Mr Simon Denegri
NIHR National Director for Patients, Carers and the Public in ResearchView Biography
Mr Simon Denegri
Simon Denegri is National Director for Patients and the Public in Research at the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). He was Chair of INVOLVE - the national advisory group for the promotion and support of public involvement in research funded by NIHR - from 2011 unttil 2017. He was Chief Executive of the Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC) from 2006 until 2011 and, prior to this, Director of Corporate Communications at the Royal College of Physicians from 2003. He also worked in corporate communications for Procter & Gamble in the United States from 1997 to 2000. He has a long-standing personal and professional interest in the needs and priorities of people with dementia and their families. He writes and speaks extensively about community and public involvement in health and social care and blogs at http://simon.denegri.com/ He also writes poetry which he publishes at http://otherwiseknownasdotcom.wordpress.com/
Dr Carol Dobson-Stone
University of SydneyView Biography
Dr Carol Dobson-Stone
Carol Dobson-Stone, DPhil, is an NHMRC Boosting Dementia Research Leadership Fellow, based at the University of Sydney. Dr Dobson-Stone completed her PhD in human genetics at the University of Oxford, UK, in 2004. Shortly thereafter, she was awarded a European Molecular Biology Organisation Fellowship to work on brain function genetics at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, moving to Neuroscience Research Australia in 2006. She was appointed as a Senior Research Fellow to the Brain and Mind Centre at the University of Sydney in 2017. Dr Dobson-Stone is a molecular geneticist and has led several NHMRC Project Grants examining genes that are mutated in dementia and related neurodegeneration, particularly frontotemporal dementia and motor neuron disease/amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Her research straddles multiple steps on the pathway from genetic disease to targeted therapy. She uses next-generation sequencing data from dementia patients to identify potentially pathogenic DNA variants in candidate genes. She is developing high-throughput cellular assays of dementia-relevant biological phenotypes, in order to determine pathogenicity of DNA variants. Her work also involves in-depth characterisation of candidate disease genes using molecular biological and cell culture assays.
Dr Joseph E. Gaugler
University of MinesotaView Biography
Dr Joseph E. Gaugler
Dr Joseph E. Gaugler, PhD, is the Robert L. Kane Endowed Chair in Long-Term Care (LTC) and Aging in the Division of Health Policy and Management and School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota. Dr Gaugler's research examines the sources and effectiveness of long-term care for persons 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 persons with dementia and other chronic conditions, and the effectiveness of community-based and psychosocial services for older adults with dementia and their caregiving families. Underpinning these substantive areas, Dr Gaugler also has interests in longitudinal and mixed methods. Dr Gaugler was the Editor for the Journal of Applied Gerontology (2011-2017) and currently serves on the editorial boards of the Journals of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, Journals of Gerontology: Social Sciences, and Psychology and Aging. He was awarded the 2003 Springer Early Career Achievement Award in Adult Development and Aging Research, the 2011 M. Powell Lawton Distinguished Contribution Award for Applied Gerontology from the American Psychological Association (Division 20: Adult Development and Aging), the 2011 Dean's Award from the University of Minnesota School of Nursing, and the 2015 Gordon Streib Distinguished Academic Gerontologist Award from the Southern Gerontological Society. He is a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America and the American Psychological Association, and is currently the President of Division 20: Adult Development and Aging of the American Psychological Association.
Dr Rachel Whitmer
University of California DavisView Biography
Dr Rachel Whitmer
Rachel Whitmer, PhD, is Professor Public Health Sciences, Chief Division of Epidemiology at University of California Davis. Dr Whitmer received her BS in Psychology/Neuorscience Magna Cum Laude from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, her PhD in Human Development from the University of California, Davis, and Fellowship in Cardiovascular Epidemiology at the School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley. Dr Whitmer was a K12 scholar through the NIH Office of Research in Women's Health Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women's Health (BIRCWH) program, administered by the Division of Research at Kaiser Permanente and the University of California, San Francisco, from 2003-2005. She was a Fulbright Faculty Mentor in 2010-11. Dr Whitmer leads a laboratory of population-based science in brain aging. Her group focuses on the following themes: Ethnoracial disparities and diversity in cognitive aging and dementia outcomes, Early-life contributions to brain health and dementia risk; and Metabolic and vascular influences on brain aging. Her group utilizes lifecourse methods to address these themes. Dr Whitmer is Principal Investigator of several studies, among them the SOLID (Study of Longevity in Diabetes), a cohort study of 1200 individuals with diabetes mellitus; KHANDLE (Kaiser Healthy Aging and Diverse Life Experiences), a multiethnic cohort of 1,800 elderly individuals; and Kaiser STAR (Study of Healthy Aging in African Americans), a cohort of 700 African Americans age 50 and older. The primary objective of her research program is to identify and understand risk and protective factors for cognitive and brain aging in populations at high risk for dementia, including ethnic minority groups and those with chronic disease such as diabetes mellitus.
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