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.

2023 Faculty Scholars 2022 Faculty Scholars 2021 Faculty Scholars

2023 Faculty Scholars

Alyssa Aguirre, MSW, LCSW

Assistant Director of Dementia Care Transformation
The University of Texas at Austin

Alyssa Aguirre serves as the assistant director of dementia care transformation for The University of Texas Dell Medical School Department of Neurology and is an assistant professor of practice at the UT Steve Hicks School of Social Work. She has dedicated her social work career to designing innovative models of support for family caregivers of individuals living with Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders (ADRD) within health care systems. Her current research is focused on validating family caregiver outcome measures and using machine-learning techniques to support dementia care partners. Alyssa Aguirre's mission is to improve the quality of life of older adults living with dementia and their family caregivers through clinical practice, education, research, and community collaboration. Her vision is to serve as a leader and change-agent for palliative care initiatives that will help to transform caregiving programs on a national level.

Roman Ayele, PhD, MPH

Health Research Scientist
Veterans Affairs (VA) Denver-Seattle Center of Innovation

Dr. Ayele is a health research scientist at the VA Denver-Seattle Center of Innovation for Veteran centered research and an assistant professor in the Division of Geriatrics at the Colorado School of Medicine. Dr. Ayele earned her doctorate in health services research from University of Colorado School of Public Health and completed her fellowship at the Center for Delivering Care Delivery for the Aging at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests include context informed, partner engaged, equitable implementation of evidence-based interventions for people living with dementia. Dr. Ayele’s VA Health Services Research and Development Career Development Award (CDA) focuses on optimizing transitional care for Veterans living with dementia who are dual-users of VA and non-VA healthcare systems. Dr. Ayele’s CDA award will create and pilot a care coordination intervention informed by mixed-methods assessment of contextual factors that impact Veterans with dementia, their family care givers, and clinicians in transitions of care.

Zachary Baker, PhD

Assistant Professor
Arizona State University Edson School of Nursing and Health Innovation

Dr. Baker is an assistant professor at Arizona State University’s Edson School of Nursing and Health Innovation. Dr. Baker’s aim is to better understand, develop, evaluate, and disseminate technological tools and psychosocial resources that help caregivers and people living with dementia to thrive during and after the dementia caregiving process. This is accomplished through the use of advanced methods (e.g., interventions, longitudinal studies, event momentary assessment, dyadic data collection), statistics (e.g., multilevel modeling, structural equation modeling, response surface analysis), and psychological theory/perspectives (e.g., self-determination theory, attachment theory, positive psychology). Dr. Baker convenes the Supporting Dementia Caregivers After Death Community Advisory Board.

Kuan-Hua Chen, PhD

Assistant Professor
University of Nebraska Medical Center

Dr. Chen is an assistant professor in neurological sciences, College of Medicine, at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Dr. Chen’s research focuses on advancing the characterization, assessment, and interventions for socio-emotional changes in individuals living with dementia and the impact of these changes on family care partners. As the principal investigator of a NIA-funded study, Dr. Chen develops innovative brain, physiological, behavioral, and technology-based (e.g., wearables, smart-home devices) measures to monitor and predict social disconnectedness between individuals living with dementia and their spousal care partners and their downstream health outcomes. Dr. Chen seeks to enhance relevant skills to conduct technology-centered and community-based pragmatic clinical trials that aim to optimize social connectedness and mitigate health declines in rural and urban aging Americans in their homes and other healthcare settings.

Natalie Douglas, PhD

Professor
The Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow College of Health Professionals, Central Michigan University

Dr. Douglas is a professor of communication sciences and disorders, Division of Speech-Language Pathology, at Central Michigan University. As a clinician-scholar, she is firmly committed to closing the research to practice gap, particularly for people living with acquired communication disorders from neurological disease. Dr. Douglas actively partners with speech-language pathologists to develop and test interventions that improve communication, life participation, and quality of life for people living with aphasia, traumatic brain injury, and dementia. She is currently studying how to improve communication between people living with dementia and their staff care partners in long-term care environments and pursuing additional training in pragmatic clinical trials and learning health systems.

Natalie Ernecoff, PhD, MPH

Associate Policy Researcher
RAND Corporation

Dr. Ernecoff is an associate policy researcher at the RAND Corporation. Her research focuses on developing, implementing, and evaluating systems-level palliative care, hospice, and home care interventions. Her work includes healthcare system informatics, electronic health record (EHR)-based interventions, systematic identification of serious illness populations, and collaborative models of palliative care delivery. She is experienced in qualitative and mixed methods research, implementation science, population health management, program evaluation, and clinical research. Dr. Ernecoff is leading work to explore the feasibility of developing a measure of goal-concordant care based upon both coded and free text data in nursing home EHRs.

