SPEAKERS
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Ms Paola Barbarino
Chief Executive Officer, Alzheimer’s Disease International, London, ENGLAND
Paola is CEO of Alzheimer’s Disease International. Prior to this, she was CEO of LIFE and occupied senior positions with Cass Business School, Tate, British Library and IIED. She is a Board Member of the World Dementia Council, a Trustee of The Postal Museum and of Lauderdale House. Previously she was a Non-Executive Director of the Non-Communicable Disease Alliance (NCDA), a Trustee of Shelter, the housing/homelessness charity, and of MLA London. She holds a degree cum laude in Classics from Federico II Napoli University, an MA in Field and Analytical Techniques in Archaeology and an MA in Library and Information Science both from University College London.
Professor Charles de Carli
Director, Alzheimer's Disease Center, University of California, USA
Charles DeCarli, MD, is Distinguished Professor of Neurology at the University of California in Davis, California and recipient of the Victor and Genevieve Orsi Chair in Alzheimer’s Research. He is the Director of the UC Davis Alzheimer’s Disease Center, a United States National Institutes of Health funded Alzheimer’s research center. He is also Director of the Imaging of Dementia and Aging (IDeA) laboratory. His research focuses on using advanced structural and functional brain imaging to study normal aging, mild cognitive impairment and dementia and the role of genetics, diversity, cerebrovascular and Alzheimer’s disease on these processes. He is a recipient of the J. Allyn Taylor International Prize in Medicine—Imaging of the Aging Brain in recognition of his work.
Professor Oskar Hansson
Clinical Memory Research Unit, Department of Clinical Sciences Malmö, Lund University, SWEDEN
Dr. Oskar Hansson gained his PhD in neurobiology in 2001 and his M.D. in 2005. He became senior consultant in neurology in 2012 at Skåne University Hospital, Sweden, and full professor of neurology in 2017 at Lund University, Sweden. Oskar Hansson has performed internationally recognized clinical and translational research focusing on the earliest phases of Alzheimer's and Parkinson’s diseases.
His landmark study on cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease from 2006 (Hansson et al, The Lancet Neurology, 2006) has been instrumental for the implementation of these biomarkers in the clinical work-up of Alzheimer's disease in Sweden and internationally. His work on biomarkers has led to over 350 original peer-reviewed publications. Ten years ago, he started the prospective and longitudinal Swedish BioFINDER study (www.biofinder.se), where the research team focuses on the development of optimized diagnostic algorithms for early diagnosis, and also studies the consequences of different brain pathologies on cognitive, neurologic and psychiatric symptoms in healthy individuals and patients with dementia and parkinsonian disorders. Recently, the BioFINDER team has shown that Tau PET imaging can with high accuracy distinguish Alzheimer’s from all other neurodegenerative diseases (JAMA, 2018) and to detect different subtypes of Alzheimer’s (Nature Medicine 2021), and the team has developed and validated blood-based biomarkers for early detection of Alzheimer’s disease (Nature Medicine, 2020; JAMA, 2020, Nature Aging 2021, Nature Medicine 2021). Besides being responsible for the outpatient ward of the Memory Clinic at Skåne University Hospital, he is also in leading positions of several research networks and he is co-director of the strategic research area of neuroscience at Lund University.
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Professor Craig Ritchie
Chair of the Psychiatry of Ageing at the University of Edinburgh and Director of Brain Health Scotland and Director of the Centre for Dementia Prevention University of Edinburgh, UNITED KINGDOM
Craig Ritchie is the Professor of the Psychiatry of Ageing at the University of Edinburgh, having moved from his role as Senior Lecturer in the Centre for Mental Health at Imperial College London in October 2014. He completed his PhD through an MRC Health Services Research Fellowship and was appointed as Senior Lecturer in Old Age Psychiatry at Imperial College London in 2007. He has also served as R&D Director at West London Mental Health Trust from 2010-14 and Deputy Director of the London Northwest NIHR Clinical Research Network. In 2014 served as Chair in Psychiatry of Ageing at the University of Edinburgh. In 2015 he established the Centre for Dementia Prevention and that year took on the academic leadership role of the EPAD Programme. In 2017 he was elected as Chair of the Scottish Dementia Research Consortium and in 2020 has become the inaugural Director of Brain Health Scotland.
