Speaker Biographies
Richard W. Besdine, MD has devoted his career to development and advancement of geriatrics through university-based and public healthcare policy work for more than 25 years and has trained more than 90 physicians for careers in geriatrics. Dr. Besdine is Professor of Medicine, Director of the Center for Gerontology and Health Care Research at Brown University; Director of the Division of Geriatrics in the Department of Medicine; Chief of Geriatrics for Lifespan; and first Greer Professor of Geriatric Medicine. Before coming to Brown in 2000, he was Professor of Medicine and founding Director of the University of Connecticut Center on Aging. Prior to coming to Connecticut in 1986, he was on the Harvard Medical School faculty for 15 years. During that time he co-founded Harvard's Division on Aging with John W. Rowe, MD and developed one of the first academic Geriatrics fellowship training programs. Dr. Besdine spent 1995 to 1997 in Federal service as HCFA's Chief Medical Officer and Director of its Health Standards and Quality Bureau. His research interests include prevention, Medicare quality improvement and interventions to promote independence in older persons.
Clyde L. Briant, ScD is Brown University's Vice President for Research. An Otis E. Randall University Professor, Clyde has senior responsibility for all aspects of research at Brown. He works closely with faculty and the academic administration to foster internal and external academic centers, groupings and relationships to enhance and extend the University's research efforts. He oversees the University's intellectual property policies, its efforts to identify transferable intellectual property, and its Office of Sponsored Projects. Clyde most recently served as Dean of the Division of Engineering. Prior to joining the Brown faculty in 1994, he worked at the GE Research and Development Center. He received his Doctor of Engineering Science degree in Materials Science from Columbia University in 1974 and was a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Pennsylvania from 1974 to 1976. His primary research interest has been in the area of structural materials.
Wid Chapman, AIA is a Senior Faculty member at the Parsons School of Design in New York and is a former chair of the Interior Design department. His award-winning firm Wid Chapman Architects specialized in hospitality, retail and residential design. Current projects include a resort hotel on Lake Worthersee in Austria and a "surfers" hotel in Puerto Escondido, Mexico. Wid has guest lectured domestically and internationally on academic and professional topics. He is a member of the American Institute of Architects and is co-authoring Home Design in an Aging World with Jeffrey P. Rosenfeld.
Kathleen Connell assumed the position of AARP-RI State Director in 2001 following a long career in public service, education and health care. Prior to joining AARP, Kathleen was the Coordinator of Governmental Relations at Brown University’s Northeast and Islands Regional Educational Laboratory. Kathleen’s career in public service included three terms as the elected Secretary of State in Rhode Island, a term in the General Assembly and 16 years elected to local town offices. In that time, she was a leader in numerous education and health care issues, as well as issues affecting women. As Secretary of State, she continued to advocate for voter education and parity for women. Kathleen has been involved with the Japan-America Society/Black Ships Festival as President and, now, as President Emeritus. She is the recipient of many awards including Citation of the Consul General of Japan; The John E. Fogarty Humanitarian Award; The Salve Regina University Alumna of the Year Award; and The Girl Scouts of Rhode Island Juliette Low Award. She holds a master’s degree in International Relations and a bachelor’s degree in Nursing, both from Salve Regina University.
Joseph F. Coughlin, PhD is Founder and Director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology AgeLab, the first multi-disciplinary research program created to understand the behavior of the 45+ population, the role of technology and the opportunity for innovations to improve the quality of life of older adults and their families. Dr. Coughlin's own research focuses on how the convergence of baby boomer expectations and technology will shape the future of public policy and drive innovation across global industries, including the financial services, insurance, health, IT, telecommunications, automobile and retail sectors. He has published his work in a variety of business, engineering and policy journals. In February 2008, Wall Street Journal named him one of America's 12 pioneers inventing the future of retirement and aging. Dr. Coughlin was recently recognized by the Visiting Nurse Association as a Home Health Hero for his research in technology-enabled innovation in home healthcare services for the elderly. He teaches strategic management, planning and public policy at MIT's School of Engineering's Engineering Systems Division and at MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning. He co-developed and co-teaches, with MIT colleague Stanley Finklestein, MD, (ESD '69) Seminar of Health Care Systems Innovation, also offered at Harvard Medical School as HMS HC 750.
