John A. Batsis, MD, FACP, AGSF, FGSA, FTOS, is an Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in Geriatric Medicine and Nutrition. Dr. Batsis is a geriatrician and clinician researcher who is board certified in Internal Medicine, Geriatrics, and Obesity Medicine. He provides care in the outpatient and nursing home setting to older adults with obesity, multimorbidity, and frailty. His research focuses on the interplay between fat and muscle in older adults mongst older adults with a goal of improving physical function during weight loss. He also focuses on methods relevant to understanding the heterogeneity of aging. Dr. Batsis is funded by the National Institutes of Health having published over 240 papers. He is co-Chair of the Obesity Section of the Gerontological Society of America and a member of international consortiums including the Global Leadership Initiative for Sarcopenia and the Sarcopenic Obesity Global Leadership Initiative.

Joe Gaugler is the Robert L. Kane Endowed Chair in Long-Term Care & Aging in the School of Public Health and a Distinguished McKnight University Professor at the University of Minnesota. He is the Director of the Center for Healthy Aging and Innovation, Director of the CDC-funded BOLD Public Health Center of Excellence on Dementia Caregiving, Director of the National Institute on Aging-funded EMBRACE AD/ADRD Roybal and State Alzheimer's Research Support Centers, and Editor-in-Chief of The Gerontologist. His research focuses on dementia care innovation.

Emily M. Agree, PhD, is a Research Professor in the Department of Sociology and the Department of Population, Family, and Reproductive Health at Johns Hopkins University and Associate Director of the Hopkins Population Center. Her research focuses on aging, disability, long-term care, family relationships in later life, and the social and demographic factors shaping health and well-being among older adults. Dr. Agree has played a key role in national aging research, including serving on the steering committee for the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS), a major longitudinal study examining disability and functioning in later life. Her work also explores assistive technologies, caregiving, and how demographic changes affect family support systems for older adults. She has served on the Board of Directors of the Population Association of America and on the editorial boards of several leading journals, including Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences and Research on Aging. Dr. Agree earned her PhD in sociology from Duke University and her MA in demography from Georgetown University. She is also a Fellow of The Gerontological Society of America.

Spero M. Manson, Ph.D. (Little Shell Chippewa) is Distinguished Professor of Public Health and Psychiatry, occupies the Colorado Trust Chair in American Indian Health, and directs the Centers for American Indian and Alaska Native Health in the Colorado School of Public Health at the University of Colorado Denver’s Anschutz Medical Center. His programs include 10 national centers, which pursue research, program development, training, and collaboration with 200 Native communities. Dr. Manson has acquired >$260 million in sponsored research to support this work, and published 300 articles on the assessment, epidemiology, treatment, and prevention of physical, alcohol, drug, as well as mental health problems over the developmental life span of Native people. He has received over 30 national from the NIH, CDC, APHA, AAMC, IHS, numerous professional organizations, and the National Academy of Medicine. He is widely acknowledged as one of the nation’s leading authorities regarding Native health.

Marcia G. Ory, PhD, MPH is a Regents and Distinguished Professor and Center for Community Health and Aging Core Faculty at the Texas A&M School of Public Health in the USA. Her research focuses on factors associated with healthy aging and social, behavioral, environmental, and technological solutions for promoting health and well-being across the life course in diverse populations and settings. Committed to translating research to practice and ensuring that all populations can age well, she is a founding member of the National Consortium on RE-AIM Planning and Evaluation Framework (www.re-aim-org). Additionally, she is a co-Lead of the Texas A&M Dementia and Alzheimer’s Research Initiative and engages in research to scale and sustain evidence-based programs to reduce dementia caregiving burdens. Among her many accolades, she’s especially proud to be a Fellow of The Gerontological Society of America.

Dr. Lauren J. Parker, PhD, MPH, is an Associate Scientist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her research advances dementia care and support for all families, with a focus on communities who experience higher prevalence and greater risk of dementia. She develops and implements culturally tailored, community-based interventions to ensure that services and resources reach those most in need, with the goal of achieving parity in dementia care. Dr. Parker is Principal Investigator of an NIA-funded K01 study examining biological and psychosocial stress pathways among caregivers and serves as Co-Investigator with the State Alzheimer’s Research Support Center (StARS) and the Implementation Core of the NIA-funded IMPACT Collaboratory. A national leader in dementia caregiving science, Dr. Parker works at the intersection of research, policy, and practice to strengthen support for people living with dementia and their caregivers.

Dr. Sidney M. Stahl served as the Chief of the Individual Behavioral Processes Branch at the National Institute on Aging (NIA), National Institutes of Health (NIH) from 1996 until retiring in 2012. He promoted diversity in aging research by creating the Resource Centers for Minority Aging Research (RCMAR) program and initiating NIA’s research programs on elder abuse. After retiring, he served as elder abuse research consultant to the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Administration for Community Living/Administration on Aging. He helped implement part of the Affordable Care Act creating the Cabinet-level Elder Justice Coordinating Council. The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) chose Dr. Stahl as the 2012 recipient of the Donald P. Kent Award. Prior to his career at NIH, he was a professor of medical sociology and social gerontology at Purdue University for over 20 years.

