December 10th: Featured Speakers

Laura L. Carstensen is Professor of Psychology and the Fairleigh S. Dickinson Jr. Professor in Public Policy at Stanford University where she serves as founding director of the Stanford Center on Longevity. Her research has been supported continuously by the National Institute on Aging for more than 25 years and she is currently supported through a prestigious MERIT Award. In 2011, she authored the book, A Long Bright Future: Happiness, Health, and Financial Security in an Age of Increased Longevity. Dr. Carstensen has served on the National Advisory Council on Aging and the MacArthur Foundation’s Research Network on an Aging Society. In 2016 she was inducted into the National Academy of Medicine. She has won numerous awards, including the Kleemeier Award from the Gerontological Society of America, a Guggenheim fellowship, and the Master Mentor Award from the American Psychological Association. She received a BS from the University of Rochester and PhD in clinical psychology from West Virginia University.

Michael Collins is Vice President at JFF, a national non-profit working to transform our nation’s education and workforce systems to accelerate economic advancement for all. Mr. Collins serves on JFF’s executive team and provides leadership for JFF programs with an emphasis on equity in opportunity for social and economic mobility. For the last 15 years, he has led a multi-state postsecondary reform network working to increase the success of learners from low income-backgrounds through connecting colleges and state postsecondary systems to evidence-based practices and practitioner-informed policies and supporting their implementation through postsecondary reform initiatives such as Achieving the Dream, The Developmental Education Initiative, Completion by Design, and the Student Success Center Initiative, and the American Association of Community Colleges Pathways Project. An inveterate collaborator, he has partnered with nationally recognized organizations such as The Aspen Institute’s College Excellence Program, Carnegie Math Pathways|WesED, The Dana Center, SOVA Solutions, Research for Action, the Community College Research Center, and a host of other organizations, states systems, and philanthropic organizations. Prior to joining JFF, he served as Assistant Commissioner for Participation and Success at the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. Mr. Collins holds a Master of Public Affairs from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin. He serves on the board of the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems, the National Student Clearinghouse and is Chair of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center Board. Mr. Collins is Pahara-Aspen Fellow and member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. He lives in Shaker Heights, Ohio with his wife Dana, nine-year old son Dashel, and the family’s beloved chocolate labradoodle named Nova.

Martha Deevy joined the Stanford Center on Longevity in January, 2009 and serves as Associate Director and Senior Research Scholar. While at the Center, she has led the financial security research program which has focused efforts on retirement readiness, working longer and the detection and prevention of fraud. Prior to joining Stanford, Martha had a long career with Silicon Valley firms.  She has held positions in business development, strategic planning, finance, product development and IT and held senior executive positions at Apple, Charles Schwab and Intuit.  She has served on the boards of directors of a number of publicly traded and non-profit organizations and is currently the vice-chair for the SPOON Foundation, which serves nutritionally underserved children. She received an M.B.A. in Finance and Management Information Systems from University of Minnesota and a B.A. in Economics from University of Illinois.

Marc Freedman is President and CEO of Encore.org.  He is the author of five books, including most recently, How to Live Forever: The Enduring Power of Connecting the enerations—#1 on the Wall Street Journal’s list of best books on aging well for 2018.  Freedman was named a Social Entrepreneur of the Year by the Schwab Foundation and the World Economic Forum.  He co- founded Experience Corps to mobilize people over 50 to improve the prospects of low-income elementary school students, and the Purpose Prize, an annual award for social innovators in the second half of life.  A former visiting fellow at Stanford University, King’s College, London, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, he holds an MBA from Yale University.  He lives with his wife and three children in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Twitter: @marc_freedman

Scott Frisch is executive vice president and chief operating officer for AARP. He is responsible for all enterprise-wide operational and financial matters including human resources, information technology, real estate and facilities management as well as data and analytics performance management.

Since his appointment as COO, Scott has helped guide AARP through a period of dynamic change, reengineering the operational functions of the organization to maximize efficiencies and increase operating reserves.  He established a $40 million investment fund that spurs innovation in health and wellness as well as a $60 million investment vehicle to accelerate research into cures for all types of dementia including Alzheimer’s.  Scott oversaw the comprehensive renovation of AARP’s 500,000 square foot national office headquarters in Washington, DC to provide the latest in technology and environmentally-friendly and innovative workspace. He is widely respected at all levels of the organization for his acute business acumen and fiscal discipline.

Prior to his appointment as COO, Scott served as senior vice president and chief financial officer for AARP Services, Inc. (ASI), the for-profit subsidiary of AARP. He provided strategic guidance and expertise in all areas of ASI’s financial management.  He had previously served as chief financial officer and treasurer at AARP Financial, Inc.

Prior to joining the AARP enterprise, Scott held a variety of management positions at Columbia Management Group, NATIXIS Asset Management Services, Inc., Putnam Investments and KPMG.

