Appendix B

Biographical Sketches for Workshop Planning Committee Members and Speakers

PLANNING COMMITTEE MEMBERS

EMILY M. AGREE (Chair, she/her/hers) is research professor at Johns Hopkins University and associate director of the Hopkins Population Center. Her research focuses on disability and long-term care, aging families, and intergenerational relationships. Agree is a member of the steering committee for the National Health and Aging Trends Study, a nationally representative longitudinal study of disability in later life. Her work has focused on the relationship of assistive technology use to disability in later life and the influence of population aging on family relationships and old-age support. Agree has served on the Population Association of America board of directors and on the editorial boards of Demography, the Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, and Research on Aging. She has an M.A. in demography from Georgetown University and a Ph.D. in sociology from Duke University. Agree is a member of the Committee on Population with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

JENNIFER AILSHIRE (she/her/hers) is associate professor of gerontology and sociology, assistant dean of research, and associate dean of international programs and global initiatives at the University of Southern California. Her research addresses questions that lie at the intersections of social stratification, urban sociology, and the sociology of health and aging. In particular, Ailshire’s research focuses on the importance of the neighborhood environment and social relationships in determining health over the life course. A consistent theme throughout her work is an interest

in gender, socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic inequality in health. Current projects include research on the links between air pollution and health in older adults, neighborhood determinants of racial and ethnic health disparities, and social factors associated with poor sleep. Ailshire has a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan.

AMY J. H. KIND (she/her/hers) is the inaugural associate dean for social health sciences and programs at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. In this role, she oversees, creates synergies, and guides the growth of the school’s current and future initiatives, policies, and programs designed to study and eliminate health disparities. She works closely with leaders in research, education, clinical, and public health realms to build capacity and ensure the advancement of health equity research. Kind is also a professor of medicine and serves as leader of the Care Research Core of the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. She also is a resource for connecting basic and clinical scientists with social scientists to facilitate discoveries in social exposome research, a key area in mechanistic health disparities inquiry. Kind serves as executive director of the $400 million Wisconsin Partnership Program grant-making endowment, serves as director of the University of Wisconsin Center for Health Disparities Research, and provides oversight to the Milwaukee-based Center for Community Engagement and Health Partnerships. She has an M.D. from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.

JENNIFER J. MANLY (she/her/hers) is professor of neuropsychology in the Department of Neurology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Her research focuses on mechanisms of inequalities in cognitive aging and Alzheimer’s Disease. Manly’s research team has partnered with Black and Latinx communities in New York City, and around the United States, to design and carry out investigations of structural and social forces across the life course, such as educational opportunities, racism and discrimination, and socioeconomic status, and how these factors relate to cognition and brain health later in life. Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Alzheimer’s Association. Manly has authored more than 220 peer-reviewed publications and 10 book chapters. She was the 2014 recipient of the Tony Wong Diversity Award for Outstanding Mentorship and was the recipient of the Paul Satz-International Neuropsychological Society Career Mentoring Award in 2020. Manly served on the HHS Advisory Council on Alzheimer’s Research, Care, and Services, has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine, and is a member of the National Advisory Council on Aging. She completed her Ph.D. in neuropsychology at the San Diego State University/University of California, San Diego’s joint doctoral program in clinical psychology. Manly is a member

of the Committee on Population with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

WENDY A. ROGERS (she/her/hers) is the Khan Professor of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She also serves as director of the McKechnie Family LIFE Home, director of the Health Technology Education Program, program director of Collaborations in Health, Aging, Research, and Technology, and director of the Human Factors and Aging Laboratory. Rogers’s research interests include design for aging, technology acceptance, human–automation interaction, aging in place, human–robot interaction, aging with disabilities, cognitive aging, and training. Her research is funded by the National Institutes of Health through the National Institute on Aging and the National Institute of Nursing Research and the Department of Health and Human Services through the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research. Rogers has a Ph.D. in psychology from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

