Addie Abushousheh, PhD, Assoc. AIA, EDAC
Research Associate, The Center for Health Design
Addie Abushousheh is a gerontologist, researcher, and consultant for organizational and environmental development in long-term care. She explores cultural and bio-psycho-social perspectives, organizational structures and processes, physical environments, workforce models, and regulatory and financial frameworks in relation to decision making, resource management, and quality improvement. With combined expertise in architecture, organizational development, aging and applied research, Dr. Abushousheh advances comprehensive and translational agendas related to quality assessment and performance improvement. Addie is a Research Associate with The Center for Health Design, an Adjunct Faculty member at Kent State University, and a Senior Living Advisor for Abacus Institute.
Melody Karick
Director, Meadow View Memory Care Garden Spot Village
Melody Karick, Director of Meadow View Memory Care at Garden Spot Village is a Personal Home Care Administrator, Certified Dementia Practitioner, and Montessori Dementia Care Professional. She was personally trained by Teepa Snow and is a Trainer, Coach, Consultant and Engagement Leader through Positive Approach to Care. She is a Dementia Friendly Lancaster Board Member and Business Educator. Melody’s most valuable training was being the sole care partner for her father living with Vascular Dementia in her home with her husband and four children for eight years. Melody advocates for people living with dementia by training practical support techniques and the importance of relationships and maintaining normalcy in community, living each day with purpose and focusing on the strengths of each person who is living with a dementia.
Tama Duffy Day, FACHE, FASID, FIIDA, LEED® BD+C
Senior Living Leader, Principal, Gensler
Tama is a Principal, global leader of Gensler’s Senior Living practice, and an advisor to the Health Sector. A leader in the healthcare industry for decades, she challenges conventional design and develops solutions to reimagine longevity in an age-inclusive world. Actively leading projects across all regions, she is a frequent speaker at national events and conferences, and her work has been published in Forbes, Interior Design magazine, Fast Company, and The McMorrow Reports. Active in the healthcare community, she is a member of Women in Healthcare and on the Washington, DC Mayor’s Age-Friendly Task Force. Tama serves on the boards of the Capitol Hill Village and The CARITAS Project, and on Advisory Boards for the Healthcare Facilities Symposium, Marymount University and Medical Construction & Design Magazine. She is one of the few design professionals inducted as a fellow into the American College of Healthcare Executives.
Eunice Noell-Waggoner, IES
Interior Architect, Lighting Designer, President, Center for Design for an Aging Society
The first half of Eunice Noell-Waggoner’s professional career involved interior and lighting design for public buildings and commercial spaces. The second half of her career has been focused on addressing the needs of older adults, especially focused on lighting for aging vision and health, through the Center of Design for an Aging Society, a not-for-profit organization she founded.
She was the founding Chair of the Illuminating Engineering Society’s (IES) Lighting for Older Adults and the Low Vision Population Committee, and continues to serve on the IES Committee contributing to the update of ANSI/IES RP-28-20 Lighting and the Visual Environment for Older Adults and the Visually Impaired.
In 2017 she stimulated the formation of collaborative research teams to study the impact of LED light and daylight to address circadian disruption in memory care and nursing home residents. The first research project included Brown University School of Public Health Long-Term Care Quality and Innovation Center, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Center of Design for an Aging Society, and the ACC Care Center in Sacramento, CA. The findings have been published on the Department of Energy’s website and in Seniors Housing and Care Journal 2020.
Naomi J. Miller, FIES, FIALD, LC
Researcher, Lighting Designer, Senior Scientist, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Naomi Miller straddles the line between design and engineering at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Portland, OR. Called a “Senior Scientist,” she uses her decades of experience in architectural lighting design in Upstate New York and San Francisco to educate clients, customers, and practitioners and help nudge the SSL industry toward better, more practical solutions. Researching and reporting on lighting quality issues such as visual comfort, flicker, and light distribution with respect to SSL products, she is the tedious voice of experience. By bridging the gap between technology and application, she can promote the wise use of LEDs, working with industry to overcome the hurdles and celebrate the opportunities.
She has many years of experience working in different facets of the lighting industry, but still finds lighting to be an intriguing stew of economics, human factors, and physics; an essential element of productivity and comfort; and a visual delight. She recently served on the Illuminating Engineering Society’s Board of Directors and is both a Fellow of the IES and the IALD.
John Shoesmith, AIA, LEED AP
Principal, Shoesmith Cox Architects
John believes that design principles behind making better places for elders are the same ones underlying all good design. After witnessing his grandmother’s struggle with Alzheimer’s, John became interested in design for aging. He has dedicated his career to improving the environments in which elders live. His design work balances functional, programmatic and aesthetic requirements against the unique needs of each user.
Gaius G. Nelson
Founding Principal, The Nelson-Tremain Partnership
Gaius Nelson is a founding principal of The Nelson-Tremain Partnership, an architectural and consulting practice dedicated to serving the design needs of older people. Since 1980, he has served clients throughout the United States on innovative projects that address the full spectrum of housing and health care for aging.
Mr. Nelson received a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Minnesota and a Master of Science in Architectural Studies degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he specialized in the research of the built environment and its impact on older people.
Mr. Nelson has been instrumental in working towards change in Building and Design Codes & Regulations which are inappropriately applied to facilities for older people. He has served on the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging (AAHSA), Code Clearinghouse Advisory Board; he has testified before numerous legislative committees; and he has spearheaded successful Rules modifications to building codes.
