Confirmed Speakers and Moderators

Head­line Speakers

Dr. Brenda Dann-Messier, Assis­tant Sec­re­tary for Voca­tional and Adult Edu­ca­tion, US Depart­ment of Education

Bren­da Dann-Messier was nom­i­nated by Pres­i­dent Oba­ma as assis­tant sec­re­tary for voca­tional and adult edu­ca­tion on July 14, 2009. On Oct. 5, 2009 she was con­firmed by the U.S. Sen­ate and began her offi­cial duties on Oct. 13, 2009. As the first assis­tant sec­re­tary for the Office of Voca­tional and Adult Edu­ca­tion (OVAE) who is also an adult edu­ca­tor, Dann-Messier leads the Department’s efforts in adult edu­ca­tion and career and tech­ni­cal edu­ca­tion, as well as efforts sup­port­ing com­mu­nity col­leges and cor­rec­tional edu­ca­tion. She over­sees the admin­is­tra­tion of 11 grant pro­grams in these areas, total­ing approx­i­mately $1.9 bil­lion annu­ally. Dann-Messier is com­mit­ted to col­lab­o­ra­tion, both with­in the Depart­ment and across fed­eral agen­cies, includ­ing work­ing with the U.S. Depart­ments of Labor, Agri­cul­ture, Health and Human Ser­vices, Home­land Secu­rity and Com­merce. OVAE’s vision is for all youths and adults to have mul­ti­ple oppor­tu­ni­ties to obtain life­long edu­ca­tion and train­ing in order to achieve reward­ing careers and fam­ily lives, par­tic­i­pate in their com­mu­ni­ties, and attain their per­sonal goals. You can read more Here.

Dr. Molly Wagster, Chief of the Behavioral and Systems Neuroscience Branch in the Division of Neuroscience, National Institute on Aging (NIA)

Dr. Wag­ster over­sees admin­is­tra­tion and devel­op­ment of research in cog­ni­tive and emo­tion­al change with age and in sen­so­ry and motor dis­or­ders of aging. She direct­ly man­ages a port­fo­lio of research in mech­a­nisms of cog­ni­tive (mem­o­ry, learn­ing, atten­tion, lan­guage) and affec­tive (emo­tion) change with age that spans research from mol­e­cules to behav­ior. She serves as the NIH Project Offi­cer for the devel­op­ment of the NIH Tool­box for Assess­ment of Neu­ro­log­i­cal and Behav­ioral Func­tion (con­tract sup­port­ed by the NIH Blue­print for Neu­ro­science Research) and directs the trans-NIH Cog­ni­tive and Emo­tion­al Health Project. Dr. Wag­ster received her MS and PhD in Biopsy­chol­o­gy from Tulane Uni­ver­si­ty and com­plet­ed a post­doc­tor­al fel­low­ship in Neu­ropathol­o­gy at The Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­si­ty School of Medicine.

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Michael Merzenich, Emeritus Professor, UCSF

For more than three decades, Dr. Merzenich has been a lead­ing pio­neer in brain plas­tic­i­ty research. In the late 1980s, Dr. Merzenich was on the team that invent­ed the cochlear implant, now dis­trib­uted by Advanced Bion­ics. In 1996, Dr. Merzenich was the found­ing CEO of Sci­en­tif­ic Learn­ing Cor­po­ra­tion (Nas­daq: SCIL), and in 2004 became co-founder and Chief Sci­en­tif­ic Offi­cer of Posit Sci­ence. Dr. Merzenich has pub­lished more than 200 arti­cles, received numer­ous awards and prizes, and been grant­ed more than 50 patents for his work. His work was fea­tured on the PBS spe­cials “The Brain Fit­ness Pro­gram” and “Brain Fit­ness 2: Sight and Sound.” Dr. Merzenich earned his BS degree at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Port­land and his PhD at Johns Hop­kins. He retired from his long career as Fran­cis A. Sooy Pro­fes­sor and Co-Direc­tor of the Keck Cen­ter for Inte­gra­tive Neu­ro­science at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at San Fran­cis­co in 2007. He was elect­ed to the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences, the Insti­tute of Med­i­cine, and recent­ly launched the research/ tech­nol­o­gy incu­ba­tor Brain Plas­tic­i­ty Inc.

All Fea­tured Speak­ers and Moderators

Tracy Packiam Alloway, PhD, Director of the Center for Memory and Learning in the Lifespan, the University of Stirling, UK

Tra­cy was recent­ly award­ed the pres­ti­gious Joseph Lis­ter Award by the British Sci­ence Asso­ci­a­tion for her con­tri­bu­tion to sci­ence. Tra­cy has devel­oped the only stan­dard­ized work­ing-mem­o­ry tests for edu­ca­tors pub­lished by Psy­cho­log­i­cal Cor­po­ra­tion, which to date has been trans­lat­ed into 15 lan­guages and used to screen for work­ing mem­o­ry prob­lems in stu­dents with dyslex­ia, motor dys­prax­ia (Devel­op­men­tal Coor­di­na­tion Dis­or­der), ADHD and Autis­tic Spec­trum Dis­or­der. She pro­vides con­sul­tan­cy to the World Bank and her research has received wide­spread inter­na­tion­al cov­er­age in hun­dreds of media out­lets, includ­ing Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can, the BBC, Reuters, ABC News, and NBC.

