2026 Science of Alzheimer’s Disease and Alzheimer’s Disease Related Dementias (AD/ADRD) for Social Scientists Program

The Science of Alzheimer’s Disease and Alzheimer’s Disease Related Dementias (AD/ADRD) for Social Scientists Program is a unique two-day series of lectures featuring nationally recognized clinical, biomedical and other interdisciplinary experts in the AD/ADRD field. Experts deliver scientific lectures tailored to social scientists, covering advances in biomarkers, therapeutics, disease pathology, clinical care models, among others.

The program offers social scientists the opportunity to learn about the biomedical and clinical foundations of AD/ADRD and recent scientific advances to inform social science dementia research.

Applicant Requirements

• Applicants from disciplines including economics, gerontology, sociology, demography, public policy, public health, and related fields are encouraged to apply.
• Investigators at all career stages are eligible to apply, with priority given to early-stage investigators.
• Attendance is limited to in-person participation; hybrid participation will not be available.

Travel Support

• Support includes: airfare, hotel, ground transportation, meals (provided at the program)

Sponsorship

The program is sponsored by our NIA-funded P30 centers: the USC Resource Center for Aging and Dementia Research (USC RCAD; P30AG043073), the Center for Advancing Sociodemographic and Economic Study of ADRD (CeASES ADRD; P30AG066589) and the USC/UCLA Center on Biodemography and Population Health (CBPH; P30AG017265).

The two-day program will take place at USC’s University Park Campus in Los Angeles, California.

The application deadline is Friday, July 31, 2026, at 5:00 p.m. PT.

For questions about this program, please contact Michelle Xuan at [email protected]. 

Featured Speakers

Jennifer Ailshire, PhD

Jennifer Ailshire, PhD, is Professor of Gerontology and Sociology, Associate Dean of Research, and Associate Dean of International Programs and Global Initiatives at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology. She is also an affiliate of the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics and of the USC Population Research Center.

Ailshire’s research addresses questions that lie at the intersections of social stratification, urban sociology, and the sociology of health and aging. Her research focuses on the importance of the neighborhood environment and social relationships in determining health over the life course. A consistent theme throughout her work is an interest in gender, socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic inequality in health. Current projects include research on the links between air pollution and health in older adults, neighborhood determinants of racial and ethnic health disparities, and social factors associated with poor sleep.

She serves as co-director of the USC/UCLA Center on Biodemography and Population Health, the Alzheimer’s Disease and Alzheimer’s Disease Related Dementias Resource Center for Minority Aging Research, and the Network on Life Course and Health Dynamics and Disparities (NIA Network). She also co-directs the Gerontology Enriching Medicine, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (GEMSTEM) to Enhance Diversity in Aging program and the T32 Multidisciplinary Research Training in Gerontology program. Ailshire is a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America, a recipient of the USC Provost’s Mentoring Award, and a recipient of the USC Mentoring Award in the graduate students category.

David Bennett, MD

David A. Bennett, MD, is director of the RUSH Alzheimer’s Disease Center and the Robert C. Borwell Professor of Neurological Sciences.

The Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center is a large, free-standing multidisciplinary research and clinical center within Rush Medical College that studies a wide range of common chronic conditions of aging. Studies range from community-based epidemiologic studies across the USA, Brazil and Mexico to phase I-IV clinical trials. Dr. Bennett is internationally known for his research and is the principal investigator of several studies funded by the National Institute on Aging, including the Religious Orders Study, the Rush Memory and Aging Project, and the Pathology, Alzheimer’s and Related Dementias Study in Sao Paulo, Brazil. He also directs the Regional Alzheimer’s Disease Assistance Center for Northern Illinois. He serves on numerous national and international advisory and editorial boards. He recently rotated off membership of the National Advisory Council on Aging for the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Bennett was the winner of the 2018 Potampkin Prize for research on dementia. He has more than 1,500 peer-reviewed manuscript publications, with more than 290,000 citations and an h-index of 246.

David Braudt, PhD

David Braudt, PhD is a population scientist by training; a gardener, mountaineer, and relentless optimist by nature; and is, above all, driven by a personal and professional commitment to understanding how social circumstances and biology individually, and in concert, shape health and aging processes across the life course.

Dr. Braudt is a Program Official and Project Scientist in the Macrosocial Processes branch of the Division of Behavioral and Social Research at the National Institute on Aging whose portfolio focuses on biodemography, family-demography, population omics, and the social determinants of later-life health including AD/ADRD.

As a Program Official, Dr. Braudt is responsible for the NIA Biomarker Network, the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP), the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), and the USC/UCLA Center for Biodemography and Population Health. As a Project Scientist, Dr. Braudt works with the PIs of the EdSHARe cohort studies, three UH3s examining population-specific AD/ADRD knowledge, caregiving norms, and prevention practices, and the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Coordinating Center for the Economics of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias.

