By Erin Jester
Breton Asken, Ph.D., an assistant professor of clinical and health psychology in the University of Florida College of Public Health and Health Professions, has received UF’s 2026 Excellence Award for Assistant Professors — one of the university’s top honors for a junior faculty member.
“Dr. Asken’s work represents a compelling combination of innovation, clinical relevance and collaborative leadership that has impact far beyond what is expected of an early career faculty member,” said Beth Virnig, Ph.D., M.P.H., dean of the College of Public Health and Health Professions. “His research continues to advance our understanding of how brain injury and neurodegenerative processes intersect across the lifespan, positioning him as a valuable contributor to the future of Alzheimer’s disease, dementia research and clinical psychology education.”
Asken’s research has two parallel aims: uncovering the cognitive, behavioral and biological markers for Alzheimer’s disease and related causes of dementia, and outlining the long-term degenerative disease risks associated with repetitive head trauma. The research incorporates behavioral and cognitive assessments with brain imaging and testing for disease biomarkers in blood and cerebrospinal fluid, with the overarching goal of improving outcomes for the spectrum of neurodegenerative diseases that are notoriously difficult to predict, accurately diagnose and treat.
He holds joint affiliations with the 1Florida Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, the Normal Fixel Institute for Neurological Diseases, the McKnight Brain Institute, the Center for Cognitive Aging and Memory, and the UF Brain Injury, Rehabilitation and Neuroresilience Center.
In 2024 Asken was awarded a UF Research Opportunity Seed Fund to investigate how repetitive head trauma impacts the onset, progression and biological pathways altered in Parkinson’s disease. The same year, Asken and colleagues at institutions across the country launched DIAGNOSE CTE-II, a landmark $15 million initiative led at Boston University to develop accurate diagnostic tools and improve understanding of risk and protective factors for chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, a neurodegenerative disease that cannot currently be diagnosed accurately while an individual is alive.
In 2025, the results of Asken’s pilot study on emerging biomarkers for detecting abnormal alpha-synuclein, the protein associated with Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body disorders, helped secure a two-year, multi-site $2.5 million initiative, which Dr. Asken will co-lead with colleagues at UT Health San Antonio. The first-of-its-kind study seeks to validate new diagnostic tools, improve clinical interpretations and inform real-world practice guidelines for using these tests in patients with Lewy body- or Alzheimer’s-related disorders while creating a unique data and biospecimen repository that will be open to the greater research community.
To date, Asken has contributed to approximately 100 peer-reviewed publications and his work has been cited more than 3,800 times. He has been invited to participate in two National Institutes of Health summits, including currently serving as co-chair of the Biomarker Working Group for the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Summit to be held in 2027.
Asken is the chair of five doctoral committees and a member of four additional doctoral committees. He currently has five doctoral neuropsychology trainees and has provided clinical supervision in the Fixel Institute Memory Disorders Clinic for seven postdoctoral fellows and 15 interns.
The Excellence Award for Assistant Professors comes with a one-time allocation of $5,000 to support research-related expenses.