Faculty Scholars Program
The IMPACT Faculty Scholars Program aims to enhance the career development of investigators in the design and conduct of embedded pragmatic clinical trials for people living with dementia and their care partners by integrating them into the activities of our Cores and Teams. Faculty Scholars attend monthly Core meetings, are mentored by an IMPACT executive committee member, engage in scholarly projects to enrich career development, and attend Collaboratory-wide events including Training Workshops and the Annual Business Meeting and Scientific Conference. Throughout the year, faculty participate in monthly Grand Rounds and quarterly Research-in-Progress seminars in addition to other opportunities for career development, training and networking. Faculty Scholars are nominated by IMPACT members. This is a one-year program though a second year may be possible contingent on availability.
Catherine Auriemma, MD, MSHP
Assistant Professor of Medicine
University of Pennsylvania
Dr. Auriemma is a physician-scientist at the University of Pennsylvania. Clinically, Dr. Auriemma attends in the intensive care unit, where she sees firsthand the importance of clear communication and compassionate guidance during moments of uncertainty. These experiences inform her research and inspire her efforts to design tools, interventions, and outcome measures that make decision-making more collaborative, transparent, and humane. Her research focuses on improving the value of serious illness care by better aligning interventions with the values and preferences of patients and their families. She is building a research program that approaches this goal in three complementary ways: (1) striving to understand how communication, documentation, and decision-making can be improved for patients and families prior to loss of capacity; (2) developing and validating novel patient-centered outcome measures; and (3) enhancing the rigor of robust patient and stakeholder engagement in research.
Glenna Brewster, PhD, MA, FNP-BC
Assistant Professor
Emory University
Dr. Brewster is a nurse scientist and assistant professor at Emory University’s Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing and the principal investigator of the Mind At Rest Research Lab, currently supported by an NIA-funded K23 career development award. As a nurse scholar, Dr. Brewster aims to improve sleep and psychological health for people living with cognitive impairment and their care partners. Her research focuses on evidence-based behavioral and psycho-educational sleep and caregiving interventions delivered in community and clinical settings in the United States and the Caribbean, using community-engaged and culturally responsive approaches to translate science into real-world practice. Through her participation in the IMPACT Faculty Scholars Program, Dr. Brewster seeks to strengthen her expertise in pragmatic and implementation trial approaches to advance the uptake, scalability, and sustainability of evidence-based sleep and caregiving interventions.
Cecilia Canales, MD, MPH, MS
Assistant Professor
David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles
Dr. Canales is an assistant professor in the Department of Anesthesiology & Perioperative Medicine at UCLA. Dr. Canales’ research focus is patient-oriented outcomes research in older adults undergoing surgery. She is particularly interested in studying frailty and perioperative neurocognitive disorders to improve cognitive outcomes.
Maya Elias, PhD, MA, RN
Assistant Professor
University of Washington
Dr. Elias is a tenure-track assistant professor and the Rebecca & Eli Almo Endowed Faculty Fellow within the Department of Biobehavioral Nursing and Health Informatics at the University of Washington School of Nursing. As a clinician-scientist, Dr. Elias’ program of research focuses on the intersection of geriatrics and critical illness recovery and has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (K23). With an interdisciplinary background in neuroscience nursing, geriatrics/gerontology, and sleep health, she develops and tests non-pharmacological interventions to prevent and mitigate post-intensive care syndrome (PICS) and geriatric syndromes. Dr. Elias is especially dedicated to improving cognitive and functional outcomes for hospitalized older adults with and without mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and/or Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD), who are at high risk of developing delirium and subsequent cognitive decline.