His research interests span quantitative methods, social stratification, population health, and the integration of social science and omics data, methods, and theories. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and completed postdoctoral training at the University of Colorado Boulder.

He joins us today as NIA’s representative and a committed advocate for science that advances the health of all Americans.

Helena Chui, MD

Helena Chui, MD, is internationally recognized for her research in Alzheimer disease and vascular cognitive impairment. She is the principal investigator for the NIA-funded Alzheimer Disease Research Center, as well as a multi-institutional program project on vascular dementia. Dr. Chui is the author of over 120 publications and has served on the editorial board for Stroke, Alzheimer Disease and Associated Disorders, and Archives of Neurology. She holds the Raymond and Betty McCarron endowed Chair at the Keck School of Medicine and serves as the Chair of the Department of Neurology.

Eileen Crimmins, PhD

Eileen Crimmins, PhD, investigates how geroscience based measures can help us understand accelerated and decelerated aging in large national populations. She is the AARP Chair in Gerontology, and University Professor at the Davis School of Gerontology where she co-directs the NIA supported USC/UCLA Center on Biodemography and Population Health, and the NIA sponsored Biomarker Network. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Crimmins is a Past President of the Population Association of America and a Past Chair of the Behavioral and Social Sciences Section of the Gerontological Society of America. She has received the Kleemeier award for research from the Gerontological Society of America and the Matilda White Riley Distinguished Scholar Award from the Section on Aging and the Lifecourse of the American Sociological Society; and the Taeuber Award for research from the Population Association of America. Crimmins has been instrumental in introducing and promoting the collection of biological data in large national surveys of aging. She has worked on development of data in the U.S. HRS, SHARE in Europe, CHARLS, Indonesia, India and other countries.

Elizabeth Joe, MD, MS

Elizabeth Joe, MD, MS is Assistant Professor of Clinical Neurology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, where she provides clinical care for people with memory disorders at USC’s Memory and Aging Center and Los Angeles General Medical Center. In her role as co-lead for the Clinical Core of the USC Alzheimer Disease Research Center, she manages participant recruitment and data collection for several longitudinal studies of early Alzheimer’s disease and brain aging. Her research emphasizes the use of real-world data to improve the healthcare system for people with dementia and their caregivers. She is currently supported by a NIH/NIA GEMSSTAR R03 focused on improving dementia identification among older adults who access healthcare through Los Angeles County’s safety net health system. She was the neurology lead for Keck Medicine of USC’s Brain Health Navigator demonstration project, supported by Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative, and is USC site PI for the Alzheimer’s Network for Treatment and Diagnostics (ALZ-NET), a registry focused on real-world outcomes for novel treatments for Alzheimer’s disease. She completed medical school at Tufts University School of Medicine and her neurology residency and behavioral neurology fellowship training at USC.

Jessica Langbaum, PhD

Jessica Langbaum, PhD, is Senior Director of Alzheimer’s Prevention & Research at Banner Alzheimer’s Institute. She is also Director of the National Institutes of Health-funded, statewide Arizona Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and co-lead of its Outreach, Recruitment and Engagement Core.

She co-leads the Alzheimer’s Prevention Initiative (API), an international collaborative program launched in 2009 at Banner Alzheimer’s. She oversees the Alzheimer’s Prevention Registry and its GeneMatch program, and serves in a leadership role in the API’s clinicals trials.

Her research focuses on three interconnected themes: 1) designing and overseeing Alzheimer’s prevention trials for cognitively unimpaired adults at high risk for dementia; 2) developing, testing and implementing novel scalable approaches to communicate Alzheimer’s genetic and biomarker results; and (3) improving participant recruitment and retention into Alzheimer’s-focused studies, including leading registries with the goal of accelerating enrollment into clinical trials via evidence-based communication methods.

Dr. Langbaum received her bachelor’s degree in neuroscience and psychology with high honors from Oberlin College and her PhD in psychiatric epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Christian Pike, PhD

Christian Pike, PhD, is a Professor at the Leonard Davis School of Gerontology at the University of Southern California. He currently holds the Kevin Xu Endowed Professorship and serves as Assistant Dean of Research. Dr. Pike graduated magna cum laude from University of Southern California and earned his doctoral degree from University of California Irvine. For more than 30 years, his research has focused on neurobiology and geroscience, with a primary emphasis on understanding the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease and developing strategies for its prevention and treatment. Since establishing his independent laboratory at USC in 1999, his work has been continuously funded by the National Institute on Aging and numerous foundations.

