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Advisory Board

Margaret (Meg) Newhouse, PhD, CPCC
Meg Newhouse is a pioneer in Third-Age lifecrafting and a group facilitator, teacher, coach, and program designer. She coaches individuals, gives talks and workshops, writes, and consults with organizations, helping people create vital, fulfilling later lives. She is also 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, and she recently co-taught 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.

Helen Dennis
Helen Dennis is a specialist on issues of aging, employment and retirement. She was a lecturer for over 20 years at the University of Southern California’s Andrus Gerontology Center, teaching courses in retirement planning and aging and business. In her consulting practice, she’s worked with over 10,000 employees (including senior executives/managers, factory workers, and university faculty), planning for the “non-financial” aspects of retirement. She has edited two books, Retirement Preparation and Fourteen Steps in Managing an Aging Work Force, and conducted research on age, employment, and retirement issues for organizations such as Conference Board, AARP, and the U.S. Administration on Aging. She also writes the weekly “Successful Aging” column for the (Torrance, Ca) Daily Breeze, and is co-founder of Project Renewment, which addresses issues/opportunities confronting career women facing retirement. As a volunteer, she is chairperson of HELP (Healthcare and Elder Law Programs) and national chairperson of ASA’s Business Forum on Aging.

Larry D. Wright, MD
Larry Wright is a geriatrician with almost 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. Since its founding in January 1999, 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 also an assistant professor at the Donald W. Reynolds Department of Geriatrics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Most recently, he was named co-director of the Caregiving Project for Older Americans, a national initiative addressing the in-home caregiver workforce crisis.

Neal E. Cutler, PhD
Neal Cutler is executive director of the Center on Aging of the Motion Picture and Television Fund. He was previously vice president and dean of educational programs of the American Institute of Financial Gerontology and associate director of the gerontology program at the University of North Carolina/Greensboro. He held Boettner/Gregg Chair in financial gerontology at Widener University, where he directed Financial Literacy 2000, a research program focusing on the impact of aging on issues of finance, health, retirement and families. He's also director of survey research of the National Council on Aging. From 1973 to 1989, he held dual appointments as professor of political science and gerontology at the University of Southern California, and was associate director of the Andrus Gerontology Center's Institute for Advanced Study in Gerontology and Geriatrics. Additionally, he is an associate editor of the Journal of Financial Service Professionals, and serves on the editorial boards of The Gerontologist and the American Journal of Alzheimer's Disease and Other Dementias. Between 1997-99 he was editor of Financial Gerontology Review, a publication of the National Institute of Financial Services for Elders. He was a consulting editor to the Encyclopedia of Financial Gerontology, and is co-author of Aging, Money, and Life Satisfaction: Aspects of Financial Gerontology and Can You Afford to Retire? His most recent book was Advising Mature Clients: The New Science of Wealth Span Planning. He’s been published in over 200 journals and has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Kiplinger's Personal Finance, CBS News and NPR's "All Things Considered."

Janice I. Wassel, PhD
Janice Wassel is director of the gerontology program and a member of the Department of Sociology faculty at the University of North Carolina/Greensboro. She holds dual degrees from Pennsylvania State University in demography and sociology. She received both pre- and post-doctoral NIA training grants and completed an NIA internship. Her gerontology research focuses on how couples make decisions about retirement timing, post-retirement employment after forced retirement, cohort studies, pension wealth, the relationship of family caregiving and depression, and family structures and decision-making in caregiving relationships. She is a founding member of the North Carolina Gerontology Consortium, and, at UNC-Greensboro, has been centrally involved in the creation of the dual MS in Gerontology/MBA Degree program, one of the first such programs in the country. She has been published in Social Forces, Research on Aging, The Gerontologist, and Journals of Gerontology, as well as a number of book chapters, reports, newspapers and newsletters. She also frequently presents research at state and national conferences. She’s involved in several professional associations, including the Population Association of America, Gerontological Society of America, Association for Gerontology in Higher Education, Southern Gerontological Society, and American Society on Aging. She serves on several committees of these organizations, was managing editor of Research on Aging, and is current editor of AGHE’s Sigma Phi Omega newsletter. She serves on the North Carolina Western Chapter's Alzheimer's Association executive board and the Orange County Advisory Board on Aging, Human Services Advisory Commission, and Senior Services of Guilford's advisory board.

James Siberski, MS
James Siberski is coordinator of the Gerontology Education Center for Professional Development and an assistant professor of gerontology at Misericordia University, as well as an adjunct professor of psychiatry at Pennsylvania State University. He’s also 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 over 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.

Helene Feldman
Helene Feldman is president/founder of Helene Feldman Inc. Elder Care Management, a private geriatric care-management firm. She has over 25 years of experience working for and with geriatric healthcare providers, including rehabilitation hospitals, home care agencies, retirement communities, independent and assisted living facilities, dementia units, adult daycare centers, and skilled nursing facilities. She has also trained medical students about home care issues involving patients, caregivers, and resources/entitlements. She’s a member of the National Association of Professional Geriatric Care Managers, as well as a board member and secretary of the Philadelphia area chapter. Her other memberships include the American Society on Aging, Eastern Pennsylvania Geriatric Society, Professional Care Alliance of the Delaware Valley, Alzheimer’s Association and Children of Aging Parents. She received her BA from Temple University and a certificate in gerontology from Temple University Medical School’s Institute on Aging. Additionally, she holds a certificate from the National Academy of Certified Care Managers.

M. Catherine Wollman
Cathy Wollman has been the coordinator of the Gerontological Nurse Practitioner Program at Neumann College for six years. She holds an MSN and Post-Master’s certificate from University of Pennsylvania. She has been an advanced practice nurse and certified geriatric nurse practitioner for over 20 years with a range of experience with older adults in all health care settings. Additionally, she has been involved with management of senior health services, a legal expert for witness services, and a consultant to community services that support aging. She has presented multiple national and regional presentations on topics related to gerontology and the healthcare of older adults.

Karen C. Buck, Esq
Karen Buck has been executive director and COO of SeniorLAW Center, a Philadelphia-based organization that protects the legal rights and interests of older adults in need, since 1997. She’s responsible for the organization's financial stability, and overall supervision of its staff of attorneys, legal assistants, and support. She earned her law degree from Villanova University School of Law, where she served as chair of the Moot Court Board. Prior to joining SeniorLAW, she was engaged in private practice at a Philadelphia law firm, focusing on complex litigation and serving as pro bono coordinator. She has many years of experience working with various public interest and community organizations as a volunteer attorney, child advocate, mentor, and teacher of ESL (English as a Second Language) and GED-required classes. She is especially committed to ensuring that SeniorLAW services are available to the many diverse communities in the city, and was involved in the launch of several new programs in the Latino and Asian communities.

Grace H. Lebow, LICSW
Grace LeBow is a co-founder of Aging Network Services, which was established in 1982. The organization provides psychotherapy and care management for older adults and their families in the Washington, D.C. Metro area as well as nationally through a network of social work care managers. She also is co-author of Coping With Your Difficult Older Parent: A Guide for Stressed-Out Children, a self-help book for grown children that has also been widely used by professionals who work with older adults with personality disorders. She holds degrees in occupational therapy from Tufts University and in social work from Simmons College. She was the 2002 recipient of the Distinguished Career Award from Simmons School of Social Work, and in 2004 was honored by the NASW Foundation as a social work pioneer and with the Knee/Whittman Lifetime Achievement Award in Health and Mental Health.