As recipient of a Bush Foundation Leadership Fellows Grant, Mr. Nelson spent six weeks in 1995 studying public policy formation and implementation as a public policy intern at AAHSA in Washington, DC. During this time, he also served as Chairman of the private sector Workshop for the Office of Technology Assessment study titled: Residential Technologies for Elderly People and Persons with Disabilities: Issues in Innovation, Design and Implementation.
Mr. Nelson is on the Board of Directors of the Society for the Advancement of Gerontological Environments (SAGE) and serves as the SAGE appointed committee member involved in the Revision Task Force for the American Institute of Architects Guidelines for the Design and Construction of Hospital and Health Care Facilities.
Margaret Calkins, M.Arch, PhD, EDAC, FGSA
Board Chair, IDEAS Institute
Dr. Calkins is nationally recognized as a creative, dynamic leader, trainer and researcher in the field of environments for elders. She is Board Chair of IDEAS Institute, an independent research institute dedicated to exploring the therapeutic potential of the environment--social and organizational as well as physical--particularly as it relates to frail and impaired older adults. She is a highly sought after speaker for conferences in the US and abroad. She has published extensively and received over $6m in grant funding from the National Institutes of Health and foundations to develop training resources and explore the impact of the environment on people with dementia. She has served on numerous board, both local and national, including the Pioneer Network, Green House, Advancing Excellence, and the Cleveland Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association. She was a founding member of SAGE- Society for the Advancement of Gerontological Environments, and is on the Editorial Board for The Gerontologist, Journal of Housing and the Elderly, Journal of Clinical Psychology and Health Environments Research & Design Journal among other journals.
Jane Rohde, AIA, FIIDA, ASID, ACHA, CHID, LEED AP BD+C; GGA-EB, GGF
Principal, JSR Associates, Inc.
Jane Rohde believes in a global cultural shift toward person-centered solutions for healthcare settings and sits on various healthcare and sustainability committees supporting research, advocacy, and humanistic approaches to care. In 2015, she received the first Changemaker Award for Environments for Aging from The Center for Health Design and in 2018, she received the ASID Design for Humanity Award, has been recognized as an Honorary Alumni of Clemson University’s Architecture + Health program, and has been honored as one of the top ten Women in Design demonstrating leadership in healthcare and senior living design.
Robert Wrublowsky, MAA, AAA, OAA, SAA, MRAIC, LEED AP, EDAC
Principal Architect, MMP Architects Inc.
Robert (Bob) has been practicing architecture for 24 years, and is currently a Principal Partner at MMP Architects. As Senior partner Robert is responsible for corporate culture and procurement of new clients and projects. The firm is structured around Robert's philosophy to empower staff to succeed in new challenges. Robert specializes in the planning and design of elder care projects, aiming to improve the quality of care for people living in long term care facilities and supportive housing projects forming part of the continuum of care for seniors.
Challenging the traditional view of the Long Term Care home as a treatment facility, Robert advocates for a cultural shift through a care model that supports a non-pharmacologic approach for neurocognitive disorders. Robert’s view of the models of care in the majority of today’s long term care facilities is that they contribute to a loss of identity where the person’s purpose in life is stifled behind an institutional and procedural system of care. Robert is an advocate for system wide change which calls for a new foundation of health care for our elderly where a personal care home can become a place for living rather than a place to die; a vision not possible to fulfil within the current framework of care.
Robert is a level III EDAC practitioner. He continues to leverage his research and network affiliates in aging research to cause change in current institutional standards to bring about a greater understanding between the relationship of design and the well being outcomes of residents, and staff that provide care in these environments.
Migette L. Kaup, PhD, FIDEC, ASID, IIDA, NCIDQ, EDAC
Professor & ID Program Coordinator
Dept. of IDFS / Gerontology, College of Health and Human Sciences, Kansas State University
Dr. Migette Kaup is a Professor at Kansas State University and an Interior Designer specializing in gerontological and universal design. She earned her PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) School of Architecture and Urban Planning. Her major area of research is in aging and environment relationships with emphasis on long-term care policy structures to investigate progressive changes occurring in nursing homes. Her educational background also includes a Bachelor of Science in Interior Design and Masters of Architecture in Environment & Behavior and Place Studies with an emphasis in Gerontology from Kansas State University.
Migette is NCIDQ and EDAC certified and her professional design practice includes over nine years in architectural firms as well as seven years in private consulting to long-term care providers and design professionals. Her combined areas of applied research and practice over the past 20 years have focused on various aspects of senior housing and care including specialized dementia care and person-centered design strategies. Dr. Kaup is a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America, the Society for the Advancement of Gerontological Environments (SAGE), as well as the Interior Design Educators Council (IDEC), and a member of the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) and International Interior Design Association (IIDA). Migette served as the 2016-17 President for the Interior Design Educators Council and served on the IDEC board for over eight years.
She currently teaches for the College of Health and Human Sciences in the Interior Design Program. She is also a member of the gerontology faculty through the K-State Center on Aging. Migette is co-PI on the PEAK (Promoting Excellent Alternatives in Kansas nursing homes) 2.0 Program with the Kansas State University Center on Aging. PEAK 2.0 is a pay-for-performance program administered by the Kansas Department of Age and Disability to incent person-centered care (PCC) implementation in nursing homes across Kansas. Her work on long-term care settings and design has been published in both books and journals and she is a regular presenter at national conferences.