A national leader in gerontology, Howard Degenholtz specializes in long-term services and supports and home- and community-based services. He developed self-reported quality-of-life measures for nursing home residents and co-authored a seminal paper on the benefits of the Green House model. His research has shown that older adults using consumer-directed personal care are not at increased risk of hospitalization, and he led a randomized trial demonstrating improved quality of life through tailored, individualized care planning. He has also studied end-of-life care in community and nursing home settings, examining advance directives and racial and ethnic disparities, with findings showing that older adults with advance care plans are less likely to experience terminal hospitalization. In organ and tissue donation, he developed and tested approaches to incorporate donor designation into primary care and implemented web-based training in driver’s license centers through randomized trials. He also hosts and produces The Gerontologist Podcast, published by the Gerontological Society of America and available on major podcast platforms.

Laura Haynes, PhD obtained her BS from the University of Miami and her PhD from the University of Rochester School of Medicine. She did postdoctoral work at UCSD and then became a faculty member at the Trudeau Institute. During this time, she began studying how aging impacts the function of T cells. Her pioneering studies described both intrinsic and extrinsic effects of aging and senescence on T cell function and how this impacts the response to infection and vaccination. In 2013, she moved to UConn Health where she is currently a tenured professor in the Center on Aging and Department of Immunology. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for GSA and also serves as Field Chief Editor for Frontiers in Aging as well as a deputy editor for the Journal of Gerontology: Biological Sciences. She is also the President of the UConn Health chapter of AAUP.