Dr. Cynthia Carlsson is Professor of Medicine in the Division of Geriatrics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and Director of the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Institute in Madison, Wisconsin. Her research focuses on early detection and prevention of Alzheimer’s disease through modification of vascular risk factors. She has received grant support from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Department of Veterans Affairs, the University of Wisconsin, and other organizations and has published over 200 peer-reviewed research papers.  Dr. Carlsson serves as Clinical Core Leader of the NIH-funded Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and leads the University of Wisconsin Alzheimer’s disease clinical trials program as a member site in the NIH Alzheimer’s Clinical Trials Consortium (ACTC). She has been a part of state and national initiatives to improve dementia research, clinical care, and services for older adults, including serving as Chair for the US Health and Human Services Advisory Council on Alzheimer's Research, Care, and Services. She continues to see patients with memory loss at the Madison Veterans Affairs Hospital where she has served as a staff geriatrician for over 20 years.

Lindsay Clark, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Geriatrics and Gerontology
University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and the Madison VA Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center
Geriatric Neuropsychologist, William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital
Madison, Wisconsin

Lindsay Clark is a clinical neuropsychologist and assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine & Public Health and the Madison VA Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center (GRECC). Dr. Clark leads a research program dedicated to enhancing communication around Alzheimer’s biomarker testing and diagnosis, as well as validating digital cognitive assessment tools to expand access to earlier diagnosis and care. Clinically, she specializes in the diagnosis of memory disorders and provides expertise in teleneuropsychology.

Sigan L. Hartley, PhD
100 Women Distinguished Chair in Human Ecology and Professor, Human Development and Family Studies
School of Human Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Waisman Center Investigator
Madison, Wisconsin

Sigan Hartley, PhD, is the 100 Women Distinguished Chair in Human Ecology and Professor of Human Development at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Hartley is a clinical psychologist by training. She is part of the NIH-funded Alzheimer's Biomarker Consortium-Down Syndrome (ABC-DS) and Down Syndrome Cohort Development Program (DS-CDP). She also consults with the Global Down Syndrome Foundation and LuMind IDSC Foundation and works in close partnership with Down syndrome organizations in Wisconsin. Dr. Hartley's research is aimed at understanding ways to prevent medical conditions commonly experienced by individuals with Down syndrome, including Alzheimer's disease. She is the past President of Division 33 of the American Psychological Association (APA) and current chair of the Alzheimer's Association International Society to Advance Alzheimer's Research and Treatment (ISTAART) Professional Interest Area on Down syndrome.

Helen C. Kales, MD
Geriatric Board Certified Psychiatrist
Joe P. Tupin Endowed Professor and Chair
Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
University of California, Davis
Sacramento, California

Dr. Kales is Chair of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at University of California, Davis. Prior to this, she was Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan and a Research Investigator in the Center for Clinical Management Research and the Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center in the VA Ann Arbor Health System. She is the founding Director of the UM Program for Positive Aging (PPA), established in 2009, which moved to UC Davis in 2019. As a fellowship-trained, board-certified geriatric psychiatrist, her research program is directly informed by her clinical work and experiences with patients, families, providers, and systems to diminish the barriers to effective and high-quality care for older patients with mental health issues and/or dementia and their caregivers. Dr. Kales is recognized as a national and international expert in outcomes related to later-life depression, the risks of use of antipsychotic and other psychotropic medications in older adults, and in researching ways to improve dementia care. In recognition of her work in the field of dementia care, she was named to the standing Lancet Global Commission on Dementia Care in 2015. Dr. Kales has had continuous federal funding since 2004, serving as principal investigator on 13 federally-funded grants. In her work with junior investigators, she has served as mentor to four faculty with NIA career development funding.

Peter A. Lichtenberg, PhD, ABPP
Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Gerontology
Wayne State University
Detroit, Michigan

Peter A. Lichtenberg, PhD, ABPP, is the former Director of The Institute of Gerontology (1999-2024) and a Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Gerontology at Wayne State University. He received his bachelor’s degree from Washington University in St. Louis, and his master’s and doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Purdue University. After his internship he completed a post-doctoral fellowship in geriatric neuropsychology at the University of Virginia Medical School where he also became a faculty member. Dr. Lichtenberg, one of the first board certified Clinical Geropsychologists in the nation, has made contributions to the practice of psychology across a variety of areas and is a nationally recognized expert in the areas of financial capacity and financial exploitation among older adults and the impact of early memory loss and dementia on financial decision-making, financial exploitation and financial capacity. He has authored 7 books and over 225 scientific articles in Geropsychology. He served as the 2022 President of the Gerontological Society of America and was the 2023 GSA Chairman of the Board of Directors. In 2024 he was named the Donald Kent Award for leadership in gerontology, one of the highest honors given by the Gerontological Society of America.

Doris Molina-Henry, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Neurology, Recruitment Section
Alzheimer's Therapeutic Research Institute
Keck School of Medicine
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, California

Dr. Doris Molina-Henry is a trained neurobiologist and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurology at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California. She is a faculty member at the Alzheimer’s Therapeutic Research Institute (ATRI) and serves as Co-Associate Lead for the Recruitment, Engagement, and Retention Unit of the NIA- and NIH-funded Alzheimer’s Clinical Trials Consortium (ACTC).

Dr. Molina-Henry collaborates on initiatives to strengthen recruitment and retention in Alzheimer’s disease clinical trials, with the goal of increasing participation among high-risk populations that have not been adequately reflected in prior studies. Her work focuses on understanding disproportionate enrollment patterns, with particular attention to the influence of co-pathologies and sociodemographic characteristics. This line of inquiry informs her biomarker research, which aims to improve the applicability of early detection strategies across a broader range of clinical trial populations. Building on this work, she serves as Multiple Principal Investigator (MPI) of the Alzheimer’s Plasma Extension Study (APEX), a study examining longitudinal disease trajectories using plasma and cognitive measures among asymptomatic clinical trial volunteers who were ineligible for amyloid-lowering trials. Findings from APEX aim to guide early detection approaches and support the development of interventions that may ultimately delay or prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.

Yakeel T. Quiroz, PhD
Associate Professor, Departments of Psychiatry and Neurology
Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital
Director of the MGH Familial Dementia Neuroimaging Lab and the Multicultural Alzheimer's Prevention Program-MAPP
Boston, Massachusetts

Dr. Yakeel T. Quiroz is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurology at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston, Massachusetts. She is the Director of the MGH Familial Dementia Neuroimaging Lab and the Multicultural Alzheimer’s Prevention Program-MAPP. She received her master’s degree in cognitive neuroscience and her PhD in clinical psychology from Boston University. Her research bridges brain imaging, genomics, and the identification of preclinical biomarkers to better understand the earliest stages of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.

Dr. Quiroz’s research explores the early biological and physiological changes that may increase an individual's vulnerability to memory loss and dementia later in life. Her work has revealed brain abnormalities in cognitively healthy individuals who are at elevated risk for Alzheimer’s disease—often decades before symptoms emerge. These insights have helped shift the field’s understanding of Alzheimer’s, reframing it as a long, progressive process that begins well before clinical signs of decline. By identifying these early changes, her research supports the development of interventions aimed at slowing disease progression during its most treatable phase. Dr. Quiroz’s work has been recognized with several awards, including an NIH Director’s Early Independence Award, the FABBS Foundation Early Career Impact Award, the MGH Research Scholar Award and the Alzheimer’s Association Inge Grundke-Iqbal Award for Alzheimer’s Research.