Beth Fields, PhD

Assistant Professor
University of Wisconsin–Madison

Dr. Fields is an occupational therapist, assistant professor in the Department of Kinesiology, and affiliate faculty member in the Center for Aging Research and Education (CARE), Wisconsin Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (ADRC), Institute on Aging, and Center for Demography of Health and Aging at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her research focuses on developing, testing and implementing person and family-centered assessments and interventions in the hospital and home settings. Dr. Fields is hugely passionate about finding ways to improve the quality of care and life of aging adults and their family member or friend care partners.

Lisa Juckett, PhD, OTR/L, CHT

Assistant Professor
The Ohio State University School of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences

Dr. Juckett is an assistant professor in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at The Ohio State University. She is an occupational therapist with extensive clinical experience in inpatient and geriatric rehabilitation settings. Her current research centers on developing effective and implementable programs that improve the ability for older adults to age in their own homes and communities. Dr. Juckett is a 2022 IMPACT Collaboratory Career Development Award recipient and is growing her skills in intervention development, PCRO selection, and pragmatic trial design. She is completing her CDA activities in close collaboration with her local home-delivered meal agency to develop an intervention that supports the health and nutritional needs of both PLWD and their care partners in the home environment.

Maria Mora Pinzon, MD, MS, FACPM

Assistant Professor
University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Medicine and Public Health

Dr. Mora Pinzon is board certified in preventive medicine and public health. She is currently an assistant professor on the tenure track at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Department of Medicine, Division of Geriatrics and Gerontology. Dr. Mora Pinzon is a REC scholar with the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and is the principal investigator of an NIA K99/R00 project titled “Improving Access to Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementia’s Care Services for Latinx Individuals at Community Health Clinics”. Her work seeks to improve healthcare access for patients living with dementia and their families, particularly among Latino populations. Using community-based participatory research and implementation science, Dr. Mora Pinzon explores behavioral motivations to seek care, utilization of health services in brain health, and organizational factors that affect diagnosis and management. Furthermore, her work involves stakeholders in the identification of targets for future interventions and development.

Annalisa Na, PhD, PT, DPT

Assistant Research Professor
Drexel University College of Nursing and Health Professions

Dr. Na is an assistant research professor in the Department of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences at Drexel University. She is funded by the National Institute of Aging on a Mentored Patient Oriented Research Career Development Award (K23AG081547). As a clinician scientist, Dr. Na focuses on sustaining and improving mobility through tailored physical activity and exercise that can enhance the quality of life in older adults. She received her doctorate in physical therapy from Duke University, PhD in biomechanics and movement sciences from the University of Delaware, and post-doctoral training from the University of Texas Medical Branch. She is residency trained and is board certified in orthopedic physical therapy. Dr. Na’s current research is focused on designing tailored physical activity and exercise programs for pain management among community-dwelling older adults with dementia.

Darina Petrovksy, PhD, RN

Assistant Professor
Rutgers School of Nursing; Rutgers Institute for Health, Health Care Policy, and Aging Research

Dr. Petrovsky is an assistant professor at the Rutgers University School of Nursing and core member of the Institute for Health, Health Care Policy, and Aging Research. Prior to joining Rutgers, Dr. Petrovsky was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing funded by the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award Individual Fellowship (F32AG060630). Her unique background in music and nursing science has positioned her well to launch her research career with the goal of improving the lives of older adults living with cognitive impairment using non-pharmacologic approaches. She currently holds a Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award from the NIA (K23AG073618) aimed at developing a music-based intervention for older adults living with dementia.

Kendra Ray, MPH, PhD

Research Assistant Professor
New York University Grossman School of Medicine

Dr. Ray is a research assistant professor in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and dementia program director at Menorah Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing Care. Dr. Ray is a music therapist whose research focuses on discovering the effectiveness of evidence-based interventions for people with dementia and their paid and informal caregivers. Other research interests include risk factors and biomarkers in Alzheimer’s disease as well as the use of music therapy for chronic health conditions like HIV-associated neurocognitive disorder and depression.