SARAH L. SZANTON (she/her/hers) is the dean and Patricia M. Davidson Health Equity and Social Justice Endowed Professor. She holds a joint appointment in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Szanton’s research includes improving health equity among older adults, aging in the community, the effects of financial strain on health, and structural racial discrimination and resilience. She co-developed the CAPABLE program, which has been tested in randomized trials and scaled to 45 new sites in 23 states. Szanton is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and the American Academy of Nursing, was a 2019 Heinz Award winner for the Human Condition, and is a PBS Organization’s “Next Avenue Influencers in Aging.” She has published more than 160 papers and has been the principal investigator on more than $20 million in grants. Szanton’s work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services Innovation Center, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the John A. Hartford Foundation, the Rita and Alex Hillman Foundation, the St. David’s Foundation, and the AARP Foundation. She has a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University.

WILLIAM A. VEGA (he/him/his) is distinguished professor and senior scholar for community health, Florida International University. He previously had appointments on the faculties of the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Southern California, and the Rutgers Medical Schools. He conducted community and clinical research on life course health, mental health and substance abuse issues, treatment development,

and services in diverse regions of the United States and Latin America. In the past several years, Vega’s research has focused on older adult health and functioning, and the prevention and management of dementia in low-resource populations. He has directed university research centers, is highly published and cited, and is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine. Vega’s research has been supported by multiple public and private agencies and foundations. Presently, he is conducting research on social determinants of health in vulnerable populations and implementation of supporting services during the transition from late middle age to older adulthood, domestically and globally. Vega has a Ph.D. in criminology from the University of California, Berkeley.

SPEAKERS

“AJ” ADKINS-JACKSON (she/her/hers) is a multidisciplinary community-partnered health equity researcher and assistant professor in the Departments of Epidemiology and Sociomedical Sciences in the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. Her research investigates the role of structural racism on healthy aging for historically marginalized populations like Black and Pacific Islander communities. Adkins-Jackson’s primary project examines the role of life course adverse community-level policing exposure on psychological well-being, cognitive function, and biological aging for Black and Latinx/a/o older adults. Her secondary project tests the effectiveness of an anti-racist multilevel pre-intervention restorative program to increase community health and institutional trustworthiness through multisector community-engaged partnerships. Adkins-Jackson is an alumna of the psychometrics doctoral program at Morgan State University, a historically Black university, and a board member of the Society for the Analysis of African American Public Health Issues.

EMMY BETZ (she/her/hers) is nationally known as a pioneer in injury prevention research, with a focus on older adults and firearm injury prevention. Her research on older driver decision making and firearm access in dementia has been funded by the National Institutes of Health. She launched the CU Firearm Injury Prevention Initiative in March 2023 to serve as a trusted community and national resource for firearm-related research and solutions. Betz’s approach to injury prevention has been highly recognized, and she collaborates with academic colleagues, state agencies and communities to encourage unity in preventing firearm injuries and deaths on a national scale. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Yale University and graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a medical degree and a master’s in public health. Betz completed her emergency medicine residency at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston,

where she served as chief resident and began conducting research on older drivers, firearm injury, and suicide. She is currently a professor of emergency medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and a research physician at the Eastern Colorado Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center of the Veterans Health Administration.

ANDREW B. COHEN (he/him/his) is an assistant professor in geriatrics at Yale School of Medicine and the VA Connecticut Healthcare System. He conducts research about health care decision making for persons living with dementia. Cohen has a particular interest in those who are unrepresented or “unbefriended” in the sense that they have diminished capacity and no suitable surrogate to make decisions on their behalf. In work funded by GEMSSTAR and Beeson awards from the National Institute on Aging, he has investigated decision making under guardianship, which is the default mechanism for addressing this issue. Cohen has received the Outstanding Junior Investigator of the Year award from the American Geriatrics Society. He earned a doctorate in English literature from the University of Oxford and a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

THOMAS CUDJOE (he/him/his) is Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Endowed Assistant Professor and assistant professor of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University. He leverages community-based strategies, mixed-methods, and human-centered design to understand and address social isolation. Additionally, he has led studies that examined the prevalence of social isolation among older adults and associations between social isolation and health outcomes. His findings from a large nationally representative study indicate that social isolation has biological influences and could lead to poor health outcomes such as dementia and premature mortality—a finding of particular import since one in four community dwelling adults over age 65 are considered socially isolated. Cudjoe’s work points to the importance of developing programs and interventions to address isolation among the aged. He holds an M.D. from Rutgers University’s Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

CHANEE FABIUS (she/her/hers) is an assistant professor in health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her research informs aging and disability policies to reduce health care disparities and improve health equity for older adults and people with disabilities using long-term services and supports (LTSS). Fabius collaborates with communities to understand and improve how service providers, individuals, and families work together ensure equity in LTSS delivery. She received her Ph.D. in human development and family studies from the University of Connecticut.

