Dr. Katy Abbott is the Executive Director of the Scripps Gerontology Center and a Professor of Gerontology at Miami University in Oxford, OH. Her research and teaching focus on preference-based person-centered care for older adults receiving long-term services and supports. She is the co-founder of Preference Based Living, whose mission is to conduct studies that build understanding of individual preferences and test innovative methods to honor preferences for people receiving long-term services and supports.

Dr. Leach is an Assistant Professor of Research at the Institute of Gerontology, Co-Director of the Community Engagement Core at the Center for Urban Responses to Environmental Stressors (CURES), and Associate Center Director for Community Inclusion at the Center for Health Equity and Community Knowledge in Urban Populations (CHECK-UP) at Wayne State University. She is a health communication expert with more than 15 years of experience in community engagement and community-based participatory research processes, with extensive experience conducting collaborative research and evaluation. Her research aims are focused on addressing health inequities by co-developing community-responsive solutions derived from participatory processes that will improve the provision of health-related services and care. Her ultimate goal is to improve the flow of and access to health-protecting information to historically marginalized populations who need it most.

Jennifer M. Poger, MEd, has been part of Penn State College of Medicine research spanning multiple disciplines, including Neurology, Pediatrics, Public Health Sciences, and Medicine, since 2005. She has served as the Director of the Penn State Community Health Equity & Engagement in Research (CHEER) Initiative since its inception in 2021. In this role, Ms. Poger leads all educational programming and operational management for an infrastructure supported by the Penn State Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) to provide faculty, staff, students, and community partners with the necessary skills, training, and resources to thrive in community-engaged research. Advancing DEIA has been the lynchpin to CHEER’s portfolio and has resulted in several innovations in research inclusivity, including increasing representation in research and translating study findings back to communities. Ms. Poger has championed the growth and impact of community-engaged research (CEnR) across Penn State through the development of evidence-based resources, relevant learning opportunities, consultative services, and cross disciplinary collaboration to support research programs focused on reducing health disparities.

Dr. Schoenfeld is Research Professor, Associate Vice Chair of Research, and Deputy Division Head, Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Department of Family, Population & Preventive Medicine, Renaissance School of Medicine (RSOM), Stony Brook University NY. Dr. Schoenfeld received her MS and PhD in Epidemiology from the University at Buffalo. Since joining the faculty at Stony Brook University, she has developed a research program focused on community engaged research and technology development focused on improving health and addressing health disparities. She has served as PI, Co-PI, or Co-I on 47 NIH, NSF, HRSA, state and private foundation-funded research. Dr. Schoenfeld’s current research utilizes community engagement to develop, evaluate and implement technologies to support aging in place. Dr. Schoenfeld received the RSOM Faculty Award for Excellence in Faculty Mentoring. She served on the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute’s (PCORI) Advisory Board on Addressing Disparities and holds a voluntary appointment in the School of Nursing at Stony Brook University.