Daphne Bavelier, Professor, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the University of Rochester

Daphne Bave­li­er is a Pro­fes­sor in the Depart­ment of Brain and Cog­ni­tive Sci­ences at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Rochester. Her work focus­es on brain plas­tic­i­ty and exam­ines the role of expe­ri­ence in shap­ing the func­tion­al orga­ni­za­tion of the human brain as well as in push­ing the bound­aries of behav­ior. She stud­ies pop­u­la­tions with altered expe­ri­ence such as deaf indi­vid­u­als, video game play­ers or indi­vid­u­als using a visu­al rather than a spo­ken lan­guage (e.g. users of Amer­i­can Sign Lan­guage), and asks basic ques­tions such as: Do deaf indi­vid­u­als see bet­ter? What is the impact of video gam­ing on vision and cog­ni­tion? How does the use of a visu­al, rather than spo­ken lan­guage, change the cere­bral orga­ni­za­tion for language?

Pro­f. Cary Cooper, Sci­ence Co-ordination Chair, Foresight Project on Men­tal Cap­i­tal and Wellbeing

Pro­fes­sor Coop­er chaired the Sci­ence Co-ordi­na­tion team of the Fore­sight Project on Men­tal Cap­i­tal and Well­be­ing. He is a Pro­fes­sor of Orga­ni­za­tional Psy­chol­ogy and Health at the Lan­caster Uni­ver­sity Man­age­ment School, Pres­i­dent of the British Asso­ci­a­tion for Coun­selling and Psy­chother­apy, and Direc­tor and founder of Robert­son Coop­er Ltd. Prof. Coop­er is recog­nised as a world-lead­ing expert on stress and work­place issues, and received his BS and MBA degrees from the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Los Ange­les, and his PhD from the Uni­ver­sity of Leeds.

Dr. David Darby, Chief Med­ical Offi­cer, CogState

Dr. David Dar­by is a Founder and Chief Med­ical Offi­cer at CogState Ltd devel­op­ing com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive test­ing instru­ments includ­ing for ear­ly detec­tion of demen­tia and con­cus­sion in sports, and is also adjunct Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor at the Cen­tre for Neu­ro­science, and Senior Research Fel­low of the Flo­rey Neu­ro­sciences Insti­tute, Uni­ver­si­ty of Mel­bourne. Prof Dar­by com­plet­ed a PhD in neu­rol­o­gy and neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy and neu­rol­o­gy train­ing in 1991, and served as an instruc­tor in Behav­ioral Neu­rol­o­gy at Beth Israel Hos­pi­tal, Har­vard Med­ical School from 1992 to 1995.

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Jerri Edwards, Associate Professor, University of South Florida

Dr. Edwards’ research is aimed toward dis­cov­er­ing how cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties can be main­tained and even enhanced with advanc­ing age. Ulti­mate­ly, the goals of Dr. Edwards’ research are to extend the mobil­i­ty and inde­pen­dence of old­er adults there­by improv­ing their qual­i­ty of life. She is par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ed in how cog­ni­tive inter­ven­tions may help old­er adults to avoid or at least delay func­tion­al dif­fi­cul­ties and there­by main­tain inde­pen­dence. Much of her work has focused upon the func­tion­al abil­i­ty of dri­ving includ­ing assess­ing dri­ving fit­ness among old­er adults and reme­di­a­tion of cog­ni­tive decline that results in dri­ving difficulties.

Dr. Martha Farah, Director of the Center for Neuroscience and Society, University of Pennsylvania

Dr. Farah is the Direc­tor of the Cen­ter for Neu­ro­science and Soci­ety at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia and Annen­berg Pro­fes­sor of Nat­ur­al Sci­ences. Much of her career has been devot­ed to under­stand­ing the mech­a­nisms of vision, mem­o­ry, and exec­u­tive func­tion in the human brain. In recent years she shift­ed her research focus to a new set of issues that lie at the inter­face between cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science and “the real world.” These new issues of inter­est to me include the effects of socioe­co­nom­ic adver­si­ty on chil­dren’s brain devel­op­ment and emerg­ing social and eth­i­cal issues in neu­ro­science (“neu­roethics”), mood reg­u­la­tion, and deci­sion making.