Stewart M. Coulter, PhD is General Manager at DEKA Research and Development Corporation, which develops internally generated inventions and provides research and development for major corporate clients. DEKA, founded and led by Dean Kamen, has been responsible for such inventions as the HomeChoice™ portable peritoneal dialysis machine, the INDEPENCENCE® IBOT® Mobility System and the Segway® Human Transporter. DEKA is continuing to drive innovation in medical product design through projects such as a new prosthetic arm system currently under development. Prior to his time at DEKA, Stewart worked with a variety of companies focused on innovation, product and process design in industries ranging from automotive to semiconductor manufacturing. He received his doctorate in mechanical engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology, where his research focused on innovation in the design process. Stewart holds an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from Stanford University.
L. Miguel Encarnacao, PhD joined Humana's Innovation Center in 2007 after 15 years of academic and private industry research and teaching in Intelligent User Interfaces, Virtual and Augmented Reality technologies and interactive digital media applications. As Director of Emerging Technology Applications at the Innovation Center, he has been the architect of Humana's Games for Health and Home-Centered Healthcare initiatives, as well as the academic liaison to sseveral academic research universities collaborating with Humana in this space, including USC, Georgie Tech, MIT, Stanford and the University of Miami. Maintaing his academic ties, he is the Associate Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Computer Graphics & Applications, a member of the editorial boards of the International Journal of Technology & Human Interaction and the International Journal of Virtual Reality, as well as a regular review panelist for the US National Science Foundation.
Valerie Fletcher is Executive Director of the Institute for Human-Centered Design, an international educational non-profit organization based in Boston and founded in 1978. Its mission is to advance the role of design in expanding opportunity and enhancing experience for people of all ages and abilities. Design includes the spectrum of design disciplines, from urban design, architecture and landscape architecture to product and information design. The organization has hosted or co-hosted five international conferences on Universal design since 1998. Prior to 2008, the Institute was known as Adaptive Environments. Ms. Fletcher currently oversees projects ranging from Universal design at the urban scale, public transit, mixed use development, historic preservation and residential design. She is a special advisor to Toto Ltd and to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Ms. Fletcher lectures and writes internationally. Her career has been divided between design and public mental health. She has a master's degree in ethics and public policy from Harvard University. In 2005, the Boston Society of Architects awarded her the Women in Design award.
David R. Gifford, MD, MPH was appointed Director of Health in Rhode Island in March 2005. He completed his primary care residency and geriatric fellowship at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) after graduating from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. While a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar, Dr. Gifford received his Master’s in Public Health (MPH) in Epidemiology from UCLA. He currently holds a position as Associate Professor of Medicine and Community Health at Brown University. Prior to his appointment as Director of Health, Dr. Gifford served as Chief Medical Officer for Quality Partners of Rhode Island where he directed hospital and nursing home-based quality improvement projects.
Dr. Gifford participates in several national professional organizations and serves on national, state and local health-related committees. On the national level, Dr. Gifford serves on the Board of Directors of the National Quality Forum and chair of the NQF Public/Community Health Agency Council. He is a member of the National Governors’ Association Health Information Communication and Data Exchange Task Force, the Executive Committee of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), and chair of ASTHO’s State Public Health Services Advisory Task Force. In Rhode Island, Dr. Gifford chairs the Policy and Legal and E-Prescribing Committees of the RI Quality Institute, a not-for-profit corporation established in 2002 as a multi-stakeholder coalition of the highest ranking leaders among Rhode Island health care constituents in the public and private sectors. He also co-chairs the Governor’s Pandemic Flu Workgroup and two interagency teams to promote the Governor’s priorities on health information technology and wellness. Under Dr. Gifford’s leadership, the Department of Health is implementing a 5-year, $5 million contract from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to develop the first stage of RI’s Health Information Exchange in cooperation with community partners. Dr. Gifford’s vision focuses on “doing public health better” in Rhode Island by improving ethnic and racial health disparities, nursing home quality, obesity, and emergency preparedness through the use of prevention interventions, information technology, partnerships, public health information and improving customer service.