Guangyu Tong, PhD

Assistant Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine and Biostatistics
Yale School of Medicine

Dr. Tong is an assistant professor of cardiovascular medicine and biostatistics at the Yale School of Medicine. Dr. Tong’s methodological research interests include the design and analysis of pragmatic trials, implementation science, causal inference, and Bayesian statistics. Many of his research projects are motivated by understanding health disparity and social determinants of health. His current research focuses on the evaluation of non-mortality outcomes that are censored or truncated by death, a problem particularly common in studies among older adults.

Tiffany Washington, PhD

Associate Professor
The University of Georgia School of Social Work

Dr. Washington is an associate professor at the University of Georgia. Her medical social work practice background informs her research interests in family caregiving, psychosocial interventions, and health equity. Dr. Washington designed a caregiver respite program in which student volunteers deliver in-home respite visits to caregivers of persons with dementia. Recently, she was awarded a grant from the Alzheimer’s Association to pilot test a virtual version of the program. She seeks to understand how embedded pragmatic clinical trials promote the uptake of caregiver interventions in everyday practice settings.

Emma Zang, PhD

Assistant Professor of Sociology, Biostatistics, and Global Affairs
Yale University

Dr. Zang is an assistant professor of sociology, biostatistics, and global affairs at Yale University. Her research focuses on the intersection of health and aging, family demography, and inequality. Through her expertise in statistical analysis, she strives to comprehend the co-evolution of health trajectories among individuals with cognitive impairment and their caregivers over time. One of Dr. Zang's key contributions is the development of statistical methods to model trajectories and life transitions, enabling a deeper understanding of how demographic and socioeconomic disparities influence the health and well-being of individuals from a life course perspective. Her work delves into Bayesian approaches for modeling group-based trajectories, incorporating Bayesian Model Averaging techniques, and employing Bayesian methods to construct multi-state life tables using extensive survey data. In addition, Dr. Zang employs observational data to explore causal inference, allowing for insights into the impact of various factors on health outcomes.

2022 Faculty Scholars

Talha Ali, PhD

Assistant Professor
Tufts University

Dr. Ali is an assistant professor in the Department of Community Health at Tufts University. Dr. Ali’s research examines the role of social determinants of health in old age with a particular emphasis on social networks, family caregiving, and structural racism. She uses person-centered and multidimensional approaches to understand the ways in which individual- and structural-level social factors influence cognitive function in late life. The goal of Dr. Ali’s scholarship is to inform the development of effective interventions and policies to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in cognitive decline and dementia.

Rupak Datta, MD, PhD

Assistant Professor
Yale School of Medicine

Dr. Datta is an assistant professor at the Yale School of Medicine and an assistant hospital epidemiologist at the Veterans Affairs Connecticut Healthcare System. Dr. Datta’s dissertation research focused on quantifying the burden and transmission potential of multidrug-resistant organisms across statewide healthcare facilities. His current research focuses on infection prevention and antibiotic stewardship in older adults. His areas of interest include hospital epidemiology, antibiotic resistance, and quality improvement.

Chanee Fabius, PhD

Assistant Professor
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Dr. Fabius is an assistant professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Fabius a gerontologist and health services researcher whose work informs aging and disability policies to reduce health care disparities and improve health equity for older adults and people with disabilities using long-term services and supports. Her current research focuses on strengthening the direct care workforce that provides services and supports to vulnerable older adults living in the community, such as those with complex conditions like dementia. Dr. Fabius’ interests are informed by her applied care management experience, where she helped older adults remain at home and delay the need for nursing home care.

Shekinah
Fashaw-Walters, MPH, PhD

Assistant Professor
University of Minnesota School of Public Health

Dr. Fashaw-Walters is a tenure-track assistant professor in the Division of Health Policy & Management at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, and an affiliate faculty member with the Center for Antiracism Research for Health Equity at the Center for Health Aging and Innovation. She conducts research across the post-acute and long-term services and support continuum. Her research focus is on understanding the inequities in aging while elucidating and explicitly naming racism as a fundamental determinant of health inequities within long-term care. Dr. Fashaw-Walters envisions a society where the strength, autonomy, dignity, and independence of all older adults are enhanced by Long Term Services and Supports policies and practices that promote healthy and equitable aging.

Cameron Gettel, MD

Assistant Professor
Yale University School of Medicine

Dr. Gettel is an assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Yale University School of Medicine. He is committed to improving transitional care for older adults seen in the emergency department (ED), particularly those living with dementia who are especially vulnerable to the adverse effects associated with poor transitions. His research interests center on developing and validating novel patient- and caregiver-reported outcome measures to improve ED-home care transitions for older adults, particularly for people living with dementia. Dr. Gettel is a physician-scholar seeking to develop skills in development and validation of patient-caregiver reported outcomes, health informatics, and pragmatic clinical trial design.

