December 7th Speakers

Featured Speakers

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Laura L. Carstensen is Professor of Psychology at Stanford University where she is the Fairleigh S. Dickinson Jr. Professor in Public Policy and founding director of the Stanford Center on Longevity. Her research program includes theoretical and empirical study of motivational and emotional changes that occur with age and the influence such changes have on cognitive processing. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and has served on the MacArthur Foundation’s Research Network on an Aging Society and the National Advisory Council on Aging to National Institute on Aging. Carstensen’s awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Kleemeier Award, The Richard Kalish Award for Innovative Research and distinguished mentor awards from both the Gerontological Society of America and the American Psychological Association. She is the author of A Long Bright Future: Happiness, Health, and Financial Security in an Age of Increased Longevity. Carstensen received her B.S. from the University of Rochester and her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from West Virginia University. She holds an honorary doctorate from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium.

Richard Cho, Ph.D., serves as Senior Advisor for Housing and Services in the Office of the Secretary. In this role, Richard advises the Secretary on HUD’s efforts to end homelessness, protect HUD-assisted households from COVID-19, advance the community integration of people with disabilities, connect housing with health care, and create housing options for returning citizens. Richard brings to this role two decades of experience at the community, state, and federal levels building collaboration between the housing, health care, social services, and criminal justice sectors to address the housing and services needs of vulnerable Americans.

As the Managing Editor of Next Avenue and the editor of its Money and Work & Purpose channels, Richard Eisenberg, also a frequent blogger for the site, aims to help people manage their personal finances, find jobs, switch fields, volunteer and find purpose in their lives.

A graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, Eisenberg has been working in the spheres of work and personal finance for decades. His first job out of college was as a fact-checker with Money magazine. Eisenberg made his way up the ranks, eventually being named executive editor. He remained at Money for 19 years, went on to become the money and special projects editor at Good Housekeeping and then the front-page finance editor for Yahoo!

The author of two books: How to Avoid a Midlife Financial Crisis and The Money Book of Personal Finance, Eisenberg is an avid reader with interests ranging from novels to nonfiction.

Eisenberg and his wife, Liz Sporkin, live in New Jersey and are parents to two talented sons; Aaron, 31, a screenwriter, actor and comedian, and Will, 29, a director and screenwriter. The pair, who live in Los Angeles, are screenwriting partners.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner is the CEO of Wellthy, Inc. based in New York City. Wellthy is helping the 66 million Americans who care for aging, chronically ill, and disabled loved ones. With Wellthy, Lindsay is building the company she needed throughout the 28-years caring for her mother.

Prior to founding Wellthy in 2014, Lindsay was in the advertising technology and media industries with functional responsibilities in marketing, product and sales. Lindsay served as the Senior Vice President of Marketing at NY-based advertising technology startup, Simulmedia. Before that, Lindsay ran Marketing Research at Machinima; worked in product and strategic marketing at Microsoft; worked in marketing at LA-based startup, Spot Runner; and ran the west coast advertising and marketing relationships for The Atlantic.

Lindsay received an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a BA in Economics-Operations Research from Columbia University. Lindsay lives in New York City.

Max is the co-founder of Pineapple Street Studios and the host of 70 Over 70. He is a co-founder of Longform and a co-host of the Longform Podcast.

Richard Lui has been an MSNBC dayside anchor since September 2010. He has anchored some of the network’s major breaking stories, including the 2011 debt-ceiling debate, the Arab Spring, and the deficit supercommittee failure. His daily reports have included the Tea Party
movement, candidates’ social media strategies, and the link of unemployment to electability.

Lui’s own experience of caring for his disabled father inspired him to explore how military kids and teens cope with providing this kind of care for injured parents every day, and how they are struggling to find balance in their lives as a result of these injuries. The families featured in Sky Blossom share a new perspective of what it means to be a military family and the film reveals rare insights into the experiences of military children nationwide.

Lauren Miller Rogen is a screenwriter, director, producer, and philanthropist, whose life has been touched many times over by Alzheimer’s. In 2012—when Lauren’s mother was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease at just 55 years old— Lauren, still in her twenties, co-founded HFC to activate the next generation of Alzheimer’s advocates.