Elizabeth Fauth, PhD
Professor
Utah State University
Dr. Fauth is a professor in the department of Human Development and Family Studies at Utah State University. She serves as director of Utah’s state-funded Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia Research Center. Her primary area of research involves creating and evaluating interventions for dementia caregivers, specifically adapting Acceptance and Commitment Therapy into an online, self-guided format to help dementia caregivers feel as if they can live with their stress more comfortably. She also examines ways to support paid caregivers, improve quality of life for people living with dementia, improve cognitive screening for earlier detection of impairment, disablement processes in late life, and rural mental health. She works collaboratively to build Utah’s dementia infrastructure by serving on Utah’s Commission on Aging, co-chairing the research working group for UT’s Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementia Coordinating Council and serving on the board of the Alzheimer’s Association Utah Chapter.
Erica Frechman, PhD,
AGPCNP-BC,
ACHPN, NEA-BC
Assistant Professor
Wake Forest University School of Medicine
Dr. Frechman is an assistant professor at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. She is a board-certified adult gerontological nurse practitioner who specializes in palliative care. Her research is informed by her clinical experiences caring for people living with serious illness across all care settings from the community to the hospital and to long-term care. Dr. Frechman’s research focuses on identifying hospitalized high-risk people living with dementia (PLWD) through electronic health record risk prediction modeling. She aims to develop transitional care interventions to ensure PLWD and care partners (CPs) are provided needed resources and support. She is committed to improving health and quality of life for PLWD and their CPs through care delivery transformation.
Jin hui Joo, MD, MA
Assistant Professor
Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School
Dr. Joo is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School. She is focused on increasing access to community based mental health services through community-engaged intervention development for depression and preclinical cognitive symptoms using innovative models of care that involve delivery of services by older adult peer coaches with lived experience. She has worked with populations who experience barriers to care and are at high risk of poor health outcomes. Another aspect of her work focuses on leading community education and conducting outreach to increase dementia and research literacy to demystify dementia research engagement. She has received funding from NIMH and NIA to develop and test interventions and is a member of the Massachusetts Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and leads the Community Liaison and Recruitment Core for the Mass-Envision.
Yu Jin Kang, PhD,
MPH, RN
Assistant Professor
Georgia State University
Dr. Kang is an assistant professor at the Byrdine F. Lewis College of Nursing and Health Professions at Georgia State University. As a nurse scientist, she is dedicated to improving nursing care delivery and patient outcomes through the implementation of evidence-based applications. Her early research trajectory has focused on nursing workforce analytics and the critical relationship between staffing structures and patient safety outcomes. Her current research project identifies high-risk sepsis phenotypes and their clinical progression, specifically examining the vulnerability of long-term care (LTC) residents with dementia to these acute events (AIM-AHEAD PAIR). Through this work, she is developing and evaluating sepsis risk prediction algorithms to fill existing knowledge gaps and translate findings into clinical practice.
Rebecca Lassell, PhD, OTR/L
Assistant Professor
Indiana University School of Public Health – Bloomington
Dr. Lassell is an assistant professor at Indiana University's School of Public Health-Bloomington and an affiliated scientist at the Regenstrief Institute, IU Center for Aging Research. Dr. Lassell seeks to design interventions to improve brain health and advance health equity in dementia care. Her research focuses on bridging the gap between community resources and health care systems to enable people living with dementia (PLWD) and their care partners (CPs) to participate in health promoting activities they find meaningful within their homes, neighborhoods, and communities. Dr. Lassell's research focus grew from applying nature-based approaches in her clinical outpatient pediatric practice and her work with PLWD in long-term care. Her research interests include exercise and lifestyle medicine, gerontology, and advancing health equity.
Jiaming Liang, PhD, MA
Assistant Professor
University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
Dr. Liang is an assistant professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and a health services and intervention researcher focused on community- and system-embedded dementia care. His research examines caregiving stress processes, caregiver-patient dyadic dynamics, and barriers to health care delivery among socioeconomically disadvantaged populations. He conducts mixed-methods and intervention-oriented research using national aging datasets and stakeholder-engaged approaches to develop and adapt care dyad-centered supports that can be implemented in real-world care settings. His current work focuses on integrating caregiver-inclusive outcomes and advanced technologies (e.g., large language models) into routine care delivery, with the long-term goal of generating scalable, equitable solutions that improve care quality and social outcomes for people living with dementia and their families.