Ying-Ling Jao, PhD, RN

Associate Professor
Pennsylvania State University

Dr. Jao is an associate professor at Pennsylvania State University. Her research focuses on the assessment of apathy and the impact of social and physical environments on neurobehavioral symptoms and wellbeing in individuals with dementia. She developed the Person-Environment Apathy Rating (PEAR) scale to assess apathy in the environmental context. She is principal investigator of an NIA-funded R21 study to examine the impact of staff caregiver communication on apath-y in nursing home residents with dementia. Dr. Jao’s research includes interdisciplinary work to develop innovative technology to support dementia care. In collaboration with an architecture engineering researcher, she has developed a smart lighting intervention to reduce neurobehavioral symptoms in nursing home residents with dementia. Dr. Jao seeks to hone her skills in designing pragmatic clinical trials to evaluate environmental and psychosocial interventions to reduce neurobehavioral symptoms and promote dementia care in long-term care.

link to profile

Zachary Kunicki, PhD

Assistant Professor
Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University

Dr. Kunicki is an assistant professor, research track, in the department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. His research centers on understanding the trajectory of cognitive decline and the factors that can impact it. Dr. Kunicki seeks to increase his understanding about the ways quality measures for dementia care and other intercurrent medical factors associated with dementia can become targets for interventions to slow cognitive decline in older adults.

Kylie Meyer, PhD

Assistant Professor
Case Western Reserve University School of Nursing

Dr. Meyer is a gerontologist and assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Nursing. Her program of research focuses on psychoeducational interventions to support family caregivers in multiple domains, such as complex medical/nursing care, healthy caregiving relationships, and financial wellbeing. She is dedicated to research translation to ensure innovations reach caregiving families, particularly those living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. She does this by integrating basic research, theory, stakeholder input, and knowledge of the health policy systems. Dr. Meyer received a US-UK Fulbright award in 2014, which fueled her dedication to advance knowledge and evidence-based policies that support person- and family-centered care. In 2018, she played an integral role in delivering policy recommendations to the California State Legislature to better support caregiving families.

Karen Moss, PhD, RN, CNL

Assistant Professor
The Ohio State University Colleges of Nursing and Medicine

Dr. Moss is a nurse scientist and assistant professor in the Colleges of Nursing and Medicine at The Ohio State University. Her program of research focuses on the neuroscience of pain and healthcare decision making at the end of life for people living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD) and their family caregivers. She examines multi-stakeholder perspectives on factors that influence pain and end-of-life decision-making processes for African American older adults living with ADRD and their family care partners. She seeks to better understand family caregiver stress. Dr. Moss is the principal investigator in the health equity-focused Family Caregiver Community Research (FamCare) Lab. She is actively engaged in developing and testing interventions to support African American ADRD family caregivers. Dr. Moss is passionate about improving the overall quality of life for African American older adults living with ADRD and their family caregivers through palliative and end-of-life care outcomes.

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Evan Plys, PhD

Assistant Professor
University of Colorado School of Medicine

Dr. Plys is an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. He is a clinical psychologist with an emphasis in geropsychology who maintains a clinical practice providing behavioral health services with older adults, family care partners, and nursing home residents. Dr. Plys’ program of research aims to improve behavioral health care for vulnerable older adults and their family members in residential post-acute and long-term care settings. He is investigating the feasibility of dyadic behavioral intervention to improve mental health and physiotherapy outcomes among short-stay dual-eligible nursing home residents and their family care partners.

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Sandra Shi, MD

Assistant Scientist
Hebrew SeniorLife's Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute for Aging Research

Dr. Shi is a geriatrician and instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and an assistant scientist at Hebrew SeniorLife’s Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute for Aging Research in Boston. Dr. Shi is dedicated to improving the care of older adults across the care continuum, with a focus on patient-centered outcomes after hospitalizations, Her research in frailty strives to improve post-acute rehabilitation outcomes for older adults at skilled nursing facilities. Her ultimate goal is to create interventions that can holistically address the needs of older adults by combining geriatrics and rehabilitation sciences to enhance post-acute rehabilitation in skilled nursing facilities.