Tamara Baker, PhD, FGSA, is a professor in the Department of Psychiatry in the School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is an appointed member of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Geriatrics and Gerontology Advisory Committee, the National Institutes of Health Interagency Pain Research Coordinating Committee, and Editor-in-Chief of Ethnicity & Health. Among Dr. Baker’s activities with the Gerontological Society of America (GSA), she is a former GSA Secretary, served as Chair of the GSA Committee on Minority Issues in Gerontology, founder and co-convener of GSA’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities Collaborative Interest Group, former Chair of the Behavioral and Social Sciences Section, and is the GSA Board of Directors Vice President Elect. Her background in gerontology, psychology, and biobehavioral health has evolved into an active research agenda focusing on health disparities/equity as well as understanding the behavioral and psychosocial predictors and outcomes of chronic pain and pain among older Black adults.

Dr. Cacchione is the Ralston House Term Chair in Gerontological Nursing, Professor of Geropsychiatric Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, and Nurse Scientist at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center. She is a Gerontological Nurse Practitioner who has practiced for over 30 years across the care continuum. She is a nurse innovator. Her research focuses on social robotics for older adults. She is the CEO and Founder of AgingSense, a startup technology company to improve the lives of older adults. Dr Cacchione received her BSN from Villanova University, MSN from Marymount University, and PhD from Saint Louis University. She completed postdoctoral training at the University of Iowa. Dr. Cacchione has over 100 publications and is the Past Editor in Chief of Clinical Nursing Research and International Journal. Dr. Cacchione is a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America and the American Academy of Nursing.

Laura K.M. Donorfio, PhD, FAGHE, is an Associate Professor at the University of Connecticut in Human Development and Family Sciences. Dr. Donorfio presently serves as the AGHE Vice Chair. She is the co-author of the book The Gerontology Field Placement: Internships and Practicums in Aging (2023, Springer). Her present research interests include the impact of educational innovation and intergenerational experiential learning and, most recently, how social processes impact the health and well-being of older SGM populations. Prior to joining UConn, Dr. Donorfio was a corporate gerontologist and director of consumer research for The Hartford Financial Services Group, collaborating with AARP and the MIT AgeLab. In 2011, she started AGHE’s first Teaching Institute, which is now in its 14th year. Dr. Donorfio holds fellow status in AGHE (2014), was awarded the Clark Tibbitts Award (2022), and was awarded AGHE’s Distinguished Teacher Designation (2009).

Sohyun Kim's research interest focuses on leveraging technology-based interventions such as video chat, wearable devices, virtual reality, AI, and home monitoring to enhance the quality of life for family and formal caregivers and persons living with dementia and older adults. She actively collaborated in NIH-funded clinical trials, including training interventions for nursing home staff to reduce elderspeak communication and resistance to care in residents with dementia, telehealth intervention using video consulting to support caregiver well-being and manage problematic behaviors, interventions targeting family involvement in care for persons living with dementia in nursing home, and the development and testing of a measure assessing dyadic interaction during mealtime between nursing home staff and residents with dementia. Sohyun also conducted research as a primary investigator focusing on Korean dementia family caregivers’ difficulties and coping strategies, systematic reviews of instruments in dementia care, and development and psychometric testing of the instrument assessing dyadic communication between persons living with dementia and their family caregivers. One of her research projects is a feasibility study in providing regular video family visits for residents in LTSS and their family caregivers. Specifically, this intervention consists of using web conferencing and wristbands for real-time monitoring of physiological data.

Dr. Kat Britt is an Assistant Professor in Gerontological Nursing at the University of Iowa College of Nursing, a 2024 Butler Williams Scholar, a 2021-2023 Psychology/Mental Health Jonas Scholar, a Geriatric Nursing editorial board member, and serves as the GSA ESPO Vice-Chair Elect and as a Board Member of her local Iowa Chapter Alzheimer’s Association. She completed a T32 postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, obtained her PhD from The University of Texas at Austin School of Nursing, and her Master’s in informatics from The University of Texas at Tyler. Her research focuses on protective lifestyle factors and cognitive care planning to inform nonpharmacological interventions for persons living with dementia, mild cognitive impairment, and their care partners to slow decline.

Rita X. Hu is a developmental scientist and social worker. She had experiences developing and evaluating culturally responsive services for older immigrant clients of Meals on Wheels and interventions to reduce social isolation among homebound older adults. Dr. Hu received her PhD in Social Work and Developmental Psychology from the University of Michigan and her B.A. in Social Welfare and Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. J. Howard "Jim" Kucher is an Associate Professor of Social Innovation at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. An award-winning teacher and internationally recognized thought leader, he is the author of several books on Social Entrepreneurship and has assisted over 100 area nonprofits and social enterprises in developing new models for meeting the needs of their constituents while increasing the sustainability of their organizations.

