Connectionists: Student Travel Fellowships available for the January 6-8, 2026, Third Interdisciplinary Tutorials Workshop on Aging & Brain Health, in Aspen, Colorado

[Mark Gluck]

Dear Colleagues.

We are pleased to announce the full program of 20 speakers for the Third 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. See full program below, and other information at
https://brainhealth.rutgers.edu/aspen2026/

Student Travel Fellowships Available; Application Deadline is October 1.  Thanks to the generosity of private and corporate donors, we are able to offer a limited number of fully-funded student travel fellowships which cover airfare, hotel, and conference registration.

Note: Open registration for this conference to other attendees, including hotel reservations, will be available starting mid August. Due to the small size of this meeting (limited to 50 people, including students and tutorial presenters), we expect both the hotel rooms and the registration spots to sell out by early to mid fall.

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

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, 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”

Gilbert Gallardo (Neurology, Washington Univ. St. Louis, MI), “Astrocytes and neurotoxicity in Alzheimer’s disease”

Hermona Soreq (Bio-Chemistry, Hebrew Univ., ISRAEL). “Molecular neuroscience approaches to neurodegenerative disease research”

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”


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. CONFERENCE MISSION AND PLAN

Goals: 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, and (4) for students early in their career, promote a broader interdisciplinary vision of future progress in these fields.

Who: This is a small intimate meeting, limited to no more than 50 attendees including our 20 tutorial speakers and 6 to 8 students supported by student travel fellowship awards. About 20% of the attendees 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 whom are also financial supporters of our student travel fellowships). There will be plenty of unstructured time for socializing and skiing with leading scientists from around the world. The rest of the attendees will be researchers and trainees from a broad range of disciplines and scientific backgrounds, all of whom are working—from different perspectives and approaches—to understand healthy aging and the prevention of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.

Scientific Format: 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.  To be clear, 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 two dinners, an optional dinner outing the first night (January 6th) and a more elaborate final banquet the last night (January 8th) for everyone. We will be back at the Stonebridge Inn, 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). Hotel registration information will be posted by mid August so people can book their hotel rooms as part of our discounted block room rate.

Fees: The registration fee will be $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. 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

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 an 8.5” x 11” print-version for your wall or bulletin board)

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_______________________

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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