Dr. Pike’s research has made significant contributions to the understanding of β-amyloid toxicity, the role of sex steroid hormones in brain aging and Alzheimer’s disease, and the interaction between genetic and environmental risk factors such as APOE genotype, obesity, and metabolic dysfunction. His current research investigates sex differences in Alzheimer’s disease risk, gene–environment interactions influencing disease vulnerability, microglia-targeted therapeutic strategies, and longevity-promoting interventions as potential approaches to prevent Alzheimer’s disease. Using a combination of primary cell culture, rodent models, and complementary human analyses, his laboratory integrates cellular, molecular, and behavioral approaches to advance translational insights into brain aging and neurodegeneration.

He currently leads or co-leads multiple federally and foundation-funded projects examining metabolic, genetic, and longevity-related mechanisms influencing Alzheimer’s disease risk and progression.

Daniel Nation, PhD

Daniel Nation, PhD, holds the Merle H. Bensinger Professorship in Gerontology at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology and is Professor of Medicine at the USC Keck School of Medicine. His work focuses on vascular contributions to cognitive decline and dementia, including the role cerebral blood flow deficits, vasomotor dysfunction, and blood-brain barrier permeability. He also studies novel cardiovascular risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, including elevated blood pressure variability. Dr. Nation’s work is funded by numerous grants from the National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Aging, the Alzheimer’s Association, and the American Heart Association. 

Lycia Neumann, PhD

As senior director, Health Services Research, Lycia Neumann, PhD, leads the health services research portfolio and partnerships with the goal of building the scientific knowledge and evidence needed for timely, high-quality and equitable dementia care along the health care continuum.

Before joining the Alzheimer’s Association, Dr. Neumann held roles at Highmark Wholecare, a Medicaid and Medicare managed care organization based in Pittsburgh, and Instituto Oncoguia, a Brazilian national cancer patient support and advocacy organization. With over 25 years of experience, she has planned, managed and evaluated health and social programs, leading to various publications about citizen-driven community development, evaluation of public policies and programs, aging and population health.

A member of the Gerontological Society of America (GSA), the Professional Society for Health Economics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) and the American Evaluation Association (AEA), Dr. Neumann is committed to helping organizations be more effective by using research and evaluation to inform decision-making and by establishing purposeful partnerships to strengthen the impact of their work. Her interests lie in health care policy and programs, global health, health disparities, caregiving and aging, both as an applied researcher and evaluator.

She serves on the editorial board of Innovation in Aging, a scientific journal of the Gerontological Society of America, and serves on the Advisory Council of the Allegheny County Area Agency on Aging.

Dr. Neumann completed her PhD in behavior and community health sciences from the School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh. She also earned graduate certificates in the evaluation of public health programs and Latin America social and public policy. Dr. Neumann also holds a master’s degree in public administration from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Fundação de Estudos Sociais do Paraná in Curitiba, Brazil, and a bachelor’s degree in social communications from Universidade Federal do Paraná in Curitiba, Brazil.

David Reuben, MD

David Reuben, MD, is Archstone Professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and is Director of the UCLA Alzheimer’s and Dementia Care Program and the UCLA Medicare Guiding an Improved Dementia Experience (GUIDE) program. His past service includes: President of the American Geriatrics Society: Board of Directors, American Board of Internal Medicine’s; the National Advisory Council on Aging for the National Institute on Aging, and Chief of the UCLA Division of Geriatrics for 31 years.

Dr. Reuben is principal investigator for the D-CARE study, a multi-site PCORI- and NIA-funded pragmatic trial to compare the effectiveness of health system-based versus community-based dementia care versus usual care. Dr. Reuben is also the Principal Investigator of a grant from the John A. Hartford Foundation to disseminate evidence-based models of comprehensive dementia care.

Dr. Reuben continues to provide primary and inpatient care for frail older persons, including making house calls. In his spare time, Dr. Reuben has written 12 plays and lyrics for 20 songs with composer Sidney Sharp; 10 of these have been recorded.

Heather Snyder, PhD

Heather M. Snyder, PhD, is senior vice president, Medical & Scientific Relations, at the Alzheimer’s Association. In this role, she oversees the Association’s funding initiatives that accelerate innovative Alzheimer’s and dementia research and provides opportunities for the global dementia community to connect and collaborate.

Dr. Snyder leads the Association’s International Research Grant Program and other strategic funding initiatives that accelerate promising investigations into our understanding of Alzheimer’s and dementia. As the world’s largest nonprofit funder of Alzheimer’s research, the Association currently has more than $490 million invested in over 1,220 active projects in 59 countries spanning six continents.

