ISAR CO-CONVENERS
Meet the team
ISAR is not affiliated with any organization and is completely run by volunteers, out of the goodness of their hearts.
The co-conveners each serve two year terms, with one convener rotating off every year, so that there is always sustained institutional knowledge. As implementation scientists, we know how important this is.
BETH PRUSACZYK, PHD, MSW
Instructor
Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis
Beth is the founder of ISAR and some might say the original convener. When she is not building ISAR, she is a faculty member at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, where her research focuses on using implementation science to improve the lives of vulnerable older adults, such as those with dementia living in rural areas, with an specific interest in using systems science and health IT to inform and speed that implementation.
KATY ABBOT, PHD, MGS
Associate Professor of Gerontology
Miami University, Oxford, OH
Dr. Katy Abbott is an Associate Professor of Gerontology and a Scripps Gerontology Center Research Fellow at Miami University in Oxford, OH. Her research and teaching focuses on preference-based person-centered care and the social networks and health of older adults receiving long-term services and supports. She is the co-founder of Preference Based Living, whose mission is to conduct studies that build understanding of individual preferences and test innovative methods to honor preferences for people receiving long-term services and supports. Katy is also a Certified Zentangle Teacher and lives in Oxford with her husband, also an MGS grad, and their daughter, Mia.
JENNY SULLIVAN, PHD
Investigator
Center for Healthcare Organization and Implementation Research (CHOIR) at VA Boston Healthcare System
Research Associate Professor
Boston University School of Public Health
Dr. Jenny Sullivan (she/her) is a Gerontologist and an Investigator at the Center for Healthcare Organization and Implementation Research (CHOIR) at VA Boston Healthcare System. She is an affiliated investigator at New England Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Center (GRECC) and the Long Term Service and Support (LTSS) Center of Innovation in Providence. Dr. Sullivan is a Research Associate Professor at the Boston University School of Public Health. The core area of Dr. Sullivan’s research has been assessing implementation and quality of institutional and noninstitutional LTSS in VA. More recently she has also been focused on development and implementation of community-based suicide preventions for elders focused on interpersonal factors.