BRUCE FINKE (he/him/his) is a family physician and geriatrician serving as elder health consultant in the Indian Health Service (IHS) and supporting the newly established IHS Alzheimer’s Grant Program. Previously, as a primary care physician at the Zuni IHS hospital, he worked with Zuni Tribal programs in the development of clinical and community-based elder services. Finke has provided leadership in program and policy development in geriatrics and palliative care in the IHS and engaged with Tribes in improvement in geriatric clinical care and the development of long-term services and supports. He co-led the IHS primary care transformation initiative, Improving Patient Care, and served in a number of leadership roles in the Nashville Area of the IHS. For the last decade, Finke’s time has been shared with the CMS Innovation Center as a senior advisor in the Learning and Diffusion Group, supporting the development of new payment and care models through the design of learning systems to foster innovation, accelerate performance, and generate insight into care delivery. He remains clinically active and represents the IHS on the Department of Health and Human Services’ Advisory Council on Alzheimer’s Research, Care, and Services.

JESSICA FINLAY (she/her/hers) is an assistant professor in the Department of Geography and Institute of Behavioral Science at the University of Colorado Boulder. She is a health geographer and environmental gerontologist who uses mixed methods to investigate how built, social, and natural environments affect health, well-being, and quality of life. In particular, Finlay focuses on aging in place and cognitive health disparities among underrepresented and underserved older adults. She also investigates impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on neighborhood environments and health among aging Americans. Her National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation-funded research has received recognition including the NIH Matilda White Riley Behavioral and Social Science Honors. She received the National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center Rising Star Award and the Gerontological Society of America’s Carroll L. Estes Rising Star Award. Finlay has an M.A. and Ph.D. in geography and gerontology from the University of Minnesota and completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Michigan.

LAURA N. GITLIN (she/her/hers) is a distinguished university professor, dean emerita, and founding executive director of the Age Well Collaboratory in the College of Nursing and Health Professions, Drexel University, and an adjunct research professor at Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. She is a sociologist by training and internationally recognized as an intervention scientist with continuous National Institutes of Health funding for over 35 years. Gitlin’s research focuses on developing, evaluating, implementing and

disseminating novel home- and community-based interventions to support aging in place and quality of life for older adults and family caregivers. Her interventions have resulted in improved physical and psychosocial outcomes, reduced mortality and health care savings. Gitlin has received various awards and select interventions and measures have been translated into different languages, adapted in various countries, and deployed in health systems and community-based programs within the United States. She has served as a member on National Academies of Sciences, Medicine, and Engineering committees including Families Caring for an Aging America and Human Factors in Home Health Care, as well as being a contributor to the decadal review of dementia care and invited speaker at summits hosted by the National Academies.

GINA GREEN-HARRIS (she/her/hers) is director of the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Institute Regional Milwaukee Office, as well as director of the University of Wisconsin’s (UW’s) School of Medicine and Public Health Center for Community Engagement and Health Partnerships in Milwaukee. Green-Harris has expertise in the areas of health equity, diversity and inclusion, cultural competency, leadership development, and research. She has received numerous awards and recognition for her work, including an UW–Madison Outstanding Woman of Color Award. In September 2020, she was appointed to chair the Governor’s Health Equity Council. Green-Harris holds an M.B.A. from Franklin University and a B.S. from Central State University. She is currently a 4th year Ph.D. graduate student (dissertator status) at UW’s Center for Health Disparities Research.

