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About Us


Our Vision

UTHealth Houston Institute on Aging will be the national leader in innovations, education, and training for healthcare that serves older adults.

Our Mission

Develop a diverse workforce, undertake research, and disseminate innovations that enable older adults to achieve what matters most in their healthcare, health, and lives.


Goals  

The Institute on Aging goals are aligned with the three UTHealth Houston missions: educate health science professionals; discover and translate advances in the biomedical and behavioral sciences; and model the best practices in clinical care and public health. These measures of our future successes are: 

      • Accelerate age-friendly innovations and interprofessional training as the lead institution of the U01 funded Southeast Texas Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Program. 
      • National dissemination of data and tools for embedding a frailty index and assessment tools in EHR (with UT Physicians as the case example). 
      • Promote elder justice by establishing a nationally recognized center for Elder Mistreatment education, prevention, intervention, and training. 
      • Become the national hub for dissemination of the Patient Priorities Care approach to multimorbidity care of older adults (with Center for Healthy Aging as the case example). 
      • Achieve top national rankings for geriatrics and gerontology training and research for UTHealth Houston programs. 
         

Specific Aims: Defining a New Aging Paradigm 

Geriatrics is about the whole person, including their social setting. Clinicians synthesize vast amounts of data from multiple sources to understand the whole person and meet their unique needs. We envision integration of advanced informatics and machine learning of available data with innovative technological and clinician assessments that generate novel data and meaningful assessments of vulnerabilities among older adults The Institute on Aging will foster interdisciplinary and interprofessional collaborations to integrate expertise in clinical geriatrics with clinical and health services interventions to improve function and health outcomes.

Aanand Naik, MD

UTHealth Houston
Executive Director, Institute on Aging

Rafael Samper-Ternent, MD

UTHealth Houston
Associate Director of Research, Institute on Aging

Lariza McBean

UTHealth Houston
Administrative Director, Institute on Aging

Headshot of Development Director Dr. James Booker, PhD
James Booker, PhD

UTHealth Houston
Development Director, Institute on Aging

Rachel Jantea, MD

UTHealth Houston
Education Director, Institute on Aging

  • Directors
    Aanand Naik, MD

    UTHealth Houston
    Executive Director, Institute on Aging

    Rafael Samper-Ternent, MD

    UTHealth Houston
    Associate Director of Research, Institute on Aging

    Lariza McBean

    UTHealth Houston
    Administrative Director, Institute on Aging

    Headshot of Development Director Dr. James Booker, PhD
    James Booker, PhD

    UTHealth Houston
    Development Director, Institute on Aging

    Rachel Jantea, MD

    UTHealth Houston
    Education Director, Institute on Aging

  • Faculty
    Jason Burnett, PhD

    UTHealth Houston
    Texas Elder Abuse Mistreatment Institute, Director

    Amy Franklin, PhD

    UTHealth Houston
    Associate Professor and Associate Dean for Student, Faculty, and Community Affairs

    Carolyn Pickering, PhD, RN

    UTHealth Houston
    Jane and Robert Cizik Nursing Research Institute, Director

    Andrew Pickering, PhD

    UTHealth Houston
    Associate Professor Cizik School of Nursing

  • Fellows
    Jack Banks, PhD

    UTHealth Houston
    Post Doctoral Fellow Department of Management, Policy and Community Health

  • Staff
    Headshot of Monica Bennett
    Monica Bennett

    UTHealth Houston
    Senior Administrative Assistant

    Headshot of Eli Almendarez
    Eli Almendarez, MPH MSSW, LMSW

    UTHealth Houston
    Program Coordinator GWEP

    Headshot of Erica Crosno
    Erica Crosno

    UTHealth Houston
    Marketing Coordinator

    Sophia Wasik, MPH

    UTHealth Houston
    Research Coordinator II

    Rosalinda Desrochers, MPH

    UTHealth Houston
    Research Coordinator II

  • Interns
    Ivy Zheng

    UTHealth Houston
    Research Support Assistant