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Alvaro Fernandez, CEO, SharpBrains

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez is Sharp­Brains’ co-founder and Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer. He has been quot­ed by The New York Times, The Wall Street Jour­nal, CNN, and oth­ers. Alvaro is a mem­ber of the Glob­al Agen­da Coun­cils ini­tia­tive run by the World Eco­nom­ic Forum, and recent­ly co-authored The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness. He start­ed his career at McK­in­sey & Com­pa­ny and led the launch of sev­er­al pub­lish­ing and edu­ca­tion com­pa­nies in the US and Europe. Alvaro has an MBA and MA in Edu­ca­tion from Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty, and enjoys teach­ing The Sci­ence of Brain Health at UC-Berke­ley Osh­er Life­long Learn­ing Institute.

Lindsay Gaskins, CEO, Marble: the Brain Store

Lind­say start­ed Mar­bles: The Brain Store in 2008 with the sim­ple idea of find­ing the best brain games out there and putting them all in one place. Not just prod­ucts for aging baby boomers con­cerned about mem­o­ry loss and vic­tims of brain dis­or­ders, but also any­one who want­ed to improve focus and atten­tion, enhance cre­ativ­i­ty, become bet­ter mul­ti-taskers. Mar­bles opened three more Chicagoland stores in 2009 and four more stores in 2010. Pre­vi­ous­ly, Lind­say was a Vice Pres­i­dent at Sand­box Indus­tries, a Chica­go-based ven­ture cap­i­tal fund and incubator.

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Adam Gazzaley, Director of the Neuroscience Imaging Center at the University of California, San Francisco

Dr. Gaz­za­ley is a fac­ul­ty mem­ber in the Neu­rol­o­gy, Phys­i­ol­o­gy and Psy­chi­a­try depart­ments, and prin­ci­pal inves­ti­ga­tor of a cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science lab­o­ra­to­ry that con­ducts research on the neur­al mech­a­nisms of atten­tion and mem­o­ry. A major focus of his research has been to expand our under­stand­ing of the alter­ations in the aging brain that lead to cog­ni­tive decline. His most recent stud­ies explore how we can pre­serve and improve atten­tion and mem­o­ry as we get old­er. He has received many awards and hon­ors for his research, includ­ing the 1997 Cor­ti­cal Schol­ar Award, Pfizer/AFAR Inno­va­tions in Aging Award and the Elli­son Foun­da­tion New Schol­ar Award in Aging.

Ken Gibson, President, LearningRx

In 2002, Dr. Gib­son found­ed Learn­ingRx, a net­work of more than 60 cen­ters across the Unit­ed States and abroad offer­ing cog­ni­tive skills test­ing and train­ing. The com­pa­ny has been named to Fran­chise Times “Fast 55” and Fran­chise Mar­ket­ing Magazine’s “Top 100 New Fran­chis­es,” as well as an hon­or­able men­tion on the Fran­chise 50 list put out by Fran­chise Busi­ness Review.

Prof. James Giordano, Director of the Center for Neurotechnology Studies and Vice President for Academic Programs, Potomac Institute

Prof. James Gior­dano is Direc­tor of the Cen­ter for Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy Stud­ies and Vice Pres­i­dent for Aca­d­e­m­ic Pro­grams at the Potomac Insti­tute for Pol­i­cy Stud­ies. He is also a Senior Research Asso­ciate, Well­come Cen­tre for Neu­roethics and Uehi­ro Cen­tre for Prac­ti­cal Phi­los­o­phy, Uni­ver­si­ty of Oxford, Oxford, UK, and Vis­it­ing Pro­fes­sor of Neu­rophi­los­o­phy and Neu­roethics at Rheinis­che Friedrich Wil­helms’ Uni­ver­sität, Bonn, Ger­many. Prof. Gior­dano is Edi­tor-in-Chief of the jour­nal Phi­los­o­phy, Ethics and Human­i­ties in Med­i­cine, and author of more than 120 pub­li­ca­tions in neu­ro­science, pain, neu­rophi­los­o­phy, and neu­roethics. His ongo­ing research address­es the role of neu­ro­science and tech­nol­o­gy in med­i­cine, social, and nation­al defense appli­ca­tions, and explores the neu­roethics of pain, pain care, and impli­ca­tions for the treat­ment of human and non-human organisms.

Evian Gor­don, CEO, Brain Resource

Dr Evian Gor­don, PhD, MBBCh, is the Chair­man and Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer of Brain Resource. Dr Gor­don has over 20 years of expe­ri­ence in human brain research. He was the found­ing direc­tor of the Brain Dynam­ics Cen­tre at West­mead Hos­pi­tal and a senior lec­turer in the Depart­ment of Psy­cho­log­i­cal Med­i­cine at the Uni­ver­sity of Syd­ney. He edit­ed the first book on “Inte­gra­tive Neu­ro­science” and has more than 160 publications.

Dr. Walter Greenleaf, CEO, Virtually Better

Wal­ter Green­leaf, Ph.D. is a research sci­en­tist trained in Neu­ro- and Behav­ioral Sci­ences at Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty, and founder and CEO of Vir­tu­al­ly Bet­ter. His research, writ­ing, and pre­sen­ta­tions focus on the use of sim­u­la­tion tech­nol­o­gy to improve phys­i­cal med­i­cine and neu­ro­log­i­cal and cog­ni­tive reha­bil­i­ta­tion. Dr. Green­leaf is known inter­na­tion­al­ly as a pio­neer in med­ical appli­ca­tions for advanced com­put­er tech­nol­o­gy, and he has designed and devel­oped sev­er­al inno­v­a­tive prod­ucts in clin­i­cal med­i­cine in areas such as vir­tu­al real­i­ty, telemed­i­cine tech­nol­o­gy, clin­i­cal infor­mat­ics, point-of-care data col­lec­tion via hand­held devices, ergonom­ic eval­u­a­tion tech­nol­o­gy, as well as reha­bil­i­ta­tion technologies.

Muki Hansteen-Izora, Senior Design Researcher and Strate­gist, Intel’s Dig­i­tal Health Group

Muki is also the Intel lead and co-PI for the Tech­nol­ogy Research for Inde­pen­dent Liv­ing (TRIL) Centre’s Cog­ni­tive Func­tion research strand, which is inves­ti­gat­ing how inter­ac­tive media and gam­ing tech­nolo­gies can sup­port cog­ni­tion in old­er pop­u­la­tions. Pri­or to join­ing Intel, Muki served as a lead researcher at Philips Research Labs. He holds a degree in Cul­tural Anthro­pol­ogy from the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia at San­ta Cruz, and com­pleted his grad­u­ate train­ing in Learn­ing, Design, and Tech­nol­ogy at Stan­ford University.

Dr. Joe Hardy, Senior Director of Research and Development, Lumos Labs

Dr. Hardy works with a net­work of research col­lab­o­ra­tors from insti­tu­tions such as Stan­ford and Har­vard to val­i­date and improve the Lumosity.com cog­ni­tive train­ing pro­grams. Dr. Hardy has over 15 years of expe­ri­ence study­ing the brain, and has pub­lished 20 peer-reviewed sci­en­tif­ic arti­cles on neu­ro­science and cog­ni­tion. He received his Ph.D. from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley in Cog­ni­tive Psy­chol­o­gy and com­plet­ed a Post­doc­tor­al Research Fel­low­ship at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Davis Med­ical Center.

Kathleen Herath, Associate Vice President Health & Productivity, Nationwide Insurance

Kath­leen Herath, RN, BSN CRRN, over­sees the Health and Pro­duc­tiv­i­ty strat­e­gy at Nation­wide for the company’s 33,000 asso­ciates. She is respon­si­ble for the company’s inte­grat­ed health and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty pro­gram, which includes: health screen­ings, well­ness pro­grams, dis­abil­i­ty and dis­ease man­age­ment, health edu­ca­tion, work life resources and walk­ing pro­grams and occu­pa­tion­al health clin­ics. The Health and Pro­duc­tiv­i­ty pro­gram at Nation­wide has been award­ed more than six awards in the last three years includ­ing the pres­ti­gious C. Everett Koop Nation­al Health Award and Sharp­Brains’ Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion Award.

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Jonas Jendi, CEO, Cogmed

Jonas Jen­di joined Cogmed in 2001 as its chief exec­u­tive offi­cer. In 2007, Jen­di opened Cogmed’s North Amer­i­can head­quar­ters in Naperville, IL, where he is now based. Pri­or to Cogmed, Jen­di pro­vid­ed strate­gic con­sult­ing for the Boston Con­sult­ing Group in Stock­holm and Paris, and held man­age­ment and con­sult­ing roles for var­i­ous tech­nol­o­gy start-ups. He holds a MS from the Stock­holm School of Economics.

Dr. Jef­frey Kaye, Direc­tor, NIA — ORCATECH

Dr. Kaye is Pro­fes­sor of Neu­rol­o­gy and Bio­med­ical Engi­neer­ing at Ore­gon Health and Sci­ence Uni­ver­si­ty (OHSU). He directs the NIA — Lay­ton Aging and Alzheimer’s Dis­ease Cen­ter at OHSU and the Port­land Vet­er­ans Affairs Med­ical Cen­ter. He also directs ORCATECH — the Ore­gon Cen­ter for Aging and Tech­nol­o­gy. He cur­rent­ly leads a large NIH study using ubiq­ui­tous, unob­tru­sive tech­nolo­gies for assess­ment of elders in their homes to detect changes sig­nal­ing cog­ni­tive decline is imminent.

Dharma Singh Khalsa, M.D., Pres­i­dent and Med­ical Direc­tor, Alzheimer’s Research and Pre­ven­tion Foundation

He is a grad­u­ate of Creighton Uni­ver­sity School of Med­i­cine in Oma­ha, Nebras­ka. Dr. Khal­sa received his train­ing in Anes­the­si­ol­ogy at the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, San Fran­cisco, where he was Chief Res­i­dent. He is also a grad­u­ate of the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Los Ange­les Med­ical Acupunc­ture for Physi­cians Pro­gram and has stud­ied mind/body med­i­cine at Har­vard Med­ical School’s Mind/Body Med­ical Institute.

Robin Klaus, Chairman and CEO, Club One

Robin has more than 20 years of exec­u­tive man­age­ment expe­ri­ence in the fit­ness indus­try, includ­ing being pres­i­dent and chief oper­at­ing offi­cer of fit­ness man­u­fac­tur­er Star Trac, chair­man of Plan­et Fit­ness, and for­mer chair­man of Amer­i­can Sports Insti­tute. Mr. Klaus cur­rent­ly serves on the board of direc­tors of Napa Sono­ma Sum­mer Search. Mr. Klaus holds a bachelor’s in inter­na­tion­al rela­tions from Amer­i­can Uni­ver­si­ty, a master’s in inter­na­tion­al eco­nom­ics from Uni­ver­si­ty of Pitts­burgh and a master’s in busi­ness admin­is­tra­tion from Stanford.

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Kenneth Kosik, Co-Director, UC Santa Barbara Neuroscience Research Institute

Dr. Kosik is the Co-Direc­tor of UCSB Neu­ro­science Research Insti­tute and Founder of CFIT. He received his M.D. degree from the Med­ical Col­lege of Penn­syl­va­nia, com­plet­ed a neu­rol­o­gy res­i­den­cy from Tufts New Eng­land Med­ical Cen­ter, and held var­i­ous appoint­ments at the Har­vard Med­ical School. In the fall of 2004 he assumed the co-direc­tor­ship of the Neu­ro­science Research Insti­tute and the Har­ri­man Chair at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia San­ta Bar­bara. He has received mul­ti­ple awards, includ­ing a Whitak­er Health Sci­ences Award from Mass­a­chu­setts Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy, the Derek Den­ny-Brown Neu­ro­log­i­cal Schol­ar Award from the Amer­i­can Neu­ro­log­i­cal Asso­ci­a­tion, the Zenith Award from the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion, and a NASA Group Achieve­ment Award.

Veronika Litin­ski, Direc­tor, MaRS Ven­ture Group

Veroni­ka Litin­ski coor­di­nates the MaRS ven­ture ser­vices pro­grams deliv­ered to entre­pre­neurs, investors and high-growth com­pa­nies. She also pro­vides advi­sory ser­vices to entre­pre­neurs and high growth com­pa­nies, with a spe­cial focus on life sci­ences mar­kets, spe­cial­iz­ing in cor­po­rate finance and busi­ness devel­op­ment. Veroni­ka start­ed her career as a research sci­en­tist at Lawrence Liv­er­more Lab in Berke­ley, Cal­i­for­nia. Tran­si­tion­ing to the busi­ness world, Veroni­ka found­ed a med­ical jour­nal, earned her MBA (Finance) at the Uni­ver­sity of San Fran­cisco, and worked in cor­po­rate finance with Union Bank and GATX Finan­cial Cor­po­ra­tion. Veroni­ka is a mem­ber of Finan­cial Women Asso­ci­a­tion (FWA) and Finan­cial Exec­u­tives Inter­na­tional (FEI).

Henry Mahncke, CEO, Posit Science

Dr. Mah­ncke is Posit Sci­ence’s new CEO. Pre­vi­ous­ly, he led their Research & Out­comes team, design­ing sci­en­tif­ic research and imple­ment­ing out­comes tri­als to advance the com­pa­ny’s prod­uct devel­op­ment. Dr. Mah­ncke did his grad­u­ate work and earned his doc­tor­ate in neu­ro­science in Dr. Merzenich’s lab at UCSF. He then worked as an Engage­ment Man­ag­er for McK­in­sey & Com­pa­ny. While at McK­in­sey, Dr. Mah­ncke worked with lead­ing glob­al health­care and con­sumer prod­ucts com­pa­nies in devis­ing mar­ket strate­gies. Dr. Mah­ncke has also served in the con­sulate of the British gov­ern­ment as a Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy con­sul­tant. He holds a BA from Rice Uni­ver­si­ty and a PhD from UCSF.

Alexandra Morehouse, Chief Marketing Officer, AAA NorCal

Alexan­dra More­house is a vet­er­an of mem­ber­ship-dri­ven orga­ni­za­tions hav­ing spent more than a decade with Amer­i­can Express, as well as a stint at Charles Schwab before join­ing AAA near­ly nine years ago, where she became Chief Mar­ket­ing Offi­cer of AAA’s sec­ond-largest club, North­ern Cal­i­for­nia Neva­da and Utah, with 4.2‑million members.

Mar­garet Mor­ris, Senior Researcher in Intel’s Dig­i­tal Health Group

Mar­garet stud­ies the ways that emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies can enhance men­tal and phys­i­cal well­be­ing. She con­ducts ethno­graphic research to iden­tify needs and works with engi­neers to devel­op and eval­u­ate explorato­ry pro­to­types. Pri­or to join­ing Intel in 2002, she stud­ied tech­nol­ogy adop­tion in Sapient’s Expe­ri­ence Mod­el­ling group. Margie com­pleted her Ph.D. in Clin­i­cal Psy­chol­ogy with a minor in Behav­ioural Neu­ro­science at the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico, her clin­i­cal intern­ship at the San Fran­cisco VA Med­ical Cen­tre, and her post­doc­toral fel­low­ship at Stan­ford Uni­ver­sity. She has a B.A. in Eng­lish from Haver­ford College.

