OGA 2021 Virtual Career Fair: Experts in Aging Panel

Kathleen M. Sullivan, PhD

OGA Board President

Kathleen M. Sullivan, PhD, is an accomplished speaker, trainer and writer on issues related to aging, built and social environments and veterans. She is credited for creating the nation’s most comprehensive suite of services for LGBT older adults while working in the country including the first and still only program that links LGBT veterans to their earned VA benefits. Dr. Sullivan created an evidence-based training for the Aging Protective Service staff in California and Washington to competently and compassionately work with LGBT older adults. Currently, she is the Regional Director for EngAGE NW, an organization that creates communities so people of all ages can thrive and feel a sense of belonging. Dr. Sullivan serves as a member of AARP's Diversity Action Committee and is a Commissioner on the Governor’s Senior Services Commission. She has over 25 years of experience as a leader of non-profit organizations and a decade of experience working in affordable housing. She is the author of a book on meditation, is an avid skier, runner and tennis player. She lives in NE Portland with her wife Rebecca and JoJo the dog.

Jennifer (Jenny) Sasser, PhD

OGA Board Member

Jenny Sasser is an educational gerontologist, transdisciplinary scholar, and community activist. She currently serves on the faculty for the Portland Community College Gerontology program, in Portland, Oregon. Jenny has been working in the field of gerontology for more than half her life, beginning as a nursing assistant and senior citizen advocate before focusing on scholarly inquiry and education. As an undergraduate she attended Willamette University, in Salem, Oregon, graduating Cum Laude in Psychology and Music; her interdisciplinary graduate studies at University of Oregon and Oregon State University focused on the Human Sciences, with specialization areas in adult development and aging, women’s studies, and critical social theory and alternative research methodologies. Jenny’s dissertation became part of a book published by Routledge in 1996 and co-authored with Dr. Janet Lee–Blood Stories: Menarche and the Politics of the Female Body in Contemporary US Society.

Jenny has focused her inquiry and practice in the areas of creativity in later life; aging and embodiment; transdisciplinary curriculum design; critical Gerontological theory; transformational adult learning practices; and cross-generational collaborative inquiry. Jenny served as Chair of the Department of Human Sciences and Founding Director of Gerontology at Marylhurst University from 1999 to 2015. She joined the Marylhurst faculty as an adjunct member of the Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies program in 1997 and during the subsequent 19 years was involved in designing many on-campus and web-based courses and programs for adult learners. She served on the Board of Directors at Mary’s Woods Continuing Care Retirement Community. Jenny co-authors Aging: Concepts and Controversies with Harry R. Moody (now in its 10th edition), is first author (also with Moody) of Gerontology: The basics, co-author of several book chapters, and an essayist. Her ongoing commitments include convening the Gero-Punk Project; serving as a conversation facilitator for Oregon Humanities; and offering consulting, workshops and presentations throughout North America. An award-winning educator, Jenny’s citations include the 2012 Association for Gerontology in Higher Education Distinguished Teacher award and a Willamette University Distinguished Alumni award in 2014. Jenny bilocates between Portland and Oceanside with her husband Simeon and their dog True.

Vicki Schmall, PhD

OGA Membership Committee Member

Vicki is President and Gerontology & Training Specialist with Aging Concerns in West Linn, Oregon. She is also Professor Emeritus of Oregon State University, where she served as the Director of the Program on Gerontology and the Gerontology Specialist in the OSU Extension Service for over 20 years. Vicki is well known for her development of many aging-related training programs and educational materials. These include eight multimedia workshop packages focused on family caregiving and communication issues, three additional videos, eight training manuals and four educational games that are distributed nationally. Vicki is the co-author of The Caregiver Helpbook: Powerful Tools for Caregiving.

Vicki’s areas of expertise include: family decision-making and caregiving in later life; aging and health-related changes-physical, psychological and social; family communication and caregiving issues (including Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias); mental health issues; sensitivity training on aging-related changes; learning and memory in later life; late-life sexuality; and curriculum design and training.

Margaret B. Neal, PhD

OGA Board Member

Margaret Beth Neal is Professor Emerita of Urban Studies and the former director of the Institute on Aging at Portland State University. She taught graduate courses in gerontology, survey design, data collection and global aging. She led Portland's participation in the 2006-07 World Health Organization's Global Age-Friendly Cities project and has co-coordinated the Age-Friendly Portland and Multnomah County initiatives since then, speaking and publishing locally, nationally and internationally on the topic of age-friendly communities as well as that of combining paid work with unpaid care for elders. She and her husband, David Leckey, live between Wilsonville and Newberg at their nursery, Oregon Small Trees.