Senior Scientist, Sunnybrook Research Institute; Brill Chair in Neurology, Department of Medicine, University of Toronto and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre.

Head, Department of Geriatric Medicine, Parkwood Hospital; Professor, University of Western Ontario Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, Department of Medicine, Division of Geriatric Medicine.

Medical Director and Site Principal Investigator, Toronto Memory Program.

Dr. Sharon Cohen is a Behavioural Neurologist and the Medical Director of Toronto Memory Program, a community-based multidisciplinary medical facility which she established in 1996 for the purpose of enhancing diagnosis and treatment for individuals with Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders. Her memory clinic and dementia research site are among the most active in Canada and have provided care and research opportunities to thousands of Canadians.

Dr. Cohen has over 30 years of experience in clinical research and has been a site PI for over 180 pharmacological trials in dementia. Her particular research interest is in disease modifying treatments and she has been a major contributor to Alzheimer’s prevention trial cohorts.

Dr. Cohen represents Canada on numerous international advisory boards and steering committees and is a consultant to a wide range of stakeholders, including government organizations and patient advocacy groups. She is a frequent lecturer and contributor to medical education activities. She is regularly featured in media events, and has a special interest in medical ethics, person-centered care, and reduction of stigma. She is known for her advocacy of individuals with neurodegenerative diseases.

Despite past academic and hospital appointments, Dr. Cohen has always chosen to practice in the community, in keeping with her belief that dementia care and clinical research are best understood and addressed in the real-world setting.

Founder and CEO, The Health Depot Pharmacy.

MD, FRCPC: Professor, Department of Medicine (Neurology), University of Toronto; Head Division of Neurology and Medical Director Pamela and Paul Austin Centre for Neurology and Behavioural Support, Baycrest Health Sciences; Scientist, Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest

Dr. Morris Freedman is Head of Neurology and Medical Director, Pamela and Paul Austin Centre for Neurology and Behavioural Support at Baycrest Health Sciences. He is Medical Director, Cognition and Behaviour at Baycrest, and a Professor, Division of Neurology, Department of Medicine, University of Toronto, as well as a scientist at the Rotman Research Institute of Baycrest Centre. He is carrying out research aimed at understanding mechanisms underlying cognitive impairment due to degenerative dementias. His research also includes the development of cognitive assessment procedures in dementia, such as the Toronto Cognitive Assessment and the Object Alternation Test, as well as program development for care of individuals with dementia. He is actively involved in research using artificial intelligence with a vision to promote precision diagnosis and management related to dementia and related disorders. In addition, he has special expertise in distance learning at a global level using videoconferencing, an area in which he has taken a major leadership role internationally.

Dr. Freedman has been instrumental in developing Baycrest’s Virtual Behavioural Medicine Program (VBM) which is a game changer in the care of individuals with advanced dementia and severe neuropsychiatric symptoms such as agitation and aggression. VBM has been highly successful in reducing emergency department visits and acute care hospital admissions in these individuals with severe neuropsychiatric symptoms, and is a scalable model of virtual care that can be adopted worldwide.

Vice President, Long-Term Care and Ambulatory Care & Chief Heritage Officer, Baycrest.

Founder, Kawartha Centre—Redefining Healthy Aging; Adjunct Professor, Trent University, Trent Centre for Aging and Society.

Dr. K. Jennifer Ingram MD FRCPC D.Sc.(hon), is a specialist in Internal Medicine and Geriatric Medicine. The overarching theme of her clinical and academic career has been to develop pivotal changes in the delivery of health care to Seniors locally through individual and interagency collaboration. As founder of the Kawartha Centre ~ Redefining Healthy Aging, Dr Ingram provided persons with complex health needs and dementia access to world class research options in a community setting. Dr Ingram is recognized for her role in founding the Seniors Care Network and the 12 fully funded NP led GAIN Geriatric Teams across central east Ontario serving rural Ontario seniors. She has been a consultant to the Provincial Geriatrics Leadership Ontario, and to the Trent Centre for Aging and Society. Dr Ingram was named the Ontario Co-Lead of the CIHR funded Team 19 ROSA Study (Research on the Organization of Services for Alzheimer dementia). Her groundbreaking community focused work has been recognized by the OMA (Glenn Sawyer Award 2016), the Consortium of Canadian Centres for Clinical Cognitive Research or C5R (Irma Parhad Award 2016) and Trent University (Community Leaders Award 2007). Currently Co-Chairing the Planning Leadership Table of the Primary Care Embedded Memory Services (PC-EMS) with her Primary Care Colleague Dr David Carr, they are piloting an intensive demonstration project to develop the tools and staffing needed to support all primary care physicians to appropriately diagnose dementia. In 2023, Dr. Ingram was recognized with an Honourary Doctor of Science by Trent University in recognition of her transformative work in developing, implementing, and documenting health care change to serve seniors especially those with dementia.

Founder, MINT Memory Clinics; Schlegel Chair in Primary Care for Elders, Research Institute for Aging.

CEO, AdvantAge Ontario.