Alvaro Pascual-Leone, Director of the Berenson-Allen Center for Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation, Harvard Medical School

Dr. Pas­cual-Leone research­es the phys­i­ol­o­gy of high­er cog­ni­tive func­tions and the study of brain plas­tic­i­ty in skill acqui­si­tion and recov­ery from injury. He is also the Pro­gram Direc­tor of the Har­vard-Thorndike Clin­i­cal Research Cen­ter of the Beth Israel Dea­coness Med­ical Cen­ter. Dr. Pas­cual-Leone obtained an M.D. and a Ph.D. in Neu­ro­phys­i­ol­o­gy from the Fac­ul­ty of Med­i­cine of Albert Lud­wigs Uni­ver­si­ty in Ger­many, and trained at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Min­neso­ta and the US Nation­al Insti­tutes of Health. He great­ly enjoys teach­ing and is the recip­i­ent of numer­ous awards.

Lena Perelman, Director Community Outreach, SCAN Health Plan

At SCAN Health Plan, one of the largest not-for-prof­it Medicare Advan­tage plans in the Unit­ed States, Lena over­sees SCAN’s com­mu­ni­ty involve­ment pro­gram­ming, includ­ing the recent­ly launched SCAN Van, the first mobile resource cen­ter built specif­i­cal­ly for seniors and their care­givers. Perel­man has more than 10 years of expe­ri­ence in health­care and senior ser­vices, hav­ing worked at Tal­bert Med­ical Group, Secure Hori­zons and Los Ange­les Coun­ty Com­mu­ni­ty and Senior Ser­vices. Perel­man earned a master’s degree in geron­tol­ogy and a master’s degree in pub­lic admin­is­tra­tion from the Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern California.

Paula Psyl­lakis, Senior Pol­icy Advi­sor, Ontario Min­istry of Research and Innovation

Paula Psyl­lakis is a Senior Pol­i­cy Advi­sor at the Ontario Min­istry of Research and Inno­va­tion, in Cana­da. From 2007–2009 Paula served as Chair of the Board of Direc­tors of the Advo­ca­cy Cen­tre for the Elder­ly. Pri­or to join­ing gov­ern­ment, Paula worked for the Alzheimer Soci­ety of Toron­to as the Edu­ca­tion Coor­di­na­tor and before that, with indi­vid­u­als with demen­tia. She has a Mas­ters degree in Applied Lin­guis­tics and is pri­mar­i­ly inter­est­ed in lan­guage process­es and dementia.

Patty Purpur, Director, Stanford Health Promotion Network

The Stan­ford Health Pro­mo­tion Net­work (SHPN) is an asso­ci­a­tion of employ­ers, health plans, med­ical care providers, and local gov­ern­ment offi­cials who aim to improve employ­ee health and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty through focused health pro­mo­tion ini­tia­tives and strate­gies. Pat­ty grad­u­at­ed with a BA in Psy­chol­o­gy from Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty in 1989. In 1992, she found­ed Time­Out Ser­vices to offer per­son­al fit­ness ser­vices and expand­ed to Cor­po­rate Well­ness Pro­gram design and man­age­ment. Her com­pa­ny grew to 100 employ­ees and over 5 mil­lion in sales in 2008.

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William Reichman, President, Baycrest

Dr. William E. Reich­man is Pres­i­dent and Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer of Bay­crest, one of the world’s pre­mier aca­d­e­m­ic health sci­ences cen­tres focused on aging and brain func­tion. Dr. Reich­man, an inter­na­tion­al­ly-known expert in geri­atric men­tal health and demen­tia is also Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chi­a­try on the Fac­ul­ty of Med­i­cine at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to. He is a not­ed author­i­ty on the deliv­ery of men­tal health and demen­tia ser­vices in nurs­ing home set­tings. His pre­vi­ous aca­d­e­m­ic activ­i­ties have focused on the phar­ma­co­log­i­cal treat­ment of Alzheimer’s dis­ease and its asso­ci­at­ed apa­thy and neg­a­tive symp­toms. Dr. Reich­man is a for­mer Pres­i­dent of the Amer­i­can Asso­ci­a­tion for Geri­atric Psy­chi­a­try and the Geri­atric Men­tal Health Foundation.

