Summit 2024, Panel 2: A New Lens on Aging: How Age-Inclusive Initiatives Inspire Change

Lance Robertson is a Partner in State Health at Guidehouse.  He joined the firm in 2021, after serving in Washington DC as the Assistant Secretary on Aging and Administrator of the HHS Administration for Community Living (ACL).  From 2007 to 2017, Lance served as the Director of Aging Services for the State of Oklahoma and oversaw the Older Americans Act programs and ran the state’s largest Medicaid waiver.  He is also a Past President of ADvancing States, the national association membership group of State Aging Directors.  Prior to state service, Lance was an administrator for twelve years at Oklahoma State University.  He has served on numerous boards and committees at the local, state and federal levels and speaks regularly at events across the country.  He is a subject matter expert on home and community-based services, social drivers of health, community-based organization network development, stakeholder engagement, public sector leadership and more.  He has a Masters in Public Administration (MPA) from the University of Central Oklahoma and is an Army veteran.       

Kina L. White, DrPH, MHSA, FACHE is the Office of Community Health Improvement Director at the Mississippi State Department of Health (MSDH). Her office includes three Bureaus: Healthy Aging, Injury and Violence Prevention, and Community and School Health. Dr. White is the Principal Investigator for multiple federal grant programs, also serving as the State Lead for the Age-Friendly Public Health Systems Initiative (AFPHS) with Trust for America’s Health.  Under Dr. White’s leadership, MSDH achieved Exemplar status as the 3rd U.S.-recognized Age-Friendly Public Health System in May 2023.  Strategic efforts are underway for age-friendly communities, universities, and health systems to advance the development of an age-friendly ecosystem.

Dr. White serves on the National Rural Age-Friendly Initiative Interest Group. She is a board-certified Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives and currently serves as Regent for the American College of Healthcare Executives of Mississippi. With more than 20 years of leadership experience, Dr. White is an equity strategist with an extensive background in healthcare management, policy change, and public health administration. 
 
Dr. White holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from The University of Southern Mississippi, a Master of Health Services Administration from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and a Doctor of Public Health in Health Policy and Management from Jackson State University. In addition, Dr. White has completed a two-year NIH-R25 Clinical and Community-Based HIV/AIDS Research Training (CCRT) Fellowship at Brown University. Dr. White is a graduate of the Mississippi Economic Council’s Leadership Mississippi program. She is an Adjunct Faculty at Belhaven University in Adult, Graduate, and Online Studies.  Dr. White is also a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.  Dr. White has a sincere passion for working with underrepresented communities and increasing equitable access to improve health outcomes.

Joann M. Montepare, PhD, FGSA, FAGHE, FAPA (Director of the RoseMary B. Fuss Center for Research on Aging and Intergenerational Studies, Professor of Psychology, Lasell University) is the Chair of the GSA-AGHE Age Inclusivity in Higher Education (AIHE) Workgroup and Editor of the AIHE Newsletter. In addition to conducting research exploring social and personal perceptions of age, she is an advocate of intergenerational teaching and learning and has developed innovative educational programs such as “Talk of Ages” to bring older and younger learners together in and beyond the classroom across the curriculum. She is a co-investigator on RRF-funded research that guided the development of the Age Inclusivity Domains of Higher Education (AIDHE) model to promote age inclusivity in higher education and the Age-Friendly Inventory and Campus Climate Survey (ICCS) to assess campus practices and perceptions. 

Dr. Maria Torroella Carney is a board-certified internist, geriatrician, and palliative care physician with clinical, research, administrative, and public health leadership experience. She has been at Northwell Health since 2012 and is currently Medical Director for Continuing Care and Chief of the Division of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine. She is Professor of Medicine at the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra / Northwell. 

Dr. Carney trained in Internal Medicine at Georgetown School of Medicine and The New York Hospital - Weill/Cornell Medical Center and completed a research-oriented fellowship in Geriatric Medicine at The Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. She served as commissioner of the Nassau County Department of Health on Long Island, New York serving a population of 1.3 million residents from 2008-2011. 

She has dedicated her career to promoting longevity, healthy aging, and high-quality care for older adults and those with serious illness. She was selected as a 2022-2023 Health and Aging Policy Fellow, a national leadership program.  In May 2024, The Aging Revolution, a book co-authored with Michael Dowling and Charles Kenney will be published.

Patricia M. D’Antonio, BSPharm, MS, MBA, BCGP is the Vice President of Policy and Professional Affairs for The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) and a board-certified geriatric pharmacist. Trish directs GSA’s policy initiatives and is responsible for developing relationships with organizations in the aging arena. Trish represents GSA on several policy coalitions and serves as co-chair for the Adult Vaccine Access Coalition, president of the board of the Protecting Access to Pain Relief and Chair of the Friends of NIA.  Additionally, she serves as the Executive Director for the National Center to Reframe Aging, the central hub to advance the long-term social change endeavor designed to improve the public’s understanding of what aging means and the many ways that older people contribute to our society. Before joining GSA, Trish served as Executive Director for the District of Columbia Board of Pharmacy and Program Manager for the Pharmaceutical Control Division, where she was responsible for the regulatory and policy development for the practice of pharmacy and served as liaison to the FDA, DEA, and other federal, state, and city organizations that promote safe handling of medications.  She received her Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy from Duquesne University and her Master of Science in Health Finance and Master in Business Administration with a concentration in health care from Temple University. She completed a residency in administration and finance at The Philadelphia Geriatric Center.