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Mark Toles, PhD, RN

Associate Professor
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Nursing

Dr. Toles is an associate professor in the School of Nursing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has experience as a nurse and researcher supporting and studying transitions in care of older adults and their caregivers. He led teams studying the quality of discharge planning in skilled nursing facilities (SNF) and the incidence and predictors of acute care use after discharge from SNFs to home. His research includes National Institute of Nursing Research supported study of the efficacy of transitional care of older adults and their caregivers as they transfer from SNFs to home. In related research, his team developed a quality improvement collaborative to implement Connect-Home transitional care in SNFs. His recent work focuses on developing and testing transitional care of people with dementia and their caregivers.

2021 Faculty Scholars

Kalisha Bonds Johnson, PhD, RN

Assistant Professor
Emory University Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing

Dr. Bonds Johnson is an assistant professor, tenure track at Emory University’s Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing in Atlanta, Georgia. She graduated from The University of Tennessee at Martin with a bachelor of science in nursing in 2007. She graduated with a master of science in nursing in 2012 from Vanderbilt University, specializing as a family psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner. Dr. Bonds Johnson graduated with a PhD from Oregon Health & Science University in 2019. She has been funded through several mechanisms, including the National Institutes of Health, SAMHSA at American Nurses Association Minority Fellowship Program, and the Jonas Foundation as a Veterans Healthcare Scholar. Dr. Bonds Johnson’s research focuses on interpersonal factors such as decision making and the relationship quality. Dr. Bonds Johnson hopes to improve health outcomes for African American persons living with dementia and their families through clinical interventions.

Jinmyoung Cho, PhD

Research Investigator 2
Baylor Scott & White Health

Dr. Cho is a research investigator 2 at the Center for Applied Health Research in Baylor Scott & White Research Institute and an adjunct assistant professor of the School of Public Health and faculty affiliate of the Center for Population in Aging at Texas A&M. With the aim of improving health and well-being among older adults, Dr. Cho’s research focuses on utilizing electronic health records (EHR) to identify high-risk older adults and caregivers and improve their health and healthcare outcomes. In addition to serving as a co-investigator on several NIA-funded projects, she is a principal investigator on a R21 award from NIA, which examines the heterogeneity of health among dementia caregivers using self-reported health status and EHR. She is also a principal investigator on an HCSRN-OAIC AGING Initiative funded pilot project focused on understanding race-ethnic variation in health status and healthcare access among patients age 85 and older with multiple chronic conditions.

Fayron Epps, PhD, RN

Assistant Professor
Emory University Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing

Dr. Epps is a nurse with over 20 years of experience and is currently serving as an assistant professor at Emory University, Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing. Dr. Epps also serves as the principal investigator for the Faith Village Research Lab and is the founder of the Alter program. Her career goal as a nurse scholar is to promote quality of life for families affected by dementia through research, education and service. Her program of research involves evidence-based practices for promoting quality of life for African Americans with dementia and their family caregivers/care partners. She is particularly interested in exploring way religious activities and spiritual connectedness can promote meaningful engagement among persons with dementia. Dr. Epps is seeking to enhance her skills in pragmatic clinical trial designs to be able to place culturally-tailored evidenced-based programs and interventions in the hands of those individuals who need it the most.

Jennifer Gabbard, MD

Assistant Professor
Wake Forest School of Medicine

Dr. Gabbard is triple boarded in Internal Medicine, Geriatrics, and Hospice and Palliative Medicine. She trained at the University of Arizona and then completed a clinician-educator fellowship at Johns Hopkins University. Her clinical interests include integration of early palliative care in patients with serious illnesses, clinical care of comorbid chronically ill and frail older adults, and promotion of healthy aging. These interests translate into both educational and research settings. Dr. Gabbard is a physician-scholar and educator seeking to develop her strong interests in implementation science, clinical informatics, and pragmatic clinical trial design particularly focused on improving goal-concordant care, quality of life, and care transitions among vulnerable older adult populations, especially persons living with dementia and their care partners.

Xiaojuan Li, PhD

Instructor in Population Medicine
Harvard Medical School; Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute

Dr. Li’s research interest is in generating valid and actionable evidence regarding the uses, benefits, and harms of treatments from real-world data to inform clinical decisions and healthcare delivery. She has expertise in large electronic healthcare databases, advanced pharmacoepidemiologic and causal inference methods, and comparative effectiveness research. She has extensive experience in the use of high-dimensional electronic health data, to assess effects of complex treatments. Dr. Li has developed an innovative research program in ADRD, leveraging her expertise in pharmacoepidemiology and causal inference. She is PI of an NIA-funded project to optimize the use of symptomatic dementia drugs in people living with ADRD. She leads an IMPACT Demonstration Project evaluating the effectiveness of a multicomponent care coordination program for community-dwelling members living with ADRD and care partners.