Lisa Levin is the CEO of AdvantAge Ontario – an association of Ontario’s non-profit organizations serving seniors. Before joining AdvantAge, Lisa was the Director of Nursing and Health Policy with the Registered Nurses ‘Association of Ontario (RNAO). From 2011 to 2016, Lisa was the Chair of the Ontario Caregiver Coalition (OCC) that advocates for family caregivers across the province. In 2012, Lisa received a Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee medal for her work leading the OCC. From 2005 to 2015, Lisa was a senior executive with Circle of Care – a home and community care agency. Before that, Lisa was a policy advisor for 16 years in different ministries of the Ontario government including: Housing; Community and Social Services; Health; and Children’s Services. Lisa has her Bachelor of Arts in Urban Systems/Geography from McGill University, and her Master of Science in Urban Planning from the University of Toronto

AdvantAge Ontario has been the trusted voice for senior care for 100 years. We represent community-based, not-for-profit organizations dedicated to supporting the best possible aging experience. We are the only provincial association representing the full spectrum of the seniors’ care continuum. Our nearly 400 members are located across the province and include not-for-profit, charitable, and municipal long-term care (LTC) homes, seniors’ housing, supportive housing and community service agencies.

Director, Policy and Planning, Provincial Geriatrics Leadership Ontario.

Adam Morrison (he/him) is a public policy professional with more than a dozen years of leadership experience in health care, social services, Indigenous relations, and post-secondary education administration. He was appointed Chair of the Ontario Dementia Care Alliance in March 2023, working with Alzheimer Society of Ontario and his colleagues to provide expert recommendations to government on dementia care in Ontario. His current role as the Director of Policy & Planning at Provincial Geriatrics Leadership Ontario is focused on designing and implementing integrated care models and co-creating policy with clinicians and older adults that improves the quality of health and social care for seniors in Ontario. Adam also manages a consulting practice, supporting clients in the health, mental health, and arts sectors with strategy and engagement since leaving the Ontario Public Service in 2019. Adam has a Master of Science from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Chair, Medical Advisory Committee, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health; Professor of Psychiatry and Director of Geriatric Psychiatry Division, and Executive Director, Toronto Dementia Research Alliance, University of Toronto

Professor and Canada Research Chair in Translational Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Western Ontario Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry; Co-Scientific Director of the BrainsCAN Canada First Research Excellence Fund Program in Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Western Ontario.

Dr Lisa Saksida, PhD, FRSC, FCAHS is the Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Translational Cognitive Neuroscience, Co-Scientific Director of BrainsCAN—a $66M Canada First Research Excellence Fund program in cognitive neuroscience—and co-directs the Translational Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at Western University. She is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. Dr Saksida has the privileges of Fellow Emerita at Newnham College, Cambridge, in recognition of distinguished contributions to the education, learning, research or governance of the College for 15 years, and in 2020 was selected as one of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women by the Women’s Executive Network, in recognition of her efforts to improve equity, diversity and inclusion as well as her mentorship of other women.

Dr Saksida completed an interdisciplinary PhD at Carnegie Mellon University in 1999. She then held a Fogarty Fellowship at the National Institute of Mental Health in the US, leaving this after a year to take up the Pinsent Darwin Research Associateship at the University of Cambridge. She was appointed to a faculty position in the Department of Experimental Psychology in Cambridge in 2001, eventually making her way to Full Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience in the same department. She returned to her native Canada from Cambridge early in 2016.

Dr Saksida’s overarching research goal is to understand brain circuits and mechanisms underlying cognition in the healthy brain and in disease. The circuits she focuses on are those most often implicated in a range of disorders that are of immense relevance to society today, including Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia. Her work involves theoretically rigorous, mechanistic studies of cognition in disease models, using pharmacological, genetic and molecular manipulations along with sophisticated analysis of cognition and behaviour. Using these methods, she investigates fundamental questions about the neurobiological underpinnings of cognition, and how the answers to these questions can best be translated to treatments for patients. She has published over 170 papers in these domains in high impact journals, which have been cited over 18,000 times.

Staff Neurologist, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre; Associate Professor, University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine.

Laura Tamblyn Watts is the CEO of CanAge, Canada’s National Seniors’ Advocacy Organization. She is an advocate, author, academic, lawyer and media commentator. Laura is the author of the Dementia Report in Canada: A Cross Country Report 2022 and numerous other reports, studies and articles on dementia policy.

She has previously served as National Director of the Canadian Centre for Elder Law and Chief Public Policy Officer at CARP. She is an Assistant Professor (status) at the Factor Inwentash Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto. Laura is the recipient of a number of awards for her work, including a Community Leadership in Justice Fellowship by the Law Foundation of Ontario. She is affiliated faculty at a number of global universities and was called to the BC Bar in 1999.

Laura is a Board Director of the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO) and previously of the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC). She also sits on the Board of Directors of Elder Abuse Prevention Ontario, PACE Independent Living and the Bereavement Authority of Ontario (BAO). She serves on a number of consumer-focused committees including as Chair of the Consumer Advisory Panel of the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario (FSRA), a member of the Retirement Homes Regulatory Authority (RHRA) Consumer Advisory Panel.

She was part of the Canadian Standards Association’s team who developed new National Standards for Long Term Care and is now working with the CSA on developing National Standards for Home and Community Care.

Her warm and humorous new book: Let’s Talk About Aging Parents is out in April 2024 (The Experiment distributed by W.W. Norton).

Care partner.

Marion and Gerald Soloway Chair in Brain Injury and Concussion Research; Associate Professor, Tanz Centre for Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases, University of Toronto.

Senior Core Scientist and Indigenous Health Lead, ICES; Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Health, Laurentian University; Assistant Professor, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto.