Dr. Toni C. Antonucci is the Elizabeth M. Douvan Collegiate Professor of Psychology and Program Director and Research Professor in the Life Course Development Program at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan.

Dr. Antonucci’s research focuses on social relations and health across the life span, including the family, life span and life course development, multigenerational relations, adult development and aging, and comparative studies of social relations and health in the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Japan. She is particularly interested in how social relations optimize or jeopardize an individual’s ability to face life’s challenges. She received a Research Career Development Award and is currently funded or has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Aging and several private foundations, most recently, the Fetzer Institute and the MacArthur Foundation.

Dr. Antonucci will be the president-elect of International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development in 2017 and of International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics in 2018. She was President of the Gerontological Society of America and the Society for the Study of Human Development and served as editor of the Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Science and Associate Editor of Developmental Psychology. She is currently series editor of the Annual Review of Geriatrics and Gerontology for Springer Publishing Company and is a member of the MacArthur Network on the Aging Society. She is a member of the Executive Board of the International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development, Secretary General-Elect of the International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics and received the Gerontological Society of America’s 2011 Distinguished Career Contribution to Gerontology Award. She has numerous scientific publications, in 2010 she edited (with James S. Jackson) Life Course Perspectives on Late Life Health Inequalities and in 2011 edited (with Karen Fingerman, Cynthia Berg and Jacqui Smith) the Handbook of Life Span Development.

Dr. Briana Mezuk is a Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and a Faculty Affiniate with the Institute for Social Research in the Research Center for Group Dynamics. Her program of research uses epidemiologic methods to understand the relationships between mental and physical health over the lifespan, with a focus on middle-age and later adulthood. She enjoys working with interdisciplinary scientific teams and mentoring trainees and early-career investigators working at the intersection of mental health, physical health, and health disparities.

She is honored and grateful for the opportunity to lead this effort to follow-up the NSAL respondents and to learn more about how early-life experiences shape mental health and cognitive outcomes over the lifecourse. She was fortunate to work with the PI of the 2001/3 NSAL, Dr. James Jackson, through a post-doctoral fellowship with the Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Program, and she is excited to continue his work with the wonderful investigative team that has come together for this effort.

Dr. DeAnnah Byrd is an assistant professor in the Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation at Arizona State University. She studies the effects of risk (chronic conditions, biological and psychosocial stressors) and protective (coping, social support, etc) factors on memory and cognitive changes in older African Americans. Byrd’s research aims to improve cognitive outcomes for African Americans. Her work has been funded by the National Institute on Aging, Alzheimer’s Association and the Michigan Alzheimer’s Disease Center.

Her research explores how social and physical environments shape psychosocial and physical health outcomes across the lifespan. She investigates care coordination, caregiving, and self-management of chronic diseases, with a focus on neurocognitive conditions such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, and cardiometabolic conditions like diabetes. She is also interested in the role of physical exercise and other non-pharmaceutical interventions on enhancing resilience and social connectedness among older adults. Another key aspect of her work involves identifying risk and protective factors for suicide to develop culturally tailored prevention strategies. Her approach integrates perspectives from health disparities and implementation science. Additionally, she is concerned with the methodological challenges of selection and measurement in observational research, which are essential for advancing our understanding of how social factors influence health outcomes

Dr. Deborah Robinson, PhD, MBA, is an Assistant Research Scientist at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. She has over 20 years of experience in survey research methodology, having worked on major national studies, including the National Survey of Black Americans, the National Black Election Study, and the Black History Month Programming in Public Libraries Study. Dr. Robinson is also a senior administrator and has worked with institutions of higher education, organizations, churches, and movements in numerous countries. She has lived, worked in, or traveled to 76 countries to date and has been involved in a variety of issues; human rights, environmental justice, racism, sustainable development, and even emergency management. The thread that ties this work together is that it was all conducted from a social justice perspective and focused on issues of inclusion and marginalization. She holds a BA from Williams College, a PhD from the University of Michigan, and an MBA from the University of Geneva.

Dr. Courtney S. Thomas Tobin is an Associate Professor of Community Health Sciences and Associate Dean for Inclusive Excellence at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, and a Faculty Affiliate at the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies.