Miranda McPhillips, PhD, RN

Lecturer
University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing

Dr. McPhillips is a lecturer in the Biobehavioral Health Sciences Department. She is funded by the National Institute of Nursing Research on a Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award (K23NR018487). Her research focuses on improving sleep and enhancing health related quality of life in older adults. Dr. McPhillips earned her BSN and MSN from The Pennsylvania State University, and completed her PhD in Nursing and postdoctoral research training at University of Pennsylvania. She was a Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA Pre-Doctoral Fellow (T32NR009356) in the NewCourtland Center for Transitions and Health School of Nursing and Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA Post-Doctoral Fellow (T32HL07953) in the Center for Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology in the School of Medicine. Dr. McPhillips is currently pilot testing a multicomponent behavioral sleep intervention for insomnia in older adults with mild cognitive impairment.

Manka Nkimbeng, PhD, MPH, RN

Assistant Professor
University of Minnesota

Dr. Nkimbeng is an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health (UMSPH) and affiliate assistant professor in their School of Nursing. She received her PhD in nursing from Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, her MPH from Boston University School of Public Health, and was a Robert L. Kane Postdoctoral Fellow at the UMSPH. Dr. Nkimbeng’s research centers on understanding the causes of health inequities in minorities and improving health outcomes for older adults. In partnership with African Career, Education & Resource (ACER) Inc., Dr. Nkimbeng is leading two projects with African immigrants in Minnesota, seeking to understand their dementia care, caregiving, and education experiences and needs. Encompassing her research and policy expertise, she plans to adapt and test interventions that can be translated into health policies and practice to improve health and eliminate health inequities for older adults.

Kyra O'Brien, MD

Clinical Instructor
University of Pennsylvania

Dr. O’Brien is a clinical fellow in cognitive and behavioral neurology at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her undergraduate degree in biology from Yale University and her doctor of medicine from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. She completed her internal medicine internship and neurology residency training at the hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. As a current clinical fellow at the Penn Memory Center, she is developing research addressing the management of persons living with dementia in primary care settings. She hopes to understand barriers to the optimal care of persons living with dementia in primary care practices and design interventions to address those barriers.

Lauren Parker, PhD

Assistant Scientist
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Dr. Parker is an assistant scientist in the Department of Health, Behavior and Society. Her research examines how home-and-community based supports can be used to address the cultural needs of African American and Hispanic caregivers for people living with dementia. With funding from the NIA, she examines the influence of adult day services (ADS) on physiological and psychosocial stressors for African American caregivers. This line of research integrates biological and psychosocial indicators of stress. Another area of scholarly interest is to disseminate and implement culturally tailored stress-reduction interventions into real world settings. She is the co-investigator on two NIA-funded research studies to culturally adapt the ADS Plus program for Hispanic and African American caregivers and she serves on the Leadership Core of Public Health Center of Excellence in Dementia Caregiving at the University of Minnesota.

Tina Sadarangani, PhD, RN

Assistant Professor
NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing

Dr. Sadarangani is a board-certified nurse practitioner committed to improving the health of older adults in diverse communities by leveraging the strengths of community-based organizations. Her current research focuses on using mobile health mechanisms to integrate health and social services provided to people with dementia within adult day centers with primary care settings in order to reduce avoidable healthcare utilization. Dr. Sadarangani is a fellow of the Hartford Institute for Geriatric Nursing and a senior fellow of the NYU Aging Incubator. She is a leading member of the National Adult Day Services Association Research Committee and committed to using community-based participatory action research methods to enhance stakeholder engagement in the research process.

Jasmine Travers, PHD, MHS, RN

Assistant Professor
NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing

Dr. Travers is an assistant professor and health services researcher. She leads a program of research focused on mitigating workforce issues in long-term care and improving health outcomes and reducing health disparities in vulnerable older adults with an emerging focus on disparities in the delivery of quality person-centered long-term care for Black and Latino older people living with dementia. Currently she is pursuing training through a current RWJF career development award in intervention design and implementation research to enable her to promote the systematic uptake of evidence-based innovative approaches to improve long-term care delivery. Dr. Travers completed a postdoctoral fellowship with the National Clinician Scholars Program at Yale University and a T32 postdoctoral fellowship at University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. She received her PhD at Columbia University School of Nursing.