UPMC Department of Neurology Welcomes Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology Specialist Estevana Isaac-Nyamwaro, MD, MSCR
January 16, 2026
Estevana Isaac-Nyamwaro, MD, MSCR, assistant professor of neurology, joined the UPMC Department of Neurology and the University of Pittsburgh in November 2025. Dr. Isaac-Nyamwaro is the new clinical director of the Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology Division.
Dr. Isaac-Nyamwaro’s clinical care focus is on patients with neurodegenerative and cognitive disorders, with an emphasis on the behavioral and psychiatric manifestations of neurologic diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy Body Dementia, and Frontotemporal Dementia.
Training and Prior Experience
Dr. Isaac-Nyamwaro completed her undergraduate training at the University of Pennsylvania and earned her medical degree from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn. She then returned to Philadelphia and completed her neurology residency training at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, followed by fellowship training in cognitive and behavioral neurology at the University of Pennsylvania.
Immediately prior to joining the University of Pittsburgh and UPMC, Dr. Isaac-Nyamwaro held a faculty at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, where she was clinically active in the care of patients with neurodegenerative disease and engaged in outcomes-focused research. Her clinical and academic work combines a longstanding interest in the intersection between neurology, behavior, and psychiatry.
“Cognitive and behavioral neurology sits at the intersection of neurology and psychiatry,” Dr. Isaac-Nyamwaro says. “That overlap is what drew me to the field, and it’s part of what keeps the work interesting because there is always more to learn.”
Dr Isaac-Nyamwaro’s training also includes completion of the Training in Research for Academic Neurologists to Sustain Careers and Enhance the Numbers of Diverse Scholars (TRANSCENDS) Program, a highly competitive, National Institutes of Health-funded initiative run by the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) and the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). As part of the program, she earned a Master of Science in Clinical Research degree through the program’s research-focused curriculum while faculty at Mount Sinai. The TRANCENDS program provides clinicians structured training in study design, comparative effectiveness research, and clinical trials methodology relevant to real-world patient populations to help sustain a successful academic career.
“The TRANSCENDS program provided the foundation for my training in clinical research,” Dr. Isaac-Nyamwaro says. “It made me much more comfortable with grant writing and with how to design and conduct clinical research.”
Clinical Focus on Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology
Dr. Isaac-Nyamwaro’s clinical practice focuses on patients with neurodegenerative and cognitive disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, with attention to behavioral and psychiatric symptoms that very often complicate patient care and increase the already significant burdens family caregivers shoulder.
Much of Dr. Isaac-Nyamwaro’s clinical work involves evaluating and managing cognitive and behavioral symptoms, such as hallucinations, delusions, agitation, mood changes, and behavioral dysregulation, which often lead to functional decline and safety concerns, emergency evaluations, or earlier loss of independence. These clinical features can be present early in the disease course and may fluctuate over time, requiring repeated reassessment and careful clinical judgment.
“Behavioral and psychiatric symptoms are often what make management challenging,” Dr. Isaac-Nyamwaro says. “They raise safety concerns, complicate decision-making, and place significant demands on caregivers trying to support patients at home.”
Clinical decision making in this setting often involves weighing symptom control against medication risk, particularly in conditions such as Lewy body dementia, where patients may be highly sensitive to antipsychotic medications. Treatment planning therefore goes beyond cognitive testing and diagnosis to include risk assessment, environmental modification, and coordination with caregivers around daily function and supervision.
“For many of these patients, the cognitive and behavioral symptoms are what define the course of their illness,” Dr. Isaac-Nyamwaro says. “They shape how patients function day to day and how care has to be approached and modified over time.”
Research Training and Areas of Focus
Dr. Isaac-Nyamwaro’s clinical research focuses on comparative effectiveness analyses of interventions and care strategies implemented in routine clinical settings, as well as clinical trials evaluating pharmacologic management of neurocognitive and neuropsychiatric symptoms associated with neurodegenerative disease.
Her research approach is oriented toward questions that arise in everyday practice, particularly in situations where multiple treatment strategies are used but evidence guiding selection, sequencing, or long-term outcomes remains limited. Rather than narrowly controlled experimental conditions, her work emphasizes how interventions perform across the heterogeneous patient populations affected by neurodegenerative conditions.
“A lot of the research questions I’m interested in come from situations where there isn’t a clear answer about which approach works best,” Dr. Isaac-Nyamwaro says. “That’s where comparative effectiveness research can be particularly useful.”
She also incorporates principles from community engagement research, including mutual respect and equitable collaboration, to support trust-building and participation among patients and communities. Within this framework, community engagement functions as a methodological approach to strengthening the relevance and applicability of clinical research.
Clinical Director Role and Early Priorities
As Dr. Isaac-Nyamwaro settles into her new role as clinical director of the Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology Division, she is defining priorities for clinical growth and patient-focused clinical research opportunities.
One of her priorities is developing a clinic-based cohort to support systematic tracking of patient characteristics, care patterns, and outcomes within cognitive and behavioral neurology. This clinic-based cohort is intended to support quality improvement efforts and provide a foundation for future research activity.
Clinician training is another important longer-term priority for Dr. Isaac-Nyamwaro. One goal for the future is to develop an accredited fellowship program in cognitive and behavioral neurology or behavioral neurology and neuropsychiatry.
“The goal is to provide focused subspecialty training and to better prepare clinicians to manage the cognitive and behavioral aspects of neurologic diseases,” Dr. Isaac-Nyamwaro says.
Another area of focus for Dr. Isaac-Nyamwaro is expanding opportunities for clinical trials within the division, particularly studies around pharmacologic management of neurocognitive and neuropsychiatric symptoms.
“As our program grows, it will create opportunities to support research and clinical trials that are closely aligned with the patients we care for,” Dr. Isaac-Nyamwaro says.
Memory and Cognitive Disorders Program at UPMC
Learn more about the memory and cognitive disorders programs at UPMC, and the other providers, including:
