Keynote Speaker: Tracey Gendron, center Director at Virginia Commonwealth University and author of: Ageism Unmasked: Exploring Age Bias and How to End it.

The PURPOSE of the Art and Science of Aging Conference is to:

• Broaden the dialogue on aging in West Michigan
• Provide new knowledge and skills, derived from multidisciplinary research and evidence-based best practices on healthy aging to the community            
• Highlight important local resources and strategies for optimizing later life  
• Prepare individuals and professionals in our community for the coming surging growth of older adults 

The MISSION of the Art & Science of Aging Conference is to:

• Broaden the dialogue within our West Michigan region on the positive potentials of later life and holistic approaches to healthy aging
• Serve as an interdisciplinary and inter-professional forum of research on aging topics and best practices in working with and for the older adult

Who is our AUDIENCE?

The conference seeks to enrich the aging-related knowledge base of:

• Faculty and students
• Community professionals who deal with older adults in health, social service, housing and aging network settings 
• Older adults themselves,  who are looking to learn more and share more of the aging experience
• The general public

ARCHIVAL materials from previous conferences:

Our goal is to share all available resources from past conferences to enrich the aging-related knowledge base of Grand Rapids community and worldwide. We want to encourage multidisciplinary research, while discovering and presenting evidence-based best practices on healthy aging to the community. Please, see below our archive with conference programs, presentation materials of our speakers, and students' research.