Since then, Lauren and the HFC team have brought significant awareness to Alzheimer’s, raising millions of dollars to award free, quality in-home care to families in need of respite and support - all while using humor and hope to engage people. Her dedication to sharing her personal story and using humor as a form of advocacy has left an indelible impact on the Alzheimer’s space.

Since 2013, Lauren has served as the Alzheimer’s patient advocate on the board of California’s Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). She also sits on the California Alzheimer’s Task Force and the Steering Committee of the Milken Institute’s Alliance to Improve Dementia Care. In 2012, Lauren starred in, co-wrote, and produced the film For A Good Time Call, which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. She made her feature-length directorial debut in 2018 with the “dramedy” Like Father, a film she wrote and which starred Kristen Bell and Kelsey Grammer.

If there is one thing Lauren wants people to remember, it’s that Alzheimer’s doesn’t have to be sad or scary when you’re fighting against it. You can come to an HFC event and have fun, but also do something for Alzheimer’s.

Dr. Jennifer Olsen, an experienced epidemiologist, serves as executive director of the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers (RCI), which promotes the health, strength, and resilience of caregivers throughout the United States. 
 
Prior to joining RCI, Olsen managed the Ending Pandemics in Our Lifetime initiative at the Skoll Global Threats Fund – whose mission was to drive large-scale change by investing in and connecting with those dedicated to solving five of the world’s greatest threats: climate change, pandemics, water security, nuclear proliferation, and conflict in the Middle East. 
 
In this role, Olsen launched major initiatives around the world to engage communities to report and respond to emerging health threats. These efforts reduced the spread of disease, decreased the scope of emerging outbreaks, and preserved government funding by avoiding potential trade restrictions. She also co-created the Epihack™ process, convening 12 hackathon-style events with more than 500 technologists and public health experts from over 70 countries participating. The events produced tools utilized by national governments in eight countries. 
 
Olsen also served as Fusion Division Director in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness & Response at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. As division director, she developed and implemented an analytics platform to increase awareness and information sharing during emergencies. This tool was deployed during Superstorm Sandy, the 2010 Haiti earthquake, and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, among others. Her efforts reduced situational awareness gaps from 48 hours to under four hours. 
 
Olsen has also directed disease surveillance activities for large scale special events, including the G-8 and G-20 summits, State of the Union Addresses, the 2009 Presidential Inauguration, and Democratic and Republican National Conventions. She was advisor on the development of a Federal Interagency Information Collection Plan for the 2009 H1N1 Influenza outbreak. She also served with the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, where she conducted modeling and simulation analysis with a focus on epidemiological scenarios. 
 
Her dissertation research focused on utilizing non-traditional information sources such as social media to inform public health action. In 2018, Olsen was a TEDMED Research Scholar, identifying and validating presentations across health and medical fields for the TEDMED stage. She also previously served on the advisory board for Business on Network – a technology start-up in Thailand – and on the National Academy of Medicine’s Forum on Microbial Threats. 
 
Olsen holds a B.A. in biomathematics from Rutgers University, an M.P.H. in Epidemiology from The George Washington University, and a Dr.P.H. from the University of North Carolina. 

Sian-Pierre Regis is a filmmaker who directed, produced and self-distributed his debut feature documentary Duty Free. Released in 30 theaters over Mother's Day 2021, Duty Free was a press magnet garnering coverage from CBS Sunday Morning, NPR, MSNBC, The Tamron Hall Show, AARP; the film was also a #1 Apple News story through the weekend. Prior to filmmaking, Regis was a journalist and on-camera contributor to CNN, HLN, MTV and founded Swagger, an online lifestyle magazine for millennials with over 1.5 million fans. In 2018, he received an Honorary Doctorate from Colgate University.

Ai-jen Poo is a next-generation labor leader, award-winning organizer, author, and a leading voice in the women’s movement. She is the Executive Director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Director of Caring Across Generations, Co-Founder of SuperMajority and Trustee of the Ford Foundation. Ai-jen is a nationally recognized expert on elder and family care, the future of work, gender equality,  immigration, narrative change, and grassroots organizing. She is the author of the celebrated book, The Age of Dignity: Preparing for the Elder Boom in a Changing America. Together with Alicia Garza, Ai-jen co-hosts the podcast, Sunstorm. Follow her at @aijenpoo.