Isabell C. May, PhD directs the Entrepreneurship and Science Communication for Aging and Aging-Related Research (ESCAAR) program and the Certificate in Science Communication at the University of Maryland School of Graduate Studies, and she leads the UMB Writing Center. She specializes in inclusive, interdisciplinary science communication across audiences and sectors and serves as Co-PI on an NIH Fogarty R25 focused on research ethics education in Morocco. A faculty fellow with Teach Access and the National Federation of the Blind, she advances accessibility in higher education and regularly publishes on science communication pedagogy.

Dr. Diane Martin is an associate professor in the Graduate School, where she also serves as director of UMB's Geriatrics & Gerontology Education and Research (GGEAR) program, a state-funded program developed in 1987 to support interprofessional educational and research activities in the field of geriatrics and gerontology. Programs are designed to bolster the well-being of older adults and improve quality of later life. In partnership with the Maryland Area Health Education Centers and other agencies and organizations throughout the state, Dr. Martin develops interprofessional training opportunities related to aging and older adults for undergraduate, graduate, and professional students in health science and social science programs, as well as conferences and programs for professionals and the general public across the state. As an applied gerontologist, Dr. Martin maintains an active interdisciplinary research program supportive of geriatric interprofessional education, workforce development, and quality of later life initiatives (i.e., aging-in-place, person-centeredness, promoting optimal aging). She earned her doctorate in Psychology from Northcentral University, a Master's in Experimental Psychology from Towson University, and received her Bachelor's degree in Psychology from the College of Notre Dame of Maryland. Dr. Martin served as a GLOBALtimore Fellow, is a member of the Gerontological Society of America and the Academy for Gerontology in Higher Education, and currently serves as President of Sigma Phi Omega, the International Academic Honor & Professional Society in Gerontology.

Elana Kieffer Blass is the Director of Strategic Alliances at the Gerontological Society of America. Most recently, she served as the Director of the Center for Healthy Aging at The New York Academy of Medicine, and has nearly 20 years of experience working in a wide range of older adult services, with a focus on project management, program development, and sales and marketing. Elana has an MBA in nonprofit management with a concentration in aging services from the Heller School at Brandeis University.

Elana Kieffer Blass is the Director of Strategic Alliances at the Gerontological Society of America. Most recently, she served as the Director of the Center for Healthy Aging at The New York Academy of Medicine, and has nearly 20 years of experience working in a wide range of older adult services, with a focus on project management, program development, and sales and marketing. Elana has an MBA in nonprofit management with a concentration in aging services from the Heller School at Brandeis University.

Dr. Bridges is a board-certified internal medicine physician who has worked on influenza and adult immunization issues for over 28 years. She completed medical school at the University of Washington and residency at the University of Colorado. She joined the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 1996 as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer, and later became the Associate Director for Science in the Influenza Division and then Associate Director of Adult Immunizations. Her work at CDC focused primarily on influenza and adult immunization policy and implementation. She is a past chair of the American College of Physicians Immunization Committee. Since retiring from CDC in 2017, she has worked with Immunize.org as a Consulting Physician and Director of Adult Immunizations. Dr. Bridges also provides clinical care at a community health center. Dr. Bridges has over 160 publications, including peer-reviewed manuscripts, textbook chapters, and CDC vaccine recommendations.

Dr. Eileen Crimmins investigates how geroscience-based measures can help us understand accelerated and decelerated aging in large national populations. She is the AARP Chair in Gerontology, and University Professor at the Davis School of Gerontology Biomarker Network. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Crimmins is a Past Chair of the Behavioral and Social Sciences Section of the Gerontological Society of America. She has received the Kleemeier award from the Gerontological Society of America and the Matilda White Riley Scholar Award from the Section on Aging and the Lifecourse of the American Sociological Society; and the Taeuber Award for research from the Population Association of America.

Jenn brings extensive experience as a human services and gerontology educator and practitioner. She spent 20 years working in the long-term care industry. Jenn served as an adjunct Human Services faculty member for 13 years and as a self-study reader for the Council for Standards in Human Services Education. In 2015, Jenn was hired to lead the Gerontology – Aging Services Professional Program at Northwood Tech. In 2023, the Accreditation for Gerontology Education Council accredited the program. Jenn has a Ph.D. in Leadership and Gerontology from Concordia University Chicago. She has a Master of Science in the Administration of Human Services with a concentration in adult and aging services from Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia. She holds a certificate in Gerontology from Montgomery County Community College, a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology from the College of St. Scholastica, and an Associate of Arts degree from Waldorf University.