EMILY A. GREENFIELD (she/her/hers) is a professor of social work and director of the Hub for Aging Collaboration at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Her scholarship seeks to bolster community-centered approaches for advancing innovation and equity in social programs for long and healthy lives. Greenfield’s work has helped to accelerate 21st century models for aging in community, including age- and dementia-friendly community initiatives, housing-based supportive service programs, and village organizations. Hallmark features of her scholarship include both studying and participating in cross-sectoral partnerships on aging, as well as centering the voices of people leading on-the-ground community change efforts. Greenfield also conducts research on how social inequalities from childhood influence later life cognition and well-being. Funders of her work have included the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, National Institute on Aging, Alzheimer’s Association, and philanthropic foundations. She obtained a Ph.D. in human development and family studies from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

LOUISE LAFORTUNE (she/her/hers) is associate professor at Cambridge Public Health, University of Cambridge, and co-leads its life course and aging research pillar. She is principal investigator for the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) School for Public Health Research and co-leads the NIHR Population Evidence and Data Science theme for the Applied Research Collaboration East of England. Lafortune’s research has focused on developing the evidence base to address the manifold needs of older adults and help them retain quality of life in their communities. She currently leads a multifaceted research program on the social return on investment of Age Friendly Community initiatives. Lafortune serves on the World Health Organization’s Technical Advisory Group for Measurement, Monitoring and Evaluation of the United Nation’s Decade of Healthy Ageing, and recently chaired the Aging, Longevity and Health initiative of the International Alliance of Research Universities. She holds a dual Ph.D. in public health, specialized in organization of health services and epidemiology from both the Université de Montreal and Université de Paris.

TERRI LEWINSON (she/her/his) is an associate professor at The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice. Her research focuses on the experience of home environments for people who have been marginalized—whether that may be in an extended-stay hotel, assisted-living facility, or senior housing—to gain an intimate understanding of what it’s like for them to reside there. This work includes exploring the factors involved in residential mobility, or why people transition into and out of different home environments. Lewinson is a Gerontological Society of America Fellow, Health and Aging Policy Fellow, and a John A. Hartford Faculty Scholar. Other awards and honors include being named Alumna of the Year at the University of Georgia’s School of Social Work and receiving the Distinguished Faculty Award from the Gerontology Institute at Georgia State University. She earned a B.A. from the University of South Carolina in developmental psychology, an M.S.W. from the University of Georgia, and a Ph.D. from the University of Georgia’s School of Social Work.

ERIN LONG (she/her/hers) is an aging and disability program coordinator at the Administration on Aging (AoA) within the Administration for Community Living (ACL)—a federal agency providing support for older adults and people with disabilities. Alzheimer’s programs she oversees at AoA have positively impacted the reduction of stigma towards individuals living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia. Long’s experience includes volunteering and working in nursing homes and assisted living communities, and she completed a practicum in a community living program for people living with disabilities. She holds a B.A. in sociology and an M.A. in social work.

JENNIFER MOLINSKY (she/her/hers) is a senior research associate at the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University and a lecturer in urban planning and design. She manages the Center’s research on housing for older adults. Molinsky was lead author on several publications, including The State of the Nation’s Housing 2019; Older Households 2015–2035: Projections and Implications for Housing a Growing Population (2016); and Housing America’s Older Adults: Meeting the Needs of an Aging Population (2014). She speaks widely on the importance of suitable and affordable housing for America’s older adults and has written about the role of housing on well-being and health in older age. Molinsky’s work has also focused on housing affordability. She was a co-editor of the books A Shared Future: Fostering Communities of Inclusion in an Era of Inequality (2018) and Homeownership Built to Last: Balancing Access, Affordability, and Risk After the Housing Crisis (2014). Molinsky holds a B.A. from Yale University, a M.A. in public affairs-urban and regional planning from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton, and a Ph.D. in urban planning from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

RAKSHA MUDAR (she/her/hers) is a professor of speech and hearing science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research has two interrelated goals: one, to understand how normal cognitive aging and age-related conditions (e.g., mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s dementia, age-associated hearing loss) impact cognitive and social health; and two, to develop nonpharmacological interventions to support cognitive and social health in older adults. Mudar has served as the co-chair of the Joint Committee on Interprofessional Relations Between the American Psychological Association and the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) and is an ASHA Fellow. Her research is funded by the National Institutes of Health through the National Institute of Nursing Research. Mudar has a Ph.D. in communication sciences and disorders from the University of Texas at Dallas.

