Dr. Vega recently joined the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry. She is a first-generation college graduate who received Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of Arizona. Dr. Vega received her doctorate in Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience from Vanderbilt University in 2018. Her dissertation work focused on investigating nicotine as a treatment for cognitive impairment secondary to chemotherapy in lymphoma, breast, ovarian and colon cancer survivors. She has a broad background in neuroimaging, cognitive psychology, and clinical neuroscience research. Her postdoctoral research focused largely on developing and initiating a feasibility study looking at using a novel cognitive enhancement strategy to treat chemotherapy-related cognitive impairment in cancer survivors. Her scientific interests lie in translational research focused on pathologic cognitive aging in patient populations vulnerable to late-life cognitive impairment.