Peter Reiner, Co-Founder, National Core for Neuroethics at the University of British Columbia

Dr. Rein­er’s cur­rent focus lies in the area of neu­roethics, spe­cial­iz­ing in the non-med­ical impact of tech­nol­o­gy on the brain, with par­tic­u­lar inter­ests in the neu­roethics of cog­ni­tive enhance­ment as well as the impact of mod­ern tech­no­log­i­cal soci­ety upon brain func­tion. Dr. Rein­er has a dis­tin­guished track record as a bench research sci­en­tist study­ing the neu­ro­bi­ol­o­gy of behav­iour­al states and neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­ease, and also was the Pres­i­dent & CEO of Active Pass Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, a drug dis­cov­ery com­pa­ny that he found­ed to tack­le the scourge of Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr. John Reppas, Director of Public Policy, Neurotechnology Industry Organization

Pre­vi­ous­ly, Dr. Rep­pas was a fel­low in the Depart­ment of Neu­ro­bi­ol­o­gy, Howard Hugh­es Med­ical Insti­tute, and Bio‑X pro­gram at the Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty School of Med­i­cine. Rep­pas is an expert in next-gen­er­a­tion neu­ro­mod­u­la­tion tech­nolo­gies, brain-machine inter­faces, and human brain imag­ing. He is an advi­sor to ear­ly-stage life sci­ence com­pa­nies and their investors, and also an angel investor. He grad­u­at­ed from Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty with a Bach­e­lors of Med­i­cine, received his MD from the Har­vard-MIT Divi­sion of Health Sci­ences and Tech­nol­o­gy, and a PhD from the Depart­ment of Neu­ro­bi­ol­o­gy at Har­vard Med­ical School.

Carlos Rodriguez, Chief Technology Officer, CogniFit

Mr. Rodriguez earned an Indus­tri­al Engi­neer­ing Mas­ter Degree from the Poly­tech­nic Uni­ver­si­ty Car­los III of Madrid, and is a grad­u­ate of the Grande Ecole INSA Lyon, France. Car­los began his pro­fes­sion­al career at Peu­geot Group before join­ing the Urali­ta Group as a con­sul­tant in the New Tech­nolo­gies depart­ment in Madrid. Fol­low­ing this, Car­los joined the Con­sumer and Mar­ket Knowl­edge depart­ment at Proc­ter & Gam­ble for 5 years, ini­tial­ly work­ing in the West­ern Europe head­quar­ters in Gene­va before mov­ing to Madrid, where he was respon­si­ble for over­all con­sumer strat­e­gy design for sev­er­al Euro­pean brands and key dis­tri­b­u­tion chan­nels. Today Car­los is part­ner at Milk Cap­i­tal in Paris and leads the Cog­niFit oper­a­tions in Spain & South America.

Beverly Sanborn, Vice President of Activities and Memory Programs, Belmont Village Senior Living

Bev­er­ly has over two decades of expe­ri­ence design­ing and man­ag­ing old­er adult ser­vices across the con­tin­u­um of care, includ­ing healthy aging, Mild Cog­ni­tive Impair­ment and demen­tia. She is a grad­u­ate of U.C. Berke­ley with a Mas­ters in Social Work from UCLA.

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Lisa Schoonerman, Co-founder, vibrantBrains

Lisa held a vari­ety of tech­ni­cal and edi­to­r­i­al posi­tions with the Thom­son Cor­po­ra­tion in the Legal Pub­lish­ing divi­sion (now Thom­son­Reuters), begin­ning in Rochester, NY and then com­ing to San Fran­cis­co to work for what was then Ban­croft Whit­ney. Lisa’s work for Thom­son includ­ed a 3‑year assign­ment in the UK, where she was Edi­to­r­i­al Direc­tor of the group pro­vid­ing con­tent for West­law UK, the first inter­na­tion­al appli­ca­tion of the West­law database.

Dr. Gary Small, Director of the Center on Aging, UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience & Human Behavior

Dr. Small is a pro­fes­sor of psy­chi­a­try and his research, sup­port­ed by the Nation­al Insti­tute of Health, has made head­lines in the Wall Street Jour­nal, New York Times, and USA Today. Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can mag­a­zine named him one of the world’s lead­ing inno­va­tors in sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy. Dr. Small lec­tures through­out the world and fre­quent­ly appears on The Today Show, Good Morn­ing Amer­i­can, PBS, and CNN. He has writ­ten five books, includ­ing The New York Times best sell­er, The Mem­o­ry Bible.

Nigel Smith, Strategy and Innovation Director, AARP

Nigel is respon­si­ble for devel­op­ing decen­tral­ized inno­va­tion mod­els for AARP and for con­sult­ing with busi­ness units in the exe­cu­tion of inno­va­tion process­es. Pri­or to AARP, Nigel was the Direc­tor or Prod­uct Inno­va­tion for Visa USA. Oth­er pro­fes­sion­al expe­ri­ences have been with McK­in­sey & Com­pa­ny, Gold­man Sachs Group, and KPMG. Nigel holds a Mas­ters in Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion degree from Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty and a Bach­e­lors in Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion degree from Howard University.

