Rosemary Laird, MD

Rosemary Laird, MD, is medical director of the Health First Aging Institute and The Center for Family Caregivers in Melbourne, Florida. Laird received her medical degree with honors from Georgetown University School of Medicine. She completed an internal medicine residency at the University of Chicago Hospitals. She then pursued a geriatric fellowship at the University of Kansas and remained as an assistant professor of medicine until 2001. Her research activities focused on falls and program design for the care of elders. She holds a master’s degree in health services administration from the University of Kansas.

In 2002 she became the founding medical director of the Health First Aging Institute, a component of Health First, Inc, a community-based not-for-profit integrated healthcare system on Florida’s Space Coast. The Aging Institute sponsors a specialty geriatric and primary care clinic and offers educational programs for lay and professional audiences.

Laird is an active fellow of the American Geriatrics Society and is serving as president of the Florida Geriatrics Society. In 2009 she was named a Practice Change Fellow for the Atlantic Philanthropies. Both a speaker and author, she contributed the Afterword (“Caregivers Seeking Advice: A Doctor’s Prescription”) in the 2008 book Voices of Caregiving. Along with Leeza Gibbons and Dr. Jamie Huysman, she is coauthor of the 2009 book Take Your Oxygen First: Protecting Your Health and Wellbeing While Caring for a Loved One With Memory Loss.

Margaret (Meg) Newhouse, PhD, CPCC

Meg Newhouse, a pioneer in third age life crafting, is a group facilitator, teacher, coach, and program designer. She coaches individuals, presents talks and workshops, writes, and consults with organizations, helping people create vital and fulfilling later lives. She is the founder and past president of the Life Planning Network (New England), a member of ICF and ICF-NE, and the author (with Judy Goggin) of Life Planning for the Third Age: A Design Guide and Toolkit.  Her clients include Civic Ventures and Tufts University. She recently cotaught a course on post-midlife development at the Brandeis BOLLI.  She holds a BA from Wellesley College, an MAT from Harvard University, and PhD in political science from UCLA.  Previous careers include high school and college teaching, academic administration, and career counseling at Harvard, where she wrote Cracking the Academia Nut and Outside the Ivory Tower.  

Mary Elizabeth Roth, MD, FACPE

Mary Elizabeth Roth, MD, FACPE, is associate chief academic officer at Geisinger Northeast in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, a division of the Geisinger Health System. As program director of the Kistler Family Medicine Residency at Geisinger, she has been instrumental in developing the rural family medicine residency in northeastern Pennsylvania and the general surgery residency, as well as the sport medicine and addiction medicine fellowships for the Kistler Family Medicine Residency program. She is involved with the design of the medical school curriculum and CME for the region. Roth maintains a clinical practice at the Geisinger Medical Group’s Kistler Clinic in Wilkes Barre.

Debra Sanders, PhD, RN, GCNS-BC

Debra Sanders, PhD, RN, GCNS-BC, is an assistant professor in the department of nursing at Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania where she teaches senior nursing students advanced medical-surgical nursing. Her areas of clinical expertise include chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, and sleep. She is board certified as a gerontologic clinical nurse specialist and maintains a part-time practice as a pulmonary clinical nurse specialist at Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, Pa. She has made presentations at the local, state, and national levels on a multitude of topics and maintains membership in several professional organizations, including the National Association of Clinical Nurse Specialists, the National Gerontologic Nursing Association, and the Pennsylvania Sleep Society. In 2009, she was selected to attend the Geriatric Nursing Education Consortium Institute sponsored by the John A. Hartford Foundation, joining approximately 800 nurse educators from across the country for specialized training in enhancing the gerontology content in senior-level baccalaureate nursing courses.

James Siberski, MS

James Siberski is coordinator of the Gerontology Education Center for Professional Development and an assistant professor of gerontology at College Misericordia, as well as an adjunct professor of psychiatry at Pennsylvania State University. He’s a former director of Misericordia’s Alternative Learning program. Prior to his retirement, he was director of staff development of Danville State Hospital. He’s certified in re-motivation therapy and gerontology instruction and has had extended training in several areas, including cybernetics of treatment, behavior modification, and geriatrics. He has presented more than 100 workshops nationally on various aging-related topics and has been published in a number of professional and trade journals. He’s a member of the board of trustees at Maria Joseph Manor and an affiliate of the American Association of Geriatric Psychiatrists.

Linda Thomas-Hemak, MD

Linda Thomas-Hemak, MD, serves as director of ambulatory care and mid-valley practice medical director for The Wright Center Medical Group in Jermyn, Pennsylvania. As a primary care provider in internal medicine, she has been involved in establishing care management services and practice management oversight in physician leadership. Additionally, she has served as a nurse practitioner and physician assistant clinical primary care supervisor. The recipient of clinical and teaching awards, Thomas-Hemak is quality assurance medical director for the Traditional Home Health program.

Larry D. Wright, MD

Larry Wright is a geriatrician with nearly 30 years of clinical practice experience in Northwest Arkansas. His formal post-graduate medical education includes internal medicine residency training and a fellowship in geriatric medicine. He’s board certified in both areas by the American Board of Internal Medicine. In addition to his clinical practice of geriatric medicine, he is medical director of Senior Health Centers of Northwest Health Systems, overseeing the medical care in four senior clinics and two community hospitals. He has served as director of the Schmieding Center for Senior Health and Education, a program of the Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging and one of seven regional centers on aging of the Arkansas Aging Initiative. He’s an assistant professor at the Donald W. Reynolds Department of Geriatrics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.  He is codirector of the Caregiving Project for Older Americans, a national initiative addressing the in-home caregiver workforce crisis