Scott graduated from Villanova University. He is a certified public accountant and previously held Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) Series 6 and 63 licenses. Scott is a Board member on the Greater Washington Board of Trade, Treasurer and Chair of the Audit & Finance Committee of the Downtown DC Business Improvement Council and is on the Board of Advisors of CBC Realty Investments, LLC.  He also sits on the Wall Street Journal CFO Network, the Executive Committee of the Milken Institute Center for the Future of Aging Business Council, and is a Malcom Baldrige Executive Fellow.

David E. Hayes-Bautista, Ph.D. is currently Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Director of the Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He graduated from U.C. Berkeley, and completed his doctoral work in Basic Sciences at the University of California Medical Center, San Francisco. Dr. Hayes-Bautista served on the faculty at the School of Public Health at U.C. Berkeley until 1987.

Some of Dr. Hayes-Bautista’s published books include El Cinco de Mayo: An American Tradition (University of California Press, 2012) and La Nueva California: Latinos from Pioneers to Post Millennials (University of California Press, 2017.)  Dr. Hayes-Bautista writes columns for the Los Angeles Times and La Opinion, and is often asked to provide opinions on radio and television in both Spanish and English.

For the past five years, he has been chosen one of the 101 Top Leaders of the Latino Community in the U.S. by Latino Leaders Magazine. In 2012, he received the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Herbert W. Nickens Award for his lifelong concerns about the educational, societal, and health care needs of underrepresented groups, and in 2016 the Ohtli Award from the Mexican Government.

Dr. Ilana Horwitz is the Education Fellow at the Stanford Center on Longevity. In her research, Dr. Horwitz asks: How does one’s religious upbringing, social class, gender, ethnicity, and race, shape their educational pathway and life trajectory? Dr. Horwitz earned her PhD in Sociology of Education & Jewish Studies from Stanford University. Ilana also earned a Masters in Sociology from Stanford University, a Masters in International Education Development from Columbia University’s Teachers College, and a Bachelors in Business Administration from Emory University. Dr. Horwitz also spent several years working as a management consultant, program evaluator, and educator.

Ina Jaffe is a veteran NPR correspondent covering the aging of America. Her stories on Morning Edition and All Things Considered have focused on older adults' involvement in politics and elections, dating and divorce, work and retirement, fashion and sports, as well as issues affecting long term care and end of life choices. In 2015, she was named one of the nation's top "Influencers in Aging" by PBS publication Next Avenue, which wrote "Jaffe has reinvented reporting on aging."

Jaffe also reports on politics, contributing to NPR's coverage of national elections since 2008. From her base at NPR's production center in Culver City, California, Jaffe has covered most of the region's major news events, from the beating of Rodney King to the election of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. She's also developed award-winning enterprise pieces. Her 2012 investigation into how the West Los Angeles VA made millions from illegally renting vacant property while ignoring plans to house homeless veterans won an award from the Society of Professional Journalists as well as a Gracie Award from the Alliance for Women in Media. A few months after the story aired, the West Los Angeles VA broke ground on supportive housing for homeless vets.

Her year-long coverage on the rising violence in California's public psychiatric hospitals won the 2011 Investigative Reporters and Editors Award as well as a Gracie Award. Her 2010 series on California's tough three strikes law was honored by the American Bar Association with the Silver Gavel Award, as well as by the Society of Professional Journalists.

Before moving to Los Angeles, Jaffe was the first editor of Weekend Edition Saturday with Scott Simon, which made its debut in 1985.

Born in Chicago, Jaffe attended the University of Wisconsin and DePaul University, receiving bachelor's and master's degrees in philosophy, respectively.

Sasha Shen Johfre is a Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology at Stanford University, the Eisner Foundation Fellow in Intergenerational Relationships at the Stanford Center on Longevity, and a 2020-21 Encore Public Voices Fellow. In her research, she investigates the way people understand each other through categories, exploring why we put people into buckets like woman, man, Black, White, old, and young, and how we act differently depending on where we place somebody. Her work focuses specifically on how people perceive and make sense of another person’s age and why it matters for social justice. Sasha earned an undergraduate degree in evolutionary biology, engineering and feminist studies at Harvard University. She has also worked as a graphic designer and independent visual artist.

Abby Miller Levy, a health and wellness executive, operator and former founder leads Primetime Partners as the Managing Partner. Prior to Primetime, Abby has spent her career helping businesses and consumer brands grow as an operator, entrepreneur and advisor, most notably in the wellness sector. Prior to Primetime Partners, Abby was an executive at SoulCycle, where she oversaw business development and revenue growth outside the consumer studio business, with an emphasis on building new digital products as the Senior Vice President of Strategy & Growth. Abby has also been a Founder herself, teaming with Arianna Huffington to launch Thrive Global, a leader in employer wellbeing solutions. Abby served as President of Thrive Global and remains on the Thrive Board. Abby began her career at McKinsey & Company then led product development at OXO International. She is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Business School. 