Stefan Gravenstein, MD, MPH is a geriatrician and Professor of Medicine at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University in the division of Geriatrics. He also is Clinical Director at Quality Partners of Rhode Island. Dr. Gravenstein has been an academic researcher, tenured at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and then the John Franklin Chair of Geriatrics at Eastern Virginia Medical School, before coming to Brown in 2007. He has been the principal investigator on KO7, KO8 and RO1 awards from the National Institutes of Health, a John Hartford Geriatrics Scholar award recipient, and recurrently listed among Best Doctors. He has authored over 100 peer-reviewed papers and chapters and serves on a variety of peer-review committees. Since his arrival, he has worked with Kevin McKay and others at Tockwotton Nursing Home, the team organized by Allan Tear and his partners at the Business Innovation Factory, to develop a model to enhance the quality of late life through the Nursing Home of the Future project.
Bari A. Harlam, PhD is Vice President of Pharmacy Marketing and Customer Experience at CVS Caremark. Among other accomplishments, Bari spearheaded the development and launch of the CVS/pharmacy ExtraCare Card program. Considered one of the most successful marketing efforts in the history of the company, ExtraCare is the industry-leading loyalty card program. Prior to joining CVS in 2000, Bari was on the faculty at the University of Rhode Island and Columbia University's Graduate School of Business. She has been published in a variety of journals, including Marketing Science, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Marketing, International Journal of Research in Marketing and Journal of Business Research. She holds undergraduate, master's and PhD degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, The Wharton School.
J. David Hoglund, FAIA approaches architecture as a vehicle for improving people’s lives. He is a recognized expert in senior living design and is at the forefront of an international effort to deinstitutionalize and reinvent senior living culture. David speaks frequently on changing demographics, facilities repositioning, culture change, trends in active adult communities, continuing care retirement communities, assisted living, and long-term care environments, as well as designing for people with Alzheimer’s disease, planning and code reform. He holds a yearly seminar for Harvard University and has presented for various organizations and boards, including AAHSA, ASC, PANPHA and AIA.
Michael Lye is assistant professor in the Industrial Design department at Rhode Island School of Design, where he has taught advanced Industrial Design studios at both the graduate and undergraduate levels for the past 10 years. He is also Project Lead for the Business Innovation Factory's Nursing Home of the Future program and co-directed the Business Innovation Factory/RISD Healthcare Innovation Project, which leveraged the skills of designers and design students to create a detailed visualization of the patients' experience of the primary care system in Rhode Island and used this patient focus to define the boundary constraints for improvements in the primary care field. Michael has extensive experience teaching interdisciplinary-sponsored studios, working with corporate and other partners in an academic setting. Some of the sponsors he has worked with at RISD include Maytag Appliances, Sikorsky Aircraft, Kryptonite and Intel. For the past four years, Michael has taught the NASA supported Design for Extreme Environments studio and has overseen the RISD/NASA collaboration, working with students from RISD along with researchers, designers and architects from NASA's Habitability Design Center to define future spacecraft and habitate for the moon. His consulting practice specializes in human-centered design, with an emphasis on design research and analysis, Universal Design issues and the integration of design into the realm of healthcare. Michael works with organizations and corporations, such as Massachusetts General Hospital, Frigidaire, Maytag Appliances and D'Ac Lighting, Design Ergonomics and Ergonomic Products and has been designer and project manager for the Universal Kitchen Project, an award-winning re-examination of the kitchen environment based at RISD.
