Erik Roberson, MD, PhD, is a physician-scientist with a focus on age-related neurodegenerative diseases. He earned his AB with highest honors from Princeton University, then his MD and PhD in neuroscience at Baylor College of Medicine, where he studied molecular mechanisms of learning and memory. He completed a residency in neurology at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), where he also served as chief resident in neurology. After residency, he completed a clinical fellowship in behavioral neurology at UCSF and resumed basic research at the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease. He joined the faculty at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) in 2008.

The Roberson lab studies the neurobiology of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD), with a focus on understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms of these disorders and identifying new therapeutic strategies. Focus areas include tau and its binding partners in neuronal dysfunction in AD, the mechanisms by which genetic risk factors drive AD, and how progranulin deficiency causes FTD.

Roberson directs the UAB Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and the Center for Neurodegeneration and Experimental Therapeutics, serves as vice chair for Basic and Translational Research in the Department of Neurology, and cares for patients at the UAB Brain Aging and Memory Clinic.