General Meeting Age-It - May 20-22, 2024
Keynote speakers

James Banks

James Banks is Professor of Economics at the University of Manchester and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Fiscal Studies in London, where he is Co-Director of the ESRC Centre for the Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy.  His research focuses on empirical modelling of individual economic behaviour over the life-cycle. His early work focused on consumption and spending patterns, asset accumulation and pension choices. Subsequently he has worked on broader issues in the economics of ageing, such as health, physical and cognitive functioning and their association with labour market and broader socioeconomic status, and the dynamics of work disability. 

James is Co-Principal Investigator of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing and is actively involved in working with policy makers and research funders on activities related to the ongoing collection and use of longitudinal population studies. He has served on expert advisory committees for the Department for Work and Pensions, Department for Health, Government Office for Science, Office for National Statistics, Economic and Social Research Council, Wellcome Foundation, and the US National Institute on Aging. 

Francesco Billari

Francesco Billari is a Professor of Demography at Bocconi University in Milan. He became Rector in November 2022 after having held the role of Dean of the Faculty. He worked at the University of Oxford (Department of Sociology, where he also served as Head of Department) and Nuffield College (where he was a Professorial Fellow), and at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (Head of the Independent Research Group on the Demography of Early Adulthood).

Francesco served as President and Secretary-General/Treasurer of the European Association for Population Studies, and he received the ‘Clogg Award’ from the Population Association of America in 2012. He is Fellow of the British Academy, and an affilate of the Population Studies Center, University of Pennsylvania. His main interests are fertility and family change, the transition to adulthood, life course analysis, population forecasting, digitalization and demography, and comparative surveys.

Giuseppe Fico

Giuseppe Fico is Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), head of the health area at Life Supporting Technologies group at UPM and affiliated researcher and affiliated researcher at the Group of Surgical Research Innovation at Health Research Institute of the Hospital Clínico San Carlos, Madrid, Spain.

He is Elected President and past Secretary General of the European Alliance of Medical and Biological Engineering, former co-chairman of the Working Group on Health of the Alliance for Internet of Things Innovation, coordinator of the Adherence to prescription and medical plans  Action Group at the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing and founding member of the “ACTIVAGE.org” association, member of the Digital Health division, collaborator of the Health Technology Assessment and Clinical Engineering divisions of the International Federation for Medical and Biological Engineering.

He is Technical Manager of various Large Scale Pilots  (ACTIVAGE, 10.000 patients from 12 European regions and municipalities, GATEKEEPER 50.patients from 8 regional healthcare systems, ODIN, 8 European reference hospitals),  to demonstrate the impact of AI, Robotics and IoT technologies to create a new generation of digital health platform for chronic diseases, healthcare services, active and healthy ageing, and follow up of cancer survivors.

He also serves as the coordinator of the Innovative Health Initiative BEAMER and IMPROVE projects, facilitating public and private collaborations with pharmaceutical, medtech, and biotech industries to leverage digital solutions for treatment adherence and the enhanced adoption of PREMs and PROMs to improve health and social care outcomes.

He is lecturer of >10 courses in Biomedical and Telecommunication Engineering at UPM, invited expert in international conferences from different scientific and industrial societies, in summer schools, and for certified training to healthcare professionals and managers.

Current research interests include eHealth, Health Technology Assessment, Human Computer Interaction, DSSs, AI and ML applied to Diabetes, Cancer Research and Personalized Medicine, Chronic Diseases, Active and Healthy Ageing and Hospital Process Management.

The research vision of Giuseppe Fico is to understand the role of systems thinking and embed evidence-based systems engineering culture in health through digital technologies and disruptive paradigms, but supported and driven by ethics, social science, humanistic and sustainable approaches.

Laura Fratiglioni

Laura Fratiglioni is a medical doctor, specialized in Neurology and Epidemiology. Originally from Italy, she moved to Sweden 1996. As clinician, LF has worked mostly in Italy at the University Hospital of Florence. As researcher, she has been mostly active at Karolinska Institutet, Sweden.