Joshua Stein­er­man, Asst. Pro­fes­sor, Albert Ein­stein Col­lege of Med­i­cine – Mon­te­fiore Med­ical Center

Edu­cated and trained at Har­vard, Yale, Colum­bia, and the State Uni­ver­sity of New York, Dr. Stein­er­man is a behav­ioral neu­rol­o­gist and neu­ropsy­chi­a­trist who com­bines patient care with clin­i­cal research in brain aging and cog­ni­tion. Dr. Stein­er­man co-directs the Ein­stein-Mon­te­fiore Cen­ter for Healthy Brain Aging and is the sci­en­tific founder of ProG­evity Neuroscience.

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Yaakov Stern, Cognitive Neuroscience Division Leader, Columbia University

Dr. Stern directs the Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science Divi­sion of the Sergievsky Cen­ter and is Direc­tor of Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy for the Mem­o­ry Dis­or­ders Clin­ic at the New York State Psy­chi­atric Insti­tute. He also directs the post-doc­tor­al train­ing pro­gram Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy and Cog­ni­tion in Aging, and is a Pro­fes­sor of Clin­i­cal Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy in the Depart­ments of Neu­rol­o­gy, Psy­chi­a­try, and Psy­chol­o­gy, as well as the in Sergievsky Cen­ter and the Taub Insti­tute for the Research on Alzheimer’s Dis­ease and the Aging Brain, at Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege of Physi­cians and Surgeons.

Kate Sullivan, Director of the Brain Fitness Center, Walter Reed Army Medical Center

Kate Sul­li­van M.S., CCC-SLP, CBIS com­plet­ed her under­grad­u­ate and grad­u­ate degrees in Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Sci­ences and Dis­or­ders at James Madi­son Uni­ver­si­ty. She has been a speech-lan­guage pathol­o­gist at Wal­ter Reed Army Med­ical Cen­ter for 10 years where she recent­ly helped launch the Brain Fit­ness Cen­ter (BFC), locat­ed in the WRAMC’s Mil­i­tary Advanced Train­ing Cen­ter, to com­ple­ment tra­di­tion­al care approaches.

Dr Michael Valenzuela, Leader of the Regenerative Neuroscience Group, UNSW

Dr Michael Valen­zuela is a Research Fel­low at the School of Psy­chi­a­try, Uni­ver­si­ty of New South Wales and Leader of the Regen­er­a­tive Neu­ro­science Group at UNSW. His cur­rent research is aimed at under­stand­ing the com­pet­ing forces of neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and degen­er­a­tion in the human brain, and includes stud­ies of adult stem cells, ani­mal mod­els, neu­roimag­ing, clin­i­cal tri­als and epi­demi­ol­o­gy. In 2006, he was award­ed the pres­ti­gious Eure­ka Prize for Med­ical Research for his research on the rela­tion­ship between demen­tia and com­plex men­tal activity.

Sophia Vinogradov, Interim Vice Chair of Department of Psychiatry, UCSF

Dr. Vino­gradov is a Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chi­a­try in Res­i­dence; Inter­im Asso­ciate Chief of Staff for Men­tal Health, Asso­ciate Chief for Edu­ca­tion and Research, Men­tal Health Ser­vice, at the San Fran­cis­co VA Med­ical Cen­ter; and Research Co-Direc­tor of the Pro­drome Assess­ment, Research, and Treat­ment pro­gram at Lan­g­ley Porter Psy­chi­atric Insti­tute, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, San Fran­cis­co. She received her M.D. from Wayne State Uni­ver­si­ty School of Med­i­cine, obtained her psy­chi­a­try res­i­den­cy train­ing at Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty School of Med­i­cine, and com­plet­ed a Psy­chi­atric Neu­ro­sciences Research Fel­low­ship at the Palo Alto VA Med­ical Cen­ter and Stan­ford University.

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Thomas M. Warden, Vice President, Allstate’s Research and Planning Center (ARPC)

Mr. War­den is Vice Pres­i­dent and Leader of Allstate’s Research and Plan­ning Cen­ter (ARPC), where he helps set ARPC’s research agen­da and man­age its exe­cu­tion by 60-mem­ber ARPC staff, lead­ing the devel­op­ment of sig­nif­i­cant inno­va­tions that con­tribute to Allstate’s prof­itable growth. In 2010 All­state received Sharp­Brains’ Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion Award.  Tom is a Char­tered Finan­cial Ana­lyst and has an M.B.A. from Har­vard University.

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Keith Wesnes, Practice Leader, United BioSource Corporation

In 1986 Pro­fes­sor Wesnes found­ed Cog­ni­tive Drug Research (acquired in 2009 by Unit­ed BioSource) to offer this sys­tem as a ser­vice in clin­i­cal tri­als. Pro­fes­sor Wesnes has pub­lished over 270 peer-reviewed research arti­cles as well as more than 20 chap­ters and lit­er­a­ture reviews. He holds Pro­fes­sor­ships at the Human Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science Unit at Northum­bria Uni­ver­si­ty, New­cas­tle, UK and the Brain Sci­ences Insti­tute at Swin­burne Uni­ver­si­ty, Mel­bourne, Australia.

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