David Lynch, BMBS
Associate Professor
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Dr. Lynch is a geriatrician and associate professor of medicine in the Division of Geriatric Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He serves as medical director of Memory Connect and previously led UNC’s Acute Care for Elders (ACE) Unit, where he implemented interdisciplinary interventions to reduce hospital-associated disability and improve care for people living with dementia. His research focuses on designing and testing scalable, health system–embedded interventions that maintain function, reduce unwanted acute care utilization, and enhance quality of life for people living with dementia and their care partners. Dr. Lynch’s long-term goal is to lead embedded pragmatic clinical trials that advance age-friendly, patient- and caregiver-centered dementia care across healthcare systems.
Ryan Mace, PhD
Assistant Professor
Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School
Dr. Mace is an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and a staff clinical psychologist in the Center for Health Outcomes and Interdisciplinary Research within the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital. His research focuses on developing behavioral interventions targeting modifiable dementia risk factors, with an emphasis on mindfulness, lifestyle behaviors, and scalable digital health strategies for older adults. Supported by an NIA K23, Dr. Mace has led mixed methods studies and clinical trials to refine and test My Healthy Brain, a group-based intervention for older adults with subjective cognitive decline, and to engage clinical and community stakeholders. As an IMPACT Faculty Scholar, Dr. Mace will leverage electronic medical record data and implementation science frameworks to identify pragmatic approaches that promote adoption, sustainability, and equity in dementia prevention and care within real-world health systems.
Stephanie Nothelle, MD
Associate Professor
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Dr. Nothelle is an associate professor in the Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine with a joint appointment in the Department of Health Policy and Management in the Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is a practicing general internist and geriatrician. Her research centers around improving quality of care and care coordination for older adults with dementia and complex chronic conditions, particularly in the outpatient setting.
Elizabeth Rhodus, PhD, MS, OTR/L
Assistant Professor
University of Kentucky College of Medicine
Dr. Rhodus is an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine in the Department of Behavioral Science, Sanders-Brown Center on Aging, and the Center for Health, Engagement, and Transformation. Dr. Rhodus’ background as an occupational therapist has fueled her research in developing assessments and non-pharmacological interventions to improve behavior and functional performance in daily activities for people living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. Her work also expands community-engaged research related to lifestyle factors which influence brain health. Dr. Rhodus’ long-term goals are to maximize aging adults’ capability to age at home for as long as comfortably possible.
Abigail Rolbiecki, PhD, MSW, MPH
Director of the Institute for Research
in the Social Sciences (IRISS)
Colorado State University
Dr. Rolbiecki is a palliative care and behavioral health researcher whose work centers on improving the lives of family caregivers of individuals living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. She has spent her career developing and testing innovative, meaning‑centered narrative and psychosocial interventions to reduce distress, enhance well‑being, and support caregivers across the trajectory of dementia, from diagnosis through bereavement. Her research program includes multi‑site trials funded by the National Institute on Aging that evaluate storytelling‑based interventions for active and bereaved dementia caregivers, as well as projects aimed at strengthening caregiver engagement in goals‑of‑care discussions and supportive care decision‑making. Dr. Rolbiecki’s mission is to improve the quality of life of dementia caregivers through evidence‑based intervention development, interdisciplinary research, and community collaboration. Her vision is to advance scalable, compassionate models of caregiver support nationwide.
Judith Vick, MD, MPH
Instructor
Yale School of Medicine
Dr. Vick is a geriatrician, health services researcher, and instructor in the section of geriatrics at Yale School of Medicine. Her early work has examined patient and family engagement, communication, and decision-making among older adults and their families, with a specific focus on people living with dementia. Since joining the Yale faculty in 2024, she has been developing a research program that integrates the science of teamwork (a field within organizational science) with the field of patient and family involvement in care for people living with dementia. In her career, she aims to lead systems-level change through embedded pragmatic clinical trials to ensure the delivery of person- and family-centered care for people living with dementia in all settings.