Edward Alan Miller, PhD, MPA is Assistant Professor of Public Policy, Political Science and Community Health and Faculty, Center for Gerontology and Health Care Research at Brown University. Dr. Miller is a former Fulbright scholar in New Zealand and social policy analyst at the Congressional Research Service trained in health services research at the University of Michigan and Yale University. His specializations include aging and long-term care, telemedicine and e-health, program implementation and evaluation, state politics and policy and intergovernmental relations. He is author of more than 50 peer-reviewed articles on the determinants and effects of federal and state policies affecting vulnerable populations, including the frail and disabled elderly, mentally ill, veterans and urban underserved, in addition to the role of telecommunications technology in health care and strategies for reforming the way long-term care is delivered, regulated and financed. He is a member of the editorial boards of The Gerontologist and Journal of Aging & Social Policy and Journal of Health Politics, Policy & Law.
Patricia A. Moore is President of MooreDesign Associates and an internationally renowned gerontologist and designer serving as a leading authority on consumer lifespan behaviors and requirements. For three years, from 1979 to 1982, in an exceptional and daring experiment, she traveled throughout the US and Canada disguised as women more than 80 years of age. With her body altered to simulate the normal sensory changes associated with aging, she was able to respond to people, products and environments as an elder. Her broad range of experience includes research, product development and design, environmental design, package design, transportation design, market analysis and product positioning. Clients include AT&T, Baxter Healthcare, Boeing, Corning Glass, General Electric, GTE, Johnson & Johnson, Kimberly Clark, Kraft General Foods, NASA, Merck, Sharpe, Marriott, Maytag, Monsanto, OXO, Procter & Gamble, Searle Laboratories and Whirlpool. She is a frequent international lecturer, media guest and author of Disguised. Patricia holds undergraduate degrees in Industrial, Environmental and Communication Design from Rochester Institute of Technology; graduate degrees in Psychology, Counseling and Human Development (Social Gerontology) from Columbia University; and completed Advanced Studies in Biomechanics at New York University's Medical School & Rusk Institute. She has been named by ID Magazine as one of The 40 Most Socially Conscious Designers in the world and was selected in 2000 by consortia of news editors and organizations as one of The 100 Most Important Women in America. ABC World News featured her as one of 50 Americans defining the new millennium.
Vincent Mor, PhD is Professor and Chair of the Department of Community Health at the Brown University School of Medicine and formerly served as the Director of the Brown University Center for Gerontology and Health Care Research. Dr. Mor has been on the faculty of the Department of Community Health since 1981, becoming tenured in 1987. He was one of the founders of the Department's graduate program in 1986 and directed it until becoming chair in 1996. Dr. Mor has been Principal Investigator of over 20 NIH funded grants focusing on the organizational and health care delivery system factors associated with variation in use of health services and the outcomes frail and chronically ill persons experience. He has had multiple grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Pew Memorial Trust and the Retirement Research Foundation, as well as contracts from the Health Care Financing Administration and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation to evaluate the impact of programs and policies in aging and long term care, including Medicare funding of hospice; the costs and benefits of day hospital treatment of cancer; patient outcomes in nursing homes; the impact of short term case management for cancer patients; several studies documenting age discrimination in cancer treatment and use of home care services; and a national study of residential care facilities.
Jessica Pichs is a Laws graduate from University College, London and a Senior Research and Product Strategist for Ximedica. She came to Ximedica in 2005 from the advertising industry, where her work helped build brands for global and national clients, including BMW Motorcycles, Fila Sports, TAP Pharmaceuticals, The Coca-Cola Company, Heineken USA, Liberty Mutual, Allied Domecq and Citigroup. With 15 years of experience in research and strategy, she applies a wide range of innovative quantitative and qualitative skills to reveal unique user insights and competitive opportunities for brand management, marketing communications and product development. She is particularly interested in human behavior, societal trends and responsible sustainability.
Linda Resnik, PT, PhD, OCS is an Assistant Professor (Research) in Brown University's Department of Community Health and a Research Health Scientist at the Providence VA Medical Center. Dr. Resnik holds a master's degree in Physical Therapy from Sargent College, Boston University; a PhD in physical therapy from Nova Southeastern University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Brown's Center for Gerontology and Health Care Research. She has over 20 years of clinical experience as a physical therapist and is a certified clinical specialist in orthopaedic physical therapy. Dr. Resnik has an active research interest in rehabilitative methods, prosthetics technology, assistive technology and environmental modifications that enable seniors to be more independent and active in their lives.