As a medical sociologist, Dr. Thomas Tobin’s research integrates sociological theory with perspectives from public health, social psychology, medicine, and the biological sciences to examine biopsychosocial pathways to health and longevity among Black Americans. Her work particularly highlights racialized social stress and coping as key mechanisms linking social conditions to health inequities in this population. Dr. Thomas Tobin is the founding director of the Collaborative Research on African American Wellness and Longevity (CRAAWL) Lab, a hub for community-engaged, interdisciplinary research on Black health and well-being.

Irving E. Vega obtained his undergraduate degree in Biology from the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez Campus. He continued his research training in the Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience at the Graduate School of New Brunswick, Rutgers University, earning his PhD. Dr. Vega completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Neuroscience Department at Mayo Clinic Jacksonville, where he developed his research career focusing on the pathobiology of Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Vega is a Red Cedar Distinguished Associate Professor at the College of Human Medicine and Associate Professor at the Department of Translational Neuroscience at Michigan State University. Here, his research focuses on molecular and biochemical mechanisms that modulate the accumulation of pathological tau proteins in Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. Dr. Vega is also working on health disparities and the influence of contextual factors on blood biomarkers in Alzheimer’s disease.

Stephanie Chardoul is the Director of Survey Research Operations (SRO) at the University of Michigan’s Survey Research Center (SRC). She also leads SRC’s International Unit, providing support, training, and capacity building to global partners. Ms. Chardoul has 35 years of experience in all phases of survey research. During her tenure at SRC, she has been the Manager of the Survey Services Laboratory (telephone facility), Senior Survey Director, Director of the Project Design and Management Group (project managers and directors), and Director of Proposals (new project intake and design). Ms. Chardoul was also a key part of the original NSAL study team in 2001-03. Her substantive interests include cross-cultural survey methods, building survey research infrastructure, and mental health. Stephanie has been a member of the Data Collection Coordinating Centre for the long-running World Mental Health Survey Initiative (30+ countries, since 1999), and is the Director of the WHO Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) Training Centre. Recently, with the transition of the World Mental Health Consortium from Harvard to the University of Michigan, Ms. Chardoul is also the co-director of that initiative. As SRO Director, Stephanie leads a department of 170 full-time staff and up to 1000 interviewers across the U.S., conducting data collection across all modes and technologies.

Dr. Eskira Kahsay is a social epidemiologist whose research focuses on the social determinants of health, with particular attention to the intersections of mental and physical health in minority populations, including Black Americans. She recently completed my PhD in Epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health under the mentorship of Dr. Briana Mezuk. She also holds an MPH in Epidemiology from the University of Michigan and a BA in Psychology and Human Development from the University of Chicago. Her work draws on mortality, survey, and clinical data, and she has expertise in epidemiological methods, spatial analysis, and the use of multiple coding platforms.

In this role, Doug is responsible for the implementation and account set up of new projects within the Health and Life Sciences Office 8000 domain. Each program is customized to the client’s requirements.

Doug joined ExamOne in 2019, prior to that he was with Provant Health formerly Hooper Holmes for the previous 10 years, where he held a similar position. He has been working with specialized remote specimen collection projects related to longitudinal studies and other research projects for the past 15 years.

Doug earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.

Dr. Nekehia T. Quashie is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Health at the University of Rhode Island. Dr. Quashie has two strands of research. In the first, she examines how social welfare policy and social inequality shape family support and caregiving among older adults. Her second line of research examines how family dynamics, including size, structure, and relations, are associated with health and well-being in later life. Each research area is attentive to gender and socioeconomic disparities in older adults’ health and well-being. Her research spans global regions of Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia, and Europe. More recently, her research examines family support among Caribbean Black adults in the United States. Dr. Quashie currently serves as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences and the Regional Liaison for Latin America and the Caribbean within the editorial college of The Journal of Global Ageing.

In this role, Gene Stegman has driven significant revenue growth for organizations needing in-home specimen collection or other in-home services. Since joining the Health and Life Science division, Gene has supported a number of projects across longitudinal studies, university research, clinical trials, genetic testing, pharma programs, government projects, and class-action lawsuits. Each program is customized to the client’s needs and requires flexibility and solution-oriented skillset. ExamOne performs over 1.4 million in-home collections annually.

Gene joined Quest Diagnostics, Inc in 2014 from Tria Health, where he served as Vice President of Sales and Marketing. Prior to that, Gene served in various sales and leadership positions at a range of companies both within and outside of healthcare.

Gene earned an MBA from Rockhurst University and a bachelor’s degree in Accounting from Pittsburg State University.