Laura Fratiglioni is currently employed as senior professor at the Aging Research Center (ARC) that she directed for 15 years. In the same period, she directed the National Graduate School for Aging Research, an educational program with a biological and psycho-social profile. Under her main supervision, have completed their studies. She has been main supervisor of 17 PhD and 12 postdoctoral students, and co-supervisor of 20 PhD students.

Since 2018, LF is the Director of the National E-infrastructure on Aging Research (NEAR) a consortium of eight universities that coordinates existing databases from major population-based longitudinal studies on aging and health in Sweden. She is the principal investigator of the Kungsholmen Project on Aging and Dementia and The Swedish National Study on Aging and Care-Kungsholmen population study (SNAC-K).

LF has led several major research projects in Sweden and EU, developed extensive scientific networks, and organized numerous national and international conferences and symposia. She has participated in advisory boards within the academia and the public health care organization. Currently, she serves as member of the Aging Research Council at The Swedish Ministry of Health and Social Affairs.

Her major scientific contributions concern primary and secondary prevention of dementia, and more recently multimorbidity and longevity among the oldest old adults. Her scientific production has led to 388 original articles, 25 reviews, and 11 letters in peer-reviewed journals; 32 book chapters; and 13 reports. Citations: 61223 citations by April 2024; h-index=110 (according to Web of Science); recognized as the 4th most cited female researcher in Sweden 2023.

Professor Fratiglioni has received several awards, including Karolinska Institutet’s Grand Silver Medal and the Karolinska Institutet Distinguished Professor Award, Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Alzheimer’s Association, and the Sohlberg’s Nordic Prize in Gerontology. In 2023, she received two prizes from the Swedish Society of Gerontology and the Swedish Society of Medicine.

Andrea B. Maier

Andrea B. Maier (1978), a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (FRACP), graduated in Medicine (MD) 2003 from the University of Lübeck (Germany), was registered 2009 in The Netherlands as Specialist in Internal Medicine-Geriatrics and was appointed Full Professor of Gerontology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (The Netherlands) in 2013. She was the head of Geriatrics at the Vrije Universiteit Medical Center from 2012 to 2016. From 2016 to early 2021 Professor Maier served as Divisional Director of Medicine and Community Care at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, Australia, and as Professor of Medicine and Aged Care at the University of Melbourne, Australia. She continued her career at the National University of Singapore as Director of the Centre for Healthy Longevity.

Professor Maier’s research focuses on unraveling the mechanisms of ageing and age-related diseases to bring diagnostics and interventions to optimize health into clinical practice. She is heading international longitudinal cohort studies and geroscience interventions. She has published more than 400 peer-reviewed articles, achieving an H index of 72, spearheading the significant contributions of her highly acclaimed innovative, global, multidisciplinary @Age research group. She is a frequent guest on radio and television programs and book author to disseminate aging research. Furthermore, she is invited member and advisor of several international academic and health policy committees and funding agencies, including the World Health Organization evaluating the United Nations Decade of Healthy Ageing and Hevolution.

In 2022, she co-founded the first evidence based Healthy Longevity Medicine Clinic in Singapore, Chi Longevity, and joined NU as Chief Medical Officer. She is the past President of The Australian and New Zealand Society for Sarcopenia and Frailty Research, the Founding President of the Healthy Longevity Medicine Society and serves as selected Member of The Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities, Fellow of the Atria Academy of Science and Medicine, and Academy for Health and Lifespan Research. In 2023, she co-founded the NUS Academy for Healthy Longevity to disseminate Geroscience and evidence based Healthy Longevity Medicine.

Fabrizio Natale

Fabrizio Natale is leading the research in the field of demography at the Demography and Migration Unit of the EC Joint Research Centre. His research primarily focuses on the relationship between urbanisation and demography on a global scale, as well as the impact of climate change on migration patterns. In addition, he studies the territorial aspects of ageing and depopulation within the EU. Fabrizio has also been responsible for research activities on legal migration and integration at the Knowledge Centre on Migration and Demography, with a specific focus on international migration drivers, urban segregation and ethnic diversity.

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