ACT Events and Seminars
Please join us for ACT-hosted seminars including our quarterly Life Course Core Seminar Series which features guest speakers on a range of related topics and takes place via Zoom. Links to recordings of seminars are frequently made available for those who cannot attend in real time.
2023 Seminars
Dr. Laura Gibbons, Monday 11/13, 12-1 PM Pacific/3-4 PM Eastern
"Generalizing research from ACT to all older adults in the Seattle area"
Dr. Laura Gibbons is a biostatistician specializing in measurement issues in cognitive aging. She has been on the program committee and teaching faculty for the annual Advanced Psychometric Methods in Cognitive Aging Research Conference from 2005 to the present, and has enjoyed working with the ACT study since 1996.
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Meeting ID: 667 690 6957
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Meeting ID: 667 690 6957
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Meeting ID: 667 690 6957
ACT Project 1 Seminar with Drs. Laura Brocklebank & Mikaela Bloomberg on the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing
October 24, 2023 8:00-9:00 AM PT
See their recent publication here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666756823000831?via%3Dihub
Microsoft Teams meeting
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Meeting ID: 272 632 914 612
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Video Conference ID: 116 976 821 1
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Phone Conference ID: 819 347 006#
Please join us for our fall Life Course Core Seminar Presentation, "Structural Determinants of Cognitive Aging," with Dr. Justina Avila-Rieger.
Dr. Justina Avila-Rieger is an associate research scientist in Neurology at the Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center and the Taub Institute for Research in Aging and Alzheimer’s disease at Columbia University. She received her PhD from the University of New Mexico with an emphasis on Neuropsychology and Quantitative Methodology and completed her clinical internship in Neuropsychology at the Baltimore VAMC. During her graduate and postdoctoral training, she also specialized in health policy as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Research Fellow and a 2021-2022 Health and Aging Policy Fellow. Dr. Avila-Rieger’s research focuses on identifying and understanding macro-social determinants of sex/gender and racial/ethnic disparities in Alzheimer’s disease. She is passionate about amplifying the voices and experiences of communities that are traditionally marginalized in dementia-related research and policy. Her long-term goal is to conduct research that directly influences the development of health policy solutions aimed at eliminating Alzheimer’s disease disparities.
When: Monday, September 25, 2023 12:00-1:00PM PT
Where: Zoom Meeting https://columbiacuimc.zoom.us/j/6676906957
Meeting ID: 667 690 6957
One tap mobile
+16465588656,,6676906957# US (New York)
+13126266799,,6676906957# US (Chicago)
Dial by your location
+1 646 558 8656 US (New York)
+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
+1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
+1 669 900 9128 US (San Jose)
+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
Meeting ID: 667 690 6957
Find your local number: https://columbiacuimc.zoom.us/u/adcQ8t205t
Join by SIP
Join by H.323
162.255.37.11 (US West)
162.255.36.11 (US East)
115.114.131.7 (India Mumbai)
115.114.115.7 (India Hyderabad)
213.19.144.110 (Amsterdam Netherlands)
213.244.140.110 (Germany)
103.122.166.55 (Australia Sydney)
103.122.167.55 (Australia Melbourne)
149.137.40.110 (Singapore)
64.211.144.160 (Brazil)
149.137.68.253 (Mexico)
69.174.57.160 (Canada Toronto)
65.39.152.160 (Canada Vancouver)
207.226.132.110 (Japan Tokyo)
149.137.24.110 (Japan Osaka)
Meeting ID: 667 690 6957
Dr. Strand will give an overview of the possibilities for studies on the epidemiology of ageing related outcomes such as Alzheimer's disease, cognition, and physical capability in Scandinavia, with focus on Norway. He will give examples from his own research, including time trends on cognition, healthy life years and grip strength as well as new results on social and demographic factors associated with dementia from the NIH-project Changing Lives, Changing Brains.
Dr. Strand's publications are listed here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/1BoYstFVzEuEJ8/bibliography/public/
Dr. Bjørn Heine Strand (PhD, MSc) has background in biostatistics and epidemiology and is a research professor at The Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) and at the Norwegian National Center on Ageing and Health. He investigates life-course models for adult health outcomes with focus on socioeconomic inequalities, using large health examination studies linked with national registry data. During the last decade, after his postdoc period 2008-2010 with National Institute on Aging (NIA/NIH), his work has focused on aging related research. In a current NIH R01-project, "Changing Lives, Changing Brains" (R01 AG069109) (2020-2025) lead by Columbia together with UPenn and NIPH, he is the site principal investigator at NIPH. Dr. Strand is an expert in physical capability, aiming to clarify whether older adults of today have better physical capability than previous generations; "Is 70 the new 60?" Dr. Strand was the principal investigator for data collection on physical function in 7th data collection wave of the Tromsø Study, and is involved in several Tromsø and Trøndelag Health Study (HUNT) projects, both doing research and mentoring PhD students.
Recording of June 12, 2023 talk
Recording of February 27, 2023 seminar: Drs. Jason Flatt and Goleen Samari
Dr. Samari is an expert in the study of race and ethnicity in health, and Dr. Flatt is an expert in the study of cognitive health in the LGBTQIA+ population. Both helped revise related questions in the ACT interviews.
Risk for Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias Among LGBTQIA+ Populations
Jason D. Flatt, PhD, MPH (Pronouns: He/Him/They/Them) is an Assistant Professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, School of Public Health, Department of Social and Behavioral Health, and Jason’s current research works to better understand concerns and needs of diverse LGBTQIA+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual as well as additional identities) people living with Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and their care providers. Jason also works with several communities on theriseregistry.org/, one of the first registries for LGBTQIA+ people experiencing memory loss or caring for someone with memory loss. Jason’s research is funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Aging; American Federation for Aging Research; Alzheimer’s Association and The Michael J. Fox Foundation.
Incorporating Race and Ethnicity into Health Research
Goleen Samari, PhD, MPH, MA (Pronouns: She/Her/Hers) is an Assistant Professor in the Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. She is a population health demographer whose research focuses on social inequities and health. She examines how racism, gender inequities, and migration-based inequities shape population and reproductive health both domestically and globally with a particular focus on communities in or from the Middle East and North Africa. She focuses on issues related to immigrant health, women's health, and sexual and reproductive health and rights. She was the first to draw attention to racialization of religious minorities and Islamophobia as a public health issue. She is also one of a handful of public health researchers examining women's empowerment, gender equity, and reproductive health in the Middle East and North Africa. Her recent work includes a measure of structural xenophobia in the U.S. at the state level, the Immigrant Policy Climate index, that can be leveraged to understand the health implications of exclusionary and inclusive immigration contexts. Her research remains focused on understanding and alleviating intersectional structural determinants of health. Cutting across all her research areas is an interest in the way social science constructs are measured and mixed methods that guide the research process.
Jennifer Weuve, MPH, ScD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology of the Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH). In her research, she pursues answers to questions in two major realms of human health: (1) the forces that accelerate the aging of the brain and body, and (2) the health effects of being exposed to environmental toxicants. Underlying all of her research is a foundation in epidemiologic methods.
Recording of Jennifer's January 20, 2023 talk entitled, "Causal Inference Primer, Part II"
Our standard presentation offers a helpful overview of the ACT Study.
Our research partners at the University of Washington also host seminars on Alzheimer’s disease research, which may be of interest.
The ACT Study was recently featured in an article by Sandi Doughton in the Seattle Times.