She has been recognized among Fortune’s 50 World’s Greatest Leaders and Time’s 100 Most Influential People in the World, and she has been the recipient of countless awards, including a 2014 MacArthur "Genius" Award.  Ai-jen has been a featured speaker at TEDWomen, Aspen Ideas Festival, Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, Skoll World Forum, and the Obama Foundation Inaugural Summit. She has made TV appearances on Nightline, MSNBC, and Morning Joe, and her writing has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME, Maire Claire, Glamour, Cosmopolitan and CNN.com among others. Ai-jen has been an influential voice in the #MeToo movement and attended the 2018 Golden Globe Awards with Meryl Streep as part of the launch of #TimesUp.

In 12 short years, with the help of more than 70 local affiliate organizations and chapters and over 200,000 members, the National Domestic Workers Alliance has passed Domestic Worker Bills of Rights in 10 states, the cities of Seattle and Philadelphia, and brought over 2 million home care workers under minimum wage protections. In 2011, Ai-jen launched Caring Across Generations to unite American families in a campaign to achieve bold solutions to the nation’s crumbling care infrastructure. The campaign has catalyzed groundbreaking policy change in states including the nation’s first family caregiver benefit in Hawai’i, and the first long-term care social insurance fund in Washington State.

Paula Span is a veteran journalist. Formerly a longtime Washington Post reporter, she has written the New Old Age column, about aging and caregiving, for the New York Times since 2009. In 2017, she added a second Times column, Generation Grandparent, and has adapted those essays for the audiobook “The Bubbe Diaries,” released by Audible in April.

An alumna of the alternative press and Boston University, she is the author of “When the Time Comes: Families with Aging Parents Share Their Struggles and Solutions,” published by Hachette in 2009. Her freelance articles have appeared in dozens of newspapers and magazines.

Since 1999, she has helped prepare the next generation of journalists at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.

Ken Stern is the chair of the Longevity Project. He also leads the creative and business teams at Palisades Media Ventures, focusing on creating new and innovative programming for digital platforms and television.

Stern is the author of “With Charities For All: Why Charities Are Failing and A Better Way to Give” (Doubleday 2013).  He is also a frequent contributor to publications such as The Atlantic, Slate, the Daily Beast, the Washington Post and the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Prior to launching Palisades, Stern was the CEO of National Public Radio. During his tenure, NPR’s radio audience more than doubled, from under 13 million weekly listeners to more than 26 million weekly listeners. Revenues during his nine years at NPR grew from $75 million to $210 million. Stern also launched NPR’s world class digital efforts which included two satellite channels, its mobile and podcast services, NPR Music and oversaw the successful expansion of NPR.org. During a period of significant retrenchment and downsizing at major news outlet, Stern led the dramatic expansion of NPR News, both domestically and abroad, and its evolution as a key daily news source to tens of millions of people.

Prior to joining NPR, Stern was a senior executive in American International Broadcasting. Earlier in his career, he held positions in Democratic politics. He began his media career with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Munich. Stern, a lawyer by training, holds degrees from Haverford College and Yale Law School. He lives in Washington, DC with his wife Beth Cooper and their son Nate.

Fereydoun has founded over 10 companies in various areas of technologies including multilingual computer systems and integration, smart switches, voice processing, interactive voice response systems, fax servers, Java development tools, knowledge management, information discovery and network monitoring and security. Fereydoun holds honors bachelor’s degree in electronic engineering from King’s College London and a master’s degree in computer science from Georgia Institute of Technology. 

Fereydoun has founded over 10 companies in various areas of technologies including multilingual computer systems and integration, smart switches, voice processing, interactive voice response systems, fax servers, Java development tools, knowledge management, information discovery and network monitoring and security. Fereydoun holds honors bachelor’s degree in electronic engineering from King’s College London and a master’s degree in computer science from Georgia Institute of Technology.