Veena A Nair PhD

Veena Nair, PhD grew up in Pune, India. She obtained her undergraduate degree from the College of Engineering, in Pune, India. Dr. Nair attended Old Dominion University for her master’s in psychology and University of South Carolina for her graduate fellowship and doctorate in experimental psychology. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship in the department of radiology and through a fellowship from the American Heart Association.

Before joining the Clinical Imaging Physics section as a faculty member in 2025, Dr. Nair worked in the department as a scientist for a decade.

Dr. Nair’s expertise lies in cognitive neuroscience, with multiple research interests, including the study of human brain plasticity associated with aging and disease. With her background in experimental psychology, she focuses on applying multimodal structural and functional brain imaging techniques across various patient populations.

Dr. Nair’s research investigates age-related cerebrovascular factors, such as stroke, that are believed to precipitate vascular contributions to cognitive impairment and dementia (VCID) and may promote the progression of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and mixed dementia.

Her clinical focus includes the use of functional MRI for pre-surgical planning in patients with brain tumors, vascular lesions, and epilepsy. She serves as both co-Principal Investigator and co-Investigator on multiple research grants from the NIH. Dr. Nair has published 90+ peer-reviewed articles, in addition to several conference papers and book chapters.