Connectionists: Join us in Aspen, January 6-8, 2026, for late afternoon Aging & Brain Health tutorials (with skiing during the day): Very limited hotel and conference registration spaces available

Thu Aug 7 05:33:49 EDT 2025

August 7, 2025
Dear Friends & Colleagues.

Please join us for the Third Annual Interdisciplinary Tutorials Workshop on Aging & Brain Health taking place January 6-8, 2026, at the Stonebridge Inn, located at the base of the Snowmass Mountain ski resort in Aspen, Colorado.  All tutorial presentations take place from 4-7pm, allowing attendees to take full advantage of this Rocky Mountain location during the day. All are welcome; past attendees have included scientists, doctors, biomedical and pharmaceutical industry representatives, government and private funders of research, students at all levels, postdoctoral fellows, and many members of the general public.

NOTE:  There are very few hotel rooms left: less than 10 rooms are still available in our heavily discounted rooming block at the Stonebridge Inn. If you wish to join us, you should grab one of these remaining hotel rooms ASAP. See details below. In addition, registration is limited to the first 50 people who register (including the 20 speakers). This meeting is designed to be small and intimate to ensure that everyone--especially students and other early career scientists--get a chance to meet, talk, and network with everyone else; as such, registration will close as soon as we get 50 confirmed registrations.

Overview of Format and Goals: Offering 20 concise 15-minute TED-style tutorials designed to be broadly accessible (no jargon, no acronyms, no presumption of audience having any expertise in the speaker’s field),  we seek to (1) pull attendees out of their academic and scientific silos, helping them understand methods and findings from related fields, (2) seed the potential for future cross-disciplinary collaborations, (3) facilitate the transition from basic research to clinical interventions that promote healthy aging, (4) for students early in their career, promote a broader interdisciplinary vision of future progress in these fields, and (5) expand wider public awareness and understanding of current advances in research on healthy aging and the prevention of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.

Non-Scientists Welcome! About 20% of the attendees to this meeting are expected to be non-scientist members of the general public (many from the Aspen area) who have a personal interest in learning about the latest advances in the science of healthy aging and the fight to cure Alzheimer’s disease. Some of these people are also financial supporters of our student travel fellowships, helping us expand access to the meeting. We are grateful for their participation and support.

See full program below, and and information on how to register at our web site:

https://brainhealth.rutgers.edu/aspen2026/

HOW TO BOOK HOTEL RESERVATIONS:

SMALL VENUE AND HOTEL WILL FILL UP SOON. Early booking is strongly advised. A block of 25 rooms was reserved and only 10 are left. Once those are booked, other attendees will need to find alternative local accommodations. Book hotel rooms at the Stonebridge Inn by calling 1-844-330-1859, during regular business hours (Mountain Time) and ask for the “Rutgers 2026” group rate. We expect most people will arrive on Monday, January 5th, and depart on Friday, January 9th, staying four nights, allowing them three full days of skiing, snowboarding, or other mountain recreation and diversion. The cost for the Deluxe Hotel rooms when staying 4 nights or longer—with our special negotiated conference rates—will be $354/night plus taxes and resort fees (for total cost per night of $416.43 for a stay of 4 nights or longer). This room rate includes breakfast, allowing conference attendees to dine together each morning in the lobby restaurant. Those wishing to arrive a day earlier (Sunday, January 4th) and/or depart a day later (Saturday, January 10th), may do so if there are rooms available. Booking early will give you maximal flexibility and options. For those who wish to stay only three nights (i.e., arriving on Tuesday, January 7th and departing on Friday, January 10th), the base room rate is higher, at $404/night (which comes to $476.21/night with the taxes and fees). This room rate also includes breakfast.  There is a three night minimum stay required. We expect the room block to sell out by the end of October if not sooner. However, in the unlikely event that any of our 25 rooms has not been booked by November 21, 2025, these rooms will be released and no longer available at the conference rate. More information on our hotel venue is at: https://www.stonebridgeinn.com/

See also below for (1) program information, (2) other information, (3) how to make a tax-deductible donation to support student attendees, (4) procedure and guidelines for applying for a student travel fellowship (deadline October 1).

1. PROGRAM INFORMATION FOR JANUARY 6-8, 2026

HEALTHY AGING

Ilona Schwarz (Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, NJ), “Nutrition and diet for healthy aging”

Jennifer Schrack (Epidemiology & Medicine, Johns Hopkins Univ., MD). “Quantitative measures of changes in body movement with aging”

Kevin Heffernan (Movement Science, Columbia Teachers College, NY), “Vascular aging and brain health”.

Susy Stark (Occupational Therapy, Washington Univ. St. Louis, MI), “Aging safely at home”

Rebecca Cunningham (Pharmacy, U. Of North Texas, TX), “Sex differences in aging and brain health”

Louis Bherer (Medicine, Univ. of Montreal, CANADA), “Cognitive training and exercise for healthy brain aging”

Reem Waziry (Medicine, Columbia Univ., NY), “DNA methylation and biological stress in aging”

ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE:  RISK FACTORS

Perry Ridge (Biology, Brigham Young Univ., UT). “Alzheimer’s disease in Pacific Islanders”

Michael Koob (Pathology, University of Minnesota, MN). “Environmental stress and injury can cause dementia pathologies”.