FRANK OSWALD (he /him/his) is professor for interdisciplinary ageing research, chair of the Frankfurt Forum for interdisciplinary Ageing Research at the Goethe University, Germany, and director of the Goethe Research Academy for Early Career Researchers Center for Aging. His research interests include contexts of adult development, issues of person-environment transaction and transitions in old age, housing, ageing in place, relocation, and the role of technologies in later life. Oswald has conducted research in the field of environmental gerontology on the local, national, and European level. He is a fellow of the Gerontological Society of America, a member of the International Society for Gerontechnology, and of the International Association for People-Environment Studies. Oswald’s research is funded

by the European Commission, the German Research Foundation, several federal German ministries, communities, and private foundations (e.g., the Volkswagen Foundation). He has a Ph.D. in psychology from the University Heidelberg.

MANISH N. SHAH (he/him/his) is professor and chair of the BerbeeWalsh Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and holds the Azita G. Hamedani Distinguished Chair of Emergency Medicine. As a practicing emergency medicine physician and a researcher with funding from the National Institutes of Health, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Health Resources and Services Administration, Shah has dedicated his career to improving the care delivered to acutely ill or injured older adults. His work has helped establish the field of geriatric emergency medicine and advanced the role of ambulance-based paramedics to support community health efforts, now termed “community paramedicine.” Shah’s recent work, which has taken place in both urban and rural communities in Wisconsin and New York, has focused on helping persons living with dementia. He has received the Paul B. Beeson Career Development Award from the National Institute on Aging and the Pioneer Award from the Academy of Geriatric Emergency Medicine. Shah completed his residency in emergency medicine at The Ohio State University and further research training through the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program. He received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago and an M.D. and M.P.H. from the University of Rochester.

REGINA SHIH (she/her/hers) is a professor of epidemiology at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health, adjunct senior policy researcher at RAND, and board member of the National Alliance for Caregiving. Dr. Shih’s diverse research interests are centered on community-engaged approaches and policy-relevant outcomes achieved through multilevel analysis of large datasets, study design, strategic planning, and program evaluation. With collaborators, she is estimating the long-term effects of redlining on older adult cognitive health, modeling the social networks of dementia family caregivers, engaging villages to promote healthy aging interventions, and advancing dementia home- and community-based services research through the Community Care Network for Dementia (CaN-D). Previously she led projects that examined neighborhood influences on dementia risk, published a policy blueprint for dementia long-term care that resulted in Congressional testimony; and developed a toolkit for public health departments and age-friendly initiatives to collaborate on older adult climate preparedness. She holds a B.A. in neuroscience from the Johns Hopkins University and a Ph.D. in psychiatric epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

LAURA TREJO (she/her/hers), the director of the Los Angeles County Aging and Disabilities Department, is responsible for launching a new county department along with establishing a proactive, coordinated, and comprehensive strategy and service delivery system for older adults and adults with disabilities. She oversees programs and operations such as Adult Protective Services, the Area Agency on Aging, 14 Community and Senior Centers, and the work of the Los Angeles Commission on Older Adults and Commission on Disabilities. Trejo was general manager of the City of Los Angeles Department of Aging and the first district chief for countywide older adult mental health for the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health. A national leader and trailblazer, she has consulted with and trained other leaders throughout the United States on the development of programs for older adults, focusing on cultural competence. An internationally recognized expert, Trejo has worked with international organizations and countries around the world to develop initiatives and programs in the areas of aging, mental health, Alzheimer’s, and rehabilitation. She currently serves as president of the California Association of Area Agencies on Aging and serves on various boards and committees, including the editorial board of Generations. Trejo has received numerous awards for excellence and leadership, among them the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Community Health Leadership Award. She holds an M.S. in gerontology, an M.P.A., a graduate certificate in long term-care administration, and a Ph.D. in social work, all from the University of Southern California.

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