader of clinical trials. He has been recognized for his research and leadership contributions in the field of Alzheimer’s disease through the Henderson Award of the American Geriatrics Society (2006), the Ronald and Nancy Reagan Research Award of the national Alzheimer’s Association (2008), and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Society for Behavioral and Cognitive Neurology (2017). In 2010, he was honored by the American Association of Geriatric Psychiatry with their Distinguished Scientist Award. In 2018, he was honored with the Leadership and Achievement Award by the International Society of CNS Drug Development, and he received the Bengt Winblad Lifetime Achievement Award from the national Alzheimer’s Association. In 2019, the International Psychogeriatric Association awarded him with the Distinguished Service Award and he received the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation’s Melvin R. Goodes Prize that honors an innovative researcher who has made a significant and lasting impact in the field. He was featured in the Gentleman’s Quarterly (June 2009) as a “Rock Star of Science™.”

Dr. Cummings’ interests embrace clinical trials, developing new therapies for brain diseases, and the interface of neuroscience and society.

Dr. Cummings completed Neurology residency and a Fellowship in Behavioral Neurology at Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts. US training was followed by a Research Fellowship in Neuropathology and Neuropsychiatry at the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, Queen Square, London, England. Dr. Cummings was formerly Augustas Rose Professor of Neurology and Professor of Psychiatry at UCLA, Director of the Mary S. Easton Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research at UCLA, and Director of the Deane F. Johnson Center for Neurotherapeutics at UCLA. He is past president of the Behavioral Neurology Society and of the American Neuropsychiatric Association.

Dr. Cummings has authored or edited 43 books and published over 750 peer-reviewed papers.