About us

Karen Marder, MD, MPH is the Sally Kerlin Professor of Neurology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. She has served as the Chief of the Division of Aging and Dementia since 2001 and has directed the United Council for Neurologic Subspecialties (UCNS) fellowship in Behavioral Neurology & Neuropsychiatry since its inception.
In both research and patient care, Dr. Marder is focused on the epidemiology and treatment of cognitive, behavioral, and motor impairments in a range of neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson’s disease (PD), Huntington’s Disease (HD), HIV dementia, Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and related disorders.
Her research has focused on characterizing the earliest motor and non-motor signs associated with genetic forms of PD. She served as co-chair and chair of the Executive Committee of the Parkinson Study Group (2006-2012), a consortium of North American investigators participating in collaborative PD research at 120 sites. She is the founding (1991) and current director of the multidisciplinary Huntington's Disease Society of America Center of Excellence at Columbia which serves over 250 families receiving clinical care and participating in clinical trials and observational studies. She serves as associate director of the Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (CTSA). In addition, Dr. Marder is a principal investigator of the Columbia University–Weill Cornell NIH-funded NeuroNEXT site, a clinical trial network whose goal is to conduct Phase II biomarker informed neurological clinical trials.