Ryan Lufkin is the Senior Director of Product Marketing for Canvas in Higher Education at Instructure. Ryan has been working with colleges and universities in the educational technology space for over 20 years, beginning with Utah-based start-up Campus Pipeline, the first html portal for higher education. He has worked for large ERP solutions like SungardHE and Ellucian helping evolve those systems to the Cloud, driven mobile adoption in teaching and learning technology, and developed curriculum for both corporate and higher education institutions. Ryan has helped lead Canvas’ evolution from an LMS to a full learning management platform to support the challenges facing colleges and universities of all sizes.

Phil Regier, PhD, is university dean for educational initiatives and CEO of EdPlus at Arizona State University. Regier is responsible for expanding the university’s digital immersion program and advancing the university’s leadership role in education innovation.

 During his tenure as dean, the fully online student population grew from 400 to more than 53,000, and the number of online degree programs grew from six to 186 as of Spring 2019. Today, online programs at ASU utilize more than 200 technologies, and the university is a co-convener of the ASU+GSV Education Innovation Summit, the largest and most recognized assembly of education technology entrepreneurs, investors, and users in the world.

A philosophy major and math minor, Regier earned his undergraduate degree from St. John’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He also holds a PhD in accountancy from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Isabel V. Sawhill is a senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, working in the Center on Children and Families and on the Future of the Middle Class Initiative. Dr. Sawhill’s research spans a wide array of economic and social issues, including fiscal policy, economic growth, poverty, social mobility, and inequality.

She served as vice president and director of the Economic Studies program from 2003 to 2006, and as co-director of the Center on Children and Families from 2006 to 2015. Prior to joining Brookings, Dr. Sawhill was a senior fellow at The Urban Institute. She served in the Clinton Administration as an Associate Director of OMB, where her responsibilities included all of the human resource programs of the federal government, accounting for one third of the federal budget.

Dr. Sawhill has authored or edited numerous books, including The Forgotten Americans: An Economic Agenda for a Divided Nation (2018); Generation Unbound: Drifting Into Sex and Parenthood Without Marriage (2014); Creating an Opportunity Society (2009, with Ron Haskins); Restoring Fiscal Sanity 2005: Meeting the Long-Run Challenge and Restoring Fiscal Sanity: How to Balance the Budget (2004), (both with Alice Rivlin); and One Percent for the Kids: New Policies, Brighter Futures for America’s Children (2003).

In September of 2020, along with Co-author Richard V. Reeves, Dr. Sawhill released her latest work, entitled A New Contract with the Middle Class.

Sawhill was a recipient of the Exemplar Award from the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (2014) and the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Prize with Ron Haskins, from the American Academy of Political and Social Science (2016). She was named a Distinguished Fellow by the American Economic Association in 2016.

Dr. Sawhill has been a Visiting Professor at Georgetown Law School, Director of the National Commission for Employment Policy, and President of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. She also serves on a number of boards.

She attended Wellesley College and received her Ph.D. from New York University.

Mitchell is an Associate Professor of Education at Stanford, where he serves as Faculty Chair of the Education Enterprise initiative. An expert on the organization and politics of academic evaluation, he is the author of Creating a Class: College Admissions and the Education of Elites. With Stanford’s Mike Kirst, he developed a robust research program on the organizational ecology of higher education in the US, represented in such publications as Remaking College: The Changing Ecology of Higher Education, & “Research Universities and the Future of Work.” He oversaw development of a first-in-the world protocol for the free and open sharing of learner data produced in digitally mediated instructional environments. He also assembled serial international convenings regarding the ethical use of educational data through the project “Responsible Use of Student Data in Higher Education.” He is Co-Director of the Carta Lab, which develops a systematic science of academic consideration & choice.

In 2012, Sarah Rosen Wartell became the third president of the Urban Institute since it was founded in 1968. Urban is an economic and social science research and policy organization whose 500++ researchers, experts, and other staff share a belief in the power of evidence to improve lives and strengthen communities. During her tenure, Urban has articulated its strategy to “elevate the debate” by: bringing more of its insights from research to federal, state, and local government and practice; becoming a leader in research communications and data visualization; and undertaking an ambitious program of business systems and technology modernization.

Previously, Wartell was deputy assistant to the president for economic policy and deputy director of the National Economic Council. At the US Department of Housing and Urban Development from 1993 to 1998, she advised the federal housing commissioner on housing finance, mortgage markets, and consumer protection. Later, she was a consultant to the bipartisan Millennial Housing Commission.

After government service, Wartell was the founding chief operating officer and then executive vice president of the Center for American Progress. Her work focused on the economy and housing markets. She had previously practiced law with the Washington, DC, firm of Arnold & Porter.

Wartell serves on the board of Enterprise Community Partners and on Bank of America’s National Community Advisory Council. Her areas of expertise include community development, consumer finance, asset building, and housing finance.

Wartell has an AB degree with honors in urban affairs from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. She has a JD degree from Yale Law School.