Matt Huentelman (TGen Institute, AZ), “The genetics of Alzheimer’s disease and healthy aging”

ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE:  ASSESSMENT

Elizabeth Mormino (Neurology, Stanford Univ., CA), “Measuring early Alzheimer’s disease in aging cohorts“

Keenan Walker (NIA Intramural Labs, MD). “What the plasma proteome can tell us about dementia risk”

ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE: BIOLOGICAL MECHANISMS

Nick Frost (Neurology, Univ of Utah, UT). “How amyloid accumulation disrupts cellular and network activity”

Andrew Budson (Neurology, Boston University, MA). “Dementia as a disorder of consciousness”

Sara Burke (Neuroscience, Univ. of Florida, FL), “Animal models of metabolic function in Alzheimer’s disease”

Omer Sharon (Psych. & Neuroscience, Univ. of Calif., Berkeley), “Human slow wave sleep in aging and Alzheimer’s disease”

Jayeeta Basu (Neuroscience, NYU, NY), “Circuit Mechanisms for Modulating Cortico-Hippocampal Dynamics in Alzheimer's Disease”

ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE: TREATMENTS

Paul Solomon (Boston Center for Memory & Williams College, MA), “How to critically evaluate Alzheimer’s disease clinical trial results”

Jack Tsao (Neurology, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, NJ), “Latest updates on anti-amyloid treatments for Alzheimer’s disease“

Programs from previous two years are at:

2024: https://brainhealth.rutgers.edu/workshop/conference-program-and-speakers/

2025: https://brainhealth.rutgers.edu/aspen2025/conference-speakers-and-tutorials-planned/

2. OTHER INFORMATION:

Presentation Format: As noted above, all talks will take place from 4-7pm on all three days, featuring 20 tutorial presentations. These are concise 15-minute TED-style talks designed to be broadly accessible: no jargon, no acronyms, no presumption of audience having any expertise in the speaker’s field.  These are not standard technical talks about the speaker’s own research. Rather, the speakers will be contributing to the continuing education of other attendees with something akin to a brief undergraduate-level pedagogical review of the literature, findings, and methods in a topic of broad interest. While some speakers may use examples from their own research, we ask that they limit any discussion of their own work to less than 1/3 (5 minutes) of their presentation.  In addition, the meeting will begin the first day with student fellows each giving a three minute “elevator pitch” summary of their research (no slides, no notes).

Social Plan to Promote Informal Interaction and New Interdisciplinary Collaborations: There will be plenty of unstructured time for socializing and skiing with leading scientists from around the world. There will be two dinners, an optional dinner outing the first night to a restaurant in town (January 6th) and a more elaborate final banquet the last night (January 8th) for everyone in the hotel restaurant. We will be back at the Stonebridge Inn (https://www.stonebridgeinn.com/), located ski-in/ski-out at the base of Snowmass Mountain, just outside the town of Aspen, Colorado. Breakfast is included in the room rate so we expect most people will have breakfast together for additional unstructured discussion time. For the non-skiers, we will organize group social activities on the 7th and 8th (e.g., Nordic XC skiing, snowshoeing, mountain slide runs, tours of the town, and more).

Fees: The registration fee is $350 as in past years (paid online with credit card in advance) and includes the closing banquet as well as mid-meeting break catering on all three days, along with room and facility charges. Registration will close once we have reached the room fire-code limit of 50 people.  All attendees, including speakers, cover their own airline, hotel, and registration costs; this is a self-funded meeting (except for student travel fellows).

3. HOW TO MAKE A TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATION TO SUPPORT A STUDENT

Fully tax-deductible donations to support the Aspen 2026 conference (at $2,500/student) can be processed through the following web site which has information on multiple different methods for making the donation.  All donations are processed through the Rutgers Foundation, a 501c3.

https://brainhealth.rutgers.edu/donate/

Donors will be recognized on our conference web page (if they wish). If donors attend the conference, they will also be invited to have dinner the first night with the student fellow whom they are supporting.

Corporate sponsors are also invited to: (1) distribute a promotional brochure in our registration packet and (2) have 3-minute slot to give an oral (no slides) blitz presentation at the start of the meeting to tell their story and mission to the attendees.

Please reach out if you have any further questions. Once you do make a donation through one of these methods, could you please email me to gluck at rutgers.edu so I can make sure to track the donation.

4. HOW TO APPLY FOR A STUDENT TRAVEL FELLOWSHIP (October 1 deadline)

Thanks to the generosity of philanthropic donors, we are able to offer a limited number of fully-funded student travel fellowships for either (a) graduate students actively engaged in a current research project related to healthy aging or Alzheimer’s disease, or (b) undergraduates and post-baccalaureate research assistants who are planning to pursue PhD’s in neuroscience, psychology, biology, public health, or related careers in aging and Alzheimer’s research (sorry, no pre-Meds!).

All student travel fellows will be assigned a faculty mentor from among the speakers to have dinner with the first night. Additional student career mentoring activities will be offered throughout the meeting.

Note: Travel fellowships are limited to cover travel costs to the conference from within the US; we welcome international applicants who are willing to cover their own travel costs from their home country to the US.

Applicants should submit their proposal no later than October 1 as a single PDF that includes

(1) A cover letter explaining the potential impact of attending the conference on their educational, training, and career goals;

(2) A proposed research presentation title (limited to 85 characters including spaces);

(3) Maximum 500-word abstract;

(4) List of top three preferred faculty-speaker mentors (see program);

(5) Their resume/CV (including name, title, and affiliation of their current supervisor or mentor).

Application files should be named <LastName>.<FirstName>.<university>.ASPEN2026 and emailed to gluck at rutgers.edu<mailto:gluck at rutgers.edu> .

______________

2026 poster attached below. Please share and repost to social media along with our web site: https://brainhealth.rutgers.edu/aspen2026/

(Email me if you would like print-version for your wall or bulletin board)

[PastedGraphic-2.png]

_______________________

Dr. Mark A. Gluck,
Professor of Neuroscience and Public Health
Director, Aging & Brain Health Alliance
Rutgers University—Newark
197 University Avenue
Newark, New Jersey   07102

http://www.brainhealth.rutgers.edu<http://www.brainhealth.rutgers.edu/>

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