Joseph, A. Helpern, Ph.D. is the founder of the Charleston Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease. He has been involved with the development of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) since the inception of the field focusing mainly in the area of neurodegenerative disorders. His most current research involves the development of diffusional kurtosis imaging, a novel MRI technique invented by his laboratory, which provides insight into the changes in brain tissue micro-architecture as a result of disease.