Shannon Jarrott studies methods of connecting unrelated young and older persons for mutual benefit. She has worked with childcare centers, adult day services, schools, nursing homes, food banks, and churches interested in youth’s and older adults’ potential to benefit participants and the larger community. These collaborations identified strategies that increase program success, promoting meaningful roles, healthy food access, empathy, resilience, and a sense of purpose for young and older participants. Shannon is a Professor of Social Work at The Ohio State University and the Director of Faculty Development. She is the Editor of The Journal of Intergenerational Relationships.

Kenneth F. Ferraro is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Purdue University and the author of more than 140 peer-reviewed journal articles and two books focusing on health and aging.  His recent research uses a life course framework to examine health inequality, especially racial and ethnic disparities, and the cumulative effects of early exposures on adult health.  His articles appear in journals such as American Journal of Public Health, American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Demography, Journal of Gerontology, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, and The Gerontologist. Professor Ferraro is a GSA fellow and a former editor of the Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences.  He is an award-winning mentor, including the Distinguished Mentor Award from the Behavioral and Social Sciences Section of GSA and the Provost’s Award for Outstanding Graduate Mentor at Purdue University.

Longevity Consortium and Director of Research for the UT Austin Center on Aging and Population Sciences.  She has over 175 publications addressing social and emotional aging including older adults’ intergenerational family ties, social relationships and physical and cognitive functioning. She received the Distinguished Mentor in Gerontology Award from the BSS section of GSA in 2020, the Baltes Distinguished Research Award in Psychology of Aging from the American Psychological Association in 2022, and took second place in the Great Blanton Bakeoff.

Marilyn R. Gugliucci, MA, PhD, is a Professor and the Director of Geriatrics Research at the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine (UNECOM). Her unique Learning by Living Research Projects offer two tracks: (1) The Nursing Home Immersion that "admits" medical students into nursing homes to live the life of an older resident for 2-weeks; and (2) The 48 Hour Hospice Home Immersion where pairs of medical students live in an 18-bed in-patient acute care hospice home to conduct patient care, family support, and post-mortem care.  Dr. Gugliucci is a Fellow of four national associations and serves on national and state boards and committees. She served as the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education (AGHE) president and is serving The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) as vice-president (2024), president (2025), and board of directors chair (2026). She is a past Awardee of the Hiram Friedsam Mentorship Award.

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.