Parkinson & Other Movement Disorders Center's Clinical Team

Irene Litvan, M.D., FAAN, FANA, MPhil

Professor of Neurosciences
Director, Parkinson & Other Movement Disorders Center
Tasch Endowed Professor of Parkinson's Disease Research

Dr. Litvan has over thirty years of experience in adult neurology, movement disorders and psychiatry. Throughout her career, she has played a pivotal role in improving the management of parkinsonian and dementia disorders.

She is the Department Mentor Co-Director for Neuroscience and has mentored junior faculty K proposals in two funded NIH studies: TRANSCENDS and COBRE and has been a member of the NINDS NTS1 Review Section that reviews K23 and K08 awards.

Currently, Dr. Irene Litvan is the Treasurer of the International Parkinson and Movement Disorders Society. She has served on numerous committees and boards including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Advisory Board Committee for Neurodegenerative Disorders, Common Data Elements Parkinson Disease Steering Committee for The National Institute of Neurological Disorders (NINDS), RFA American Brain Foundation and Michael J. Fox Foundation. She has also been member of the AAN John Stolk Award workgroup.

In 2023 Dr. Litvan was named among Eight UC San Diego Researchers '1,000 Best Female Scientists in the World' by Research.com.

Stephanie Lessig, M.D.

Professor of Clinical Neurosciences

Dr. Lessig evaluates patients regarding general parkinsonism and other movement disorders, including administration of botulinum toxin and deep brain stimulation programming. Her research interests include Parkinson's cognition and applications of deep brain stimulation.

Sharona Ben-Haim, M.D.

Associate Professor of Clinical Neurological Surgery

Dr. Ben-Haim, MD, is a neurosurgeon who specializes in caring for people with treatment-resistant epilepsy and movement disorders such as Parkinson's disease, dystonia and essential tremor and spasticity. She also treats chronic pain, including facial pain and trigeminal neuralgia, as well as pain related to spinal conditions.

Dr. Ben-Haim performs deep brain stimulation (DBS) surgeries, including "awake" microelectrode-guided DBS and "asleep" MRI- and CT-guided DBS.

She completed a fellowship in epilepsy and functional surgery at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, and was a visiting fellow in functional neurosurgery at University of Oxford in Oxford, England. Dr. Ben-Haim completed residency training in neurosurgery at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York. She earned her medical degree from UC San Diego School of Medicine.

Jody Corey-Bloom, M.D., Ph.D.

Professor of Neurosciences

Dr. Corey-Bloom is also a Staff Physician at UC San Diego’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and Director of the Genetically Handicapped Persons Program and the Huntington’s Disease Society of America (HDSA) Center of Excellence at UC San Diego. She is consistently named by San Diego Magazine as one of the area’s top doctors and was also highly rated by US News & World Report.

Jennifer Friedman, M.D.

Professor of Clinical Neurosciences and Pediatrics

Dr. Friedman is an expert in adult and pediatric movement disorders and has particular interest in genetic and metabolic disorders that affect movement. She directs the Movement Disorders and Tourette/Tic Disorder Clinics at Rady Children’s Hospital and does research in the areas of neurogenetics, Tourette’s Syndrome and disability awareness education.

David Coughlin, M.D., M.T.R.

Assistant Professor of Clinical Neurosciences
Co-Director, Fellowship Program

Dr. Coughlin joined our department in Movement Disorders Division in August 2019. Prior to joining UC San Diego, Dr. Coughlin completed a fellowship in Movement Disorders at the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on neuropathology of movement disorders, dementia with lewy bodies and other neurodegenerative diseases. He specializes in the use of digital image analysis of post-mortem tissue to better determine patters of neuropathology in neurodegenerative disease and how these measurements relate to vivo biomarkers like PET, MRI, CSF, and Clinical measurements.

Caitlin Mulligan, M.D.

Assistant Professor of Clinical Neurosciences
Co-Director, Fellowship Program

Dr. Mulligan joined the department in August 2019 as Assistant Clinical Professor in the Movement Disorders Center. Her areas of expertise are movement disorders and deep brain stimulation. She has an interest in medical education. Dr. Mulligan received her medical degree at UC San Diego, she completed her residency in Neurology and fellowship in Movement Disorder at UC Los Angeles. She was born and raised in California. Aside from Neurology, she enjoys hiking, yoga and spending time with her family.

Robert Hess, M.D.

Assistant Professor of Clinical Neurosciences

Dr. Hess was born and raised in the suburbs of Chicago. He completed his undergraduate studies in History and Pre-Health Studies at the University of Notre Dame . For medical school, he attended Rush Medical College. Dr. Hess then completed his neurology residency at the UC San Diego serving as chief resident his final year. He continued at UC San Diego completing his fellowship in Movement Disorders. 

His past research projects include immunohistochemical staining of corticospinal neurons and dorsal root ganglia in SOD-1 mouse models of ALS at Northwestern University, as well as end-of-life care in patients with atypical parkinsonism disorders at UC San Diego. 

Katherine Longardner, M.D.

Assistant Professor of Clinical Neurosciences

Dr. Longardner is a movement disorders neurologist who evaluates and takes care of patients with conditions including Parkinson disease/parkinsonism, tremor, dystonia, chorea, ataxia, and tics. Her research focuses on parkinsonian non-motor symptoms, especially the relationship between orthostatic hypotension and cognition. She is also interested in using non-invasive electrophysiology techniques to diagnose tremor and other types of involuntary movements.

Kathy Huynh, NP-C

Nurse Practitioner

Ms. Huynh graduated from UC San Diego graduating in 2000 with a BS in biochemistry and cell biology. She was licensed as a registered nurse in 2007 and obtained her MS in Nursing in 2010 from Samuel Merritt University. She is board certified by the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners as a Family Nurse Practitioner.

David Molina, RN

Registered Nurse 

Mr. Molina began is career at UC San Diego in Family Medicine as a Resource/Lead RN. He also has experience in Nephrology, Urology, Urgent Care, Trama, Cardiac and Neuro ICU, step-down leadership and management. Originally from Northern California, Mr. Molina enjoys San Diego, taking advantage of outdoor activities, traveling, and spending time with friends and family. He is passionate about patient care and making an impact within our community. 

Adriana Gonzalez, MSW

Licensed Clinical Social Worker

Ms. Gonzalez is a graduate of San Diego State University obtaining her master's degree in social work. Adriana spent the last seven years dedicated to providing clinical social work services in a medical setting, five of those years have been here at UC San Diego. Adriana is committed to working closely with the clinical team to support patients in meeting their treatment goals. Adriana is bilingual speaking both English & Spanish and leads ¡Juntos Unidos!, a Latino outreach program for Parkinson's disease. Outside of work Adriana enjoys traveling, listening to live music & spending time with her family.

Dietrich Haubenberger, M.D.

Voluntary Associate Clinical Professor

Dr. Haubenberger received his medical degree and trainings as a neurologist at the Medical University of Vienna, Austria, followed by a tenure track position to become Associate Professor of Neurology in 2014. Dr. Haubenberger research in movement disorders focuses on clinical trials and the development of outcome measure projects in tremor disorders. He has published in the field of clinical genetics, neurophysiology, as well as outcome measure development. Dr. Haubenberger leads efforts for clinical neurophysiological workup of patients with tremor and other hyperkinetic movement disorders and will teach trainees in these techniques.