Research Interests:
Dr. Moncaster’s research focuses on Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), Aging, Down Syndrome, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), Eye/Lens/Retina biology.

Background:
Dr Moncaster trained as a graduate student in retinal biology in Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) under the mentorship of Drs Steve Gentleman and Ling-Sun Jen at Imperial College London, United Kingdom. She conducted her postdoctoral training in lens biology and AD first at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School and then Boston University both under the mentorship of Dr Lee Goldstein. She is a primary contributor in the development, application, and testing of the first generation QLS instruments for non-invasive in vivo early detection and quantitative assessment of AD-associated molecular pathology in the lens of the eye (Moncaster et al., Exp. Eye Res. 2022; Sarangi et al., Exp. Eye Res. 2024). This technology is now FDA-approved and currently undergoing clinical evaluation. Dr Moncaster was the primary contributor to the discovery of the cause of cataracts in Down syndrome (Moncaster, PloS One, 2010), which established the molecular linkage between Alzheimer’s disease pathology in the lens and brain that affects individuals with Down syndrome. She made major contributions to the discovery and biological validation of a new gene (CTNND2) linked to Alzheimer’s disease (Jun, PloS One, 2012). Dr Moncaster also played a key role in the discovery of a tau protein-linked neurodegenerative disease called Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) in U.S. military veterans exposed to explosive blast during deployment and sport-related traumatic brain injuries (Goldstein et al., Science Trans Med, 2012; Kondo et al., Nature 2015; Tagge et al., Brain 2018). Dr Moncaster is a member of the BU Center for Biometallomics (CBM) involved in projects investigating Blood Brain Barrier (BBB) dysfunction and metal composition in different organs in humans and in rodents using high-resolution metallomic imaging mass spectrometry (MIMS) analytical mapping (Minaeva et al., Radiology, 2020; Hua et al., Radiology, 2023).

Awards and Memberships:
Dr Moncaster have been awarded the Mysell Research Award (Brigham & Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School), the Research Excellence Award (Brigham & Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School), and 2nd Prize for Translational Research from the NIH-funded Clinical & Translational Science Institute (CTSI), BU.
Dr Moncaster is a member of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO); International Society to Advance Alzheimer’s Research and Treatment (ISTAART), Alzheimer’s Association.