Professor Belinda Goodenough
Executive Director, Dementia Training Australia (DTA), AUSTRALIA
Professor Belinda Goodenough is appointed to the University of Wollongong (UOW, Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health). She is currently Executive Director for Dementia Training Australia (DTA), a UOW-led consortium funded by the Australian government to deliver evidence-based workforce education and training for professionals and careworkers who support people living with dementia in a range of settings (aged, community, primary, acute). Belinda is also on staff with AHSRI (Australian Health Services Research Institute), as director for the Centre for Health Research Illawarra Shoalhaven Population (CHRISP) - a regional research-practice partnership with the Local Health District that includes the Illawarra Health Information Platform (IHIP: data repository and health records linkage system). Building on initial training in Psychology (PHD, UNSW, 1993), plus various roles in public health (paediatrics, pain, cancer), Belinda has a specific interest in implementation research and knowledge translation. She is also editor for the Australian Journal of Dementia Care.
Professor Lee-Fay Low
Lee-Fay Low (BSc Psych (Hons), PhD) is Professor in Ageing and Health, University of Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Prof Low is a registered psychologist with a PhD in psychiatric epidemiology and conducts research that she hopes will make a difference in the world. Her main areas of expertise are in rehabilitation and post-diagnostic support for people with dementia, home and residential care for older people, the impact of COVID-19 on people with dementia, stigma and dementia literacy, and people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. She is particularly interested in developing and evaluating interventions to improve the quality of life of older people. She has methodological skills in population studies, systematic reviews, clustered randomised trials, instrument development and evaluation, and translation of research into practice.
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She has authored over 130 peer-reviewed articles, and three books on dementia. She is an active advocate in improving how older people are treated and cared for. Lee-Fay thinks that research is great fun, and even admits to liking statistics.
A/Prof Steve Macfarlane
Head of Clinical Services, The Dementia Centre, AUSTRALIA
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Steve graduated from Monash University in 1991, and became a psychiatrist in 2003, and was appointed Director of Aged Psychiatry at Peninsula Health in 2005. He moved to Alfred Health in 2008 as Associate Professor and Director of Aged Psychiatry, before accepting a position as Head of Clinical Services with Dementia Support Australia in 2016.
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Steve is a past Chair of the Faculty of Psychiatry of Old Age for the RANZCP, has been running Alzheimer’s disease clinical trials for over 20 years, and has clinical interests in frontal lobe disorders and in senile squalor.
His work with DSA has him overseeing a group of geriatricians and old-age psychiatrists around the country. He has been intimately involved in developing the new Commonwealth Special Dementia Care Program and with the Royal Commission into Aged Care Safety and Quality, testifying before the Royal Commission in May 2019 and July 2020.
Mr Graeme Prior
President of the International Federation on Ageing, Chairman of The Australian Alzheimer’s Research Foundation, AUSTRALIA
Mr Graeme Prior is the co-founder and CEO of Hall & Prior; which began with a single family-owned nursing home and now operates 30 aged care communities and 2 home care services across Australia, offering world-class care to over 1000 clients and employing approximately 2,500 permanent staff. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Western Australia and is a chartered accountant. Having worked with the top four international accounting firms Mr Prior recognised his passion for aged care while running his own accounting practice. Giving back to the local community while advocating for aged care globally has always been the cornerstone of his business ethos. Along with his passion for the industry, he has an innate understanding of the issues facing aged care; his commitment to supporting research and education and significant sector investment, including designing and building new, world-class aged care homes that respond to Australia’s growing demand for quality aged care choices in both workforce and care outcomes.
His current positions include; President of International Federation on Ageing (UN Auspice Organisation based in Toronto), with a focus on delivering global outcomes in aged care; Board Member of Baycrest Health Sciences; Deputy Chairman of the CRC for Mental Health and Chairman of Audit and Risk Committee; Director of the Australian Aged Care Workforce Industry Council; Committee Member of the Commonwealth Department of Health’s Aged Care Sector Committee (Ministerial Appointment); Chairman of Australian Alzheimer’s Research Foundation, Board Member of ADNeT Ltd (Australian Dementia Network Ltd), Member of the Steering Committee National Comprehensive Dementia Centre.
MORE SPEAKERS TO BE ANNOUNCED
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