Jeffrey Burns, MD, MS, is a neurologist and the Edward H. Hashinger Professor and co-director of the University of Kansas Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (KU ADRC), one of 35 nationally designated centers in the country. Dr. Burns also directs his department’s neurocognitive division and the KU ADRC’s Clinical Core, which is a site for national clinical trial networks. Dr. Burns started the Alzheimer’s clinical research program at the University of Kansas Medical Center in 2004. His education includes a BA (English and Japanese) from the University of Notre Dame, medical school at the University of Kansas Medical Center, neurology residency at the University of Virginia, and a post-doctoral fellowship in Alzheimer’s at Washington University in St. Louis. He then returned to his hometown of Kansas City to start the Alzheimer’s clinical program to stimulate and support AD and aging research locally while investigating how various lifestyle factors influence brain aging and AD. The program has grown into a vibrant research and training environment for AD and brain aging research. Dr. Burns has been continuously funded as a PI by the NIH since 2005 for his work.

Niteesh K. Choudhry, MD, PhD, is professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and executive director for the Center for Healthcare Delivery Sciences at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), where he also a practicing hospitalist. He is also director of Implementation Research and Education and associate director for Postgraduate Education in Clinical and Translational Science for Harvard Catalyst. He directs two NIA-funded research centers: the Roybal Center for Therapeutic Optimization using Behavioral Science the Massachusetts Artificial Intelligence and Technology Center. Much of Dr. Choudhry’s research deals with design and evaluation of novel strategies to enhance medication adherence and improve the quality of prescribing for common health care conditions such as heart disease and diabetes. His work combines approaches from behavioral and data science to develop scalable solutions for health quality improvement. He has run numerous large pragmatic trials testing a variety of potential interventions to address these issues in partnership with large delivery systems and health insurers around the U.S. Dr. Choudhry attended McGill University, received his MD, and completed his residency training in internal medicine at the University of Toronto and then served as chief medical resident for the Toronto General and Toronto Western Hospitals. He earned his PhD in health policy from Harvard University with a concentration in statistics and the evaluative sciences and was concurrently a post-doctoral fellow in drug policy research at Harvard Medical School. His research has published over 250 papers in leading medical and policy journals and has won numerous awards for excellence in research, teaching, and mentorship.

Joseph Gaugler, PhD, is the Robert L. Kane Endowed Chair in Long-Term Care & Aging in the School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota. He is the director of the Center for Healthy Aging and Innovation in the School of Public Health, the BOLD Public Health Center of Excellence on Dementia Caregiving, the EMBRACE AD/ADRD Roybal Center (with Dr. Gilmore-Bykvoskyi), and the State Alzheimer's Research Support Center (with Drs. Shih and Samus). Dr. Gaugler’s research examines the sources and effectiveness of long-term care for people living with Alzheimer’s disease and other chronic conditions. An applied gerontologist, Dr. Gaugler’s interests include Alzheimer’s disease and long-term care, the longitudinal ramifications of family care for people living with dementia and other chronic conditions, and the effectiveness of community-based and psychosocial services for older people living with dementia and their caregiving families. Underpinning these substantive areas, Dr. Gaugler also has interests in mixed methods and implementation science.

Scott Halpern, MD, PhD, is a professor of medicine, epidemiology, and medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania where he is also a practicing palliative care doctor. He is the founding director of the Palliative and Advanced Illness Research (PAIR) Center, which unites more than 70 team members around the goals of developing and testing interventions to improve the value and equity of health care delivery for patients affected by serious illnesses, including dementia. He has led more than 35 RCTs testing interventions to change clinicians' and patients' health-related behaviors, most of which have had highly pragmatic orientations. His contributions to science and biomedical ethics have been recognized with election to ASCI, AAP, the National Academy of Medicine and the Hastings Center. His proudest accomplishments, however, relate to his track record of mentorship, which has been recognized with many awards and led to more than 20 trainees becoming faculty members and patient-oriented researchers at top academic medical centers.

Emily Largent, JD, PhD, RN, is an associate professor and chief of the Division of Medical Ethics in the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. Additionally, she holds a secondary appointment at Penn Law. Dr. Largent’s current research focuses on ethical and regulatory aspects of human subjects research as well as on the experience of patients and families along the Alzheimer's continuum.