As part of the Association’s funding portfolio, Dr. Snyder works closely with the Part the Cloud program, advancing innovative approaches for potential therapies into phase 1 and phase 2 clinical trials. Dr. Snyder has also been instrumental in advancing programs to further explore sex and gender-based differences in disease vulnerability as part of a larger initiative aimed to understand how these biological and genetic factors may shape disease development and progression in women.

Dr. Snyder provides leadership on several of the Association’s cutting-edge scientific initiatives. To increase knowledge of prevention and risk reduction, she serves on the executive team for the U.S. Study to Protect Brain Health Through Lifestyle Intervention to Reduce Risk (U.S. POINTER) and its Alumni Extension study. Dr. Snyder works with other global leaders on the Association’s International Cohort Study of Chronic Neurological Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 to better understand the long-term impact of virus infection on the brain. She is also a study team investigator for the developmen of the Alzheimer’s Network for Treatment and Diagnostics (ALZ-NET), an initiative to gain insight on FDA-approved novel Alzheimer’s therapies.

Dr. Snyder is the chair of the Department of Defense Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs for Alzheimer’s Disease, and serves on the Research Committee for the American Heart Association and the Brain Health Committee of the American Stroke Association.

An expert in the field, Dr. Snyder has been featured in numerous TV, print and online news stories, including The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal.

She holds a PhD in molecular biology from Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine and a bachelor’s degree in biology and religious studies from the University of Virginia.

Art Toga, PhD

Arthur W. Toga, PhD, is Provost Professor of Ophthalmology, Neurology, Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences, Radiology and Biomedical Engineering, and Director of the USC Mark and Mary Stevens Institute of Neuroimaging and Informatics.

Dr. Toga’s research focuses on neurodegenerative disease, specifically Alzheimer’s disease. He has pioneered some of the most widely used informatics systems in the world (e.g., IDA and GAAIN), supporting more than 150 multisite trials in AD and other neurological diseases and psychiatric disorders. His interdisciplinary work led to the creation of the Laboratory of Neuro Imaging (LONI), which he also directs and is one of the most advanced multidisciplinary neurological research centers. Funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Alzheimer’s Association, the Michael J Fox Foundation among others, as well as industry partners, LONI houses one of the largest computing facilities dedicated to the field and one of the largest brain image repositories in the world.

He is an author or co-author of more than 950 peer-reviewed papers, 1100 abstracts and 80 book chapters or books, among them Brain Mapping: The Methods. He is the founding editor of the journal NeuroImage. Dr. Toga has received numerous awards for his research and teaching, including the Pioneer in Medicine Award, Smithsonian Award for Scientific Innovation and Giovanni DiChiro Award for Outstanding Scientific Research. He holds the Ghada Irani chair in Neuroscience and has been one of the world’s top researchers on the AD Scientific Index, Top 200 Best Scientists in Neuroscience on Research.com, and listed as one of Thomson Reuters’ and Clarivate Highly Cited Researchers for many years.

Hussein Yassine, MD

Hussein Yassine, MD, the Volke Endowed Professor of Neurology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, leads the Center for Personalized Brain Health with a focus on the APOE ε4 gene, a major genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s, and the role of omega-3 fatty acids. His lab conducts interdisciplinary research, combining clinical trials, and advanced imaging techniques to explore how APOE ε4 influences lipid metabolism and cognitive decline. Dr. Yassine collaborates with experts across multiple fields to drive progress in early detection and treatment strategies.

Julie Zissimopoulos, PhD

Julie M. Zissimopoulos, PhD, is a Professor in the Sol Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California. In addition to her faculty appointment, she is a Senior Scholar at the USC Schaeffer Institute and Co-Director of the Aging and Cognition Research Program. She is Director of the USC Resource Center for Aging and Dementia Research (USC RCAD) and the Center for Advancing Sociodemographic and Economic Study of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias (CeASES-ADRD), both focused on reducing burden of Alzheimer’s disease and funded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA).

Dr. Zissimopoulos’ current research focuses on economic costs of dementia, impacts of dementia on care partners, the use of and response to drug therapies for non-dementia conditions that influence risk of dementia; racial and ethnic disparities in diagnosis and health care treatment for dementia; and population measures of dementia using Medicare claims and survey data.

Published research appeared in Journal of the American Medical Association Neurology, Journal of Gerontology Social Science, Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Journal of Health Economics and Alzheimer’s and Dementia. Her research on the economics of aging is disseminated through media outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, CNN, National Public Radio.

Dr. Zissimopoulos received her B.A. summa cum laude from Boston College, her M.A. from Columbia University, and a PhD in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Past Programs

• 2024 Science of Alzheimer’s Disease and Alzheimer’s Disease Related Dementias (AD/ADRD) for Social Scientists Program
• 2022 Science of Alzheimer’s Disease and Alzheimer’s Disease Related Dementias (AD/ADRD) for Social Scientists Program