Jeffrey Rosenfeld, PhD writes on the globalization of senior housing. Along with Wid Chapman, he is the author of Home Design in an Aging World (Fairchild Books, 2008), and he recently published a review essay entitled Senior Housing Globalized for InformeDesign. Dr. Rosenfeld is now writing on the Globalization of Boomer housing. He took his PhD at Stony Brook and is Director of the Gerontology Program at Hofstra University.
Tucker Viemeister is Lab Chief, heading research and development at Rockwell Group. The Lab encompasses digital interaction design, industrial design, the material and image library and modeling and prototyping resources and impacts Rockwell Group projects ranging from casinos to hotels and restaurants to packaging and products. Mr. Viemeister also founded the collaborative Studio Red with David Rockwell, which was dedicated to innovation for Coca-Cola and was a founder of Smart Design, where he helped design the widely acclaimed OXO Good Grips® kitchen tools. He was President of Springtime-USA, a partnership with Springtime, the Dutch industrial design company; helped to found Razorfish's physical design capability and Frog Design's New York office. He also founded HAY with cardiologist Leslie Saxon to develop better user experience for doctors and patients. Mr. Viemeister is a graduate of Pratt Institute and worked for clients including Apple, Corning, Gap, J&J, Jet Blue, P&G, McDonald’s, Timex, Levi’s, Motorola, Vodaphone, Unilever, Nike, Toyota, Viking and Kate Spade. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Architectural League of New York, is Chair of the Rowena Reed Kostellow Fund, President of the International Design Network Foundation and a Fellow of the Industrial Designers Society of America. He was called “Guru” by BusinessWeek, “scruffy brand-meister” by Architect’s Newspaper, dubbed Industrial Design’s “Elder Wunderkind" when ID included him in America's Hottest 40, and New York Magazine selected him as a “Living Design Innovator.” He teaches at NYU's ITP, a two-year graduate program located in the Tisch School of the Arts. He holds 32 US Utility Patents and was named after a car.
Terrie Fox Wetle, PhD is Associate Dean of Medicine for Public Health and Public Policy at Brown’s Alpert Medical School and is Professor of Medical Sciences in Community Health. Most recently, Dr. Wetle was Deputy Director, National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health. Formerly, she was Director of the Braceland Center for Mental Health and Aging at the Institute of Living and Associate Professor of Community Medicine and Health Care at the University of Connecticut Health Center, School of Medicine. She is former Associate Director of the Division on Aging and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. At Yale, Dr. Wetle was Director of the Program in Long Term Care Administration and Assistant Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health. She previously worked in federal government as a Social Policy Analyst for the Administration on Aging, DHHS, and in local government as Director of an Area Agency on Aging in Portland, Oregon. She is Past-President of the Gerontological Society of America, from which she received the Donald P. Kent award. She is current President of the American Federation for Aging Research. Research interests include social gerontology, ethical issues in geriatric care and public health, and end of life care. She has more than 150 scientific publications and serves on the editorial boards of several journals. Her most recent edited books are Financing Long Term Care: The Integration of Public and Private Roles and Improving Aging and Public Health Research: Qualitative and Mixed Methods.
Melissa Withers is the Executive Director of the Business Innovation Factory, where her work focuses on helping organizations collaborate across traditional boundaries to launch new solutions in areas like education, health care, green energy and customer experience. With a commitment to improve the experience of citizens at the center of these systems, BIF hosts activities and projects that enable partners to design and test new models for delivering value across the public and private sectors. Melissa previously served as the director of Communications and Market Development for the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation. Prior to returning to Rhode Island in 2004, she served as Assistant Director of Communications and Public Affairs for Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT, where she spent six years managing components of Whitehead's science communication and outreach efforts. She is a board member of Young Voices, a youth-empowerment organization and an active member of the local community.
