Our International Advisory Committee

Debra Waters is a Research Professor at the University of Otago, Dunedin New Zealand where she is the Director of Gerontology Research and Co-Director of the Otago Falls Network (Tū Ora). She is also a Research Professor at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she is co-leading the Successful Ageing Grand Challenge. She serves on the International Conference on Frailty and Sarcopenia (ICFSR) task force and is on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Nutrition Health and Aging, Journal of Frailty and Aging, Australasian Journal on Ageing, and Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics. Her research has focused on the assessment and treatment of older adults with sarcopenia and frailty, and community interventions to prevent falls. Including work with indigenous communities in New Zealand and New Mexico on developing and delivering culturally appropriate falls prevention programs.

Dr Bruno Vellas is the Founder of the Institut Hospitalier Universitaire (IHU) HealthAge in healthy aging, prevention and geroscience(Toulouse, France). In addition, he is the chair of the Gérontopôle & Department of Geriatric Internal Medicine at the Toulouse University Hospital and is member of INSERM UMR 1295. Dr Vellas is the founder of the Gérontopôle to develop innovation and research for older adults. Currently, he is adjunct professor at the Department of Internal Medicine, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA. Since September 2017, he is the chair of the WHO Collaborating Center for Frailty, Clinical Research and Geriatric Training. Furthermore, he is President of the Scientific Committee of the French National “Great Age”, and Coordinator of the INSPIRE program in the field of Gerosciences.

Prof. Chen obtained his MD from National Yang-Ming University in 1996 and went on a PhD focused on aging and public policy. In 2005, he was appointed as a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Clinical Gerontology at the University of Oxford.

In 2006, Prof. Chen became the Director of the Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology at Taipei Veterans General Hospital, where he developed innovative solutions for older people's healthcare needs. In 2014, he was appointed as the Director of the Aging and Health Research Center at National Yang Ming University, which was later renamed as the Center for Healthy Longevity and Aging Sciences.

Prof. Chen has published nearly 450 peer-reviewed articles in leading journals. His research covers frailty and sarcopenia, aging and metabolism, age-friendly healthcare, and smart healthcare and artificial intelligence. Prof. Chen is actively engaged in international collaborations for research and healthcare reforms for older people and serves as an editor for several prestigious international academic journals.

Prof. Pazit Levinger is a principal researcher (allied health researcher) at the National Ageing Research Institute, and an Adjunct Professor in the Rehabilitation, Ageing and Independent Living (RAIL) research centre, School of Primary and Allied Health Care, Monash University and at the Institute for Health and Sport, Victoria University, Melbourne Australia. Prof. Levinger’s work is focused on translational and implementation research in the community working closely with Local Governments and senior organisations and groups to improve community health and well-being. She leads several projects that focus on the built environment, age friendly communities and active outdoor space for older people in the community and aged care setting. Her research expertise is in the area of active ageing, outdoor exercise equipment for older people, physical activity and falls prevention for older people. She works closely with government bodies in strategic development and planning around the built environment and public health impact.

Head of the Geriatrics Service of the Getafe University Hospital (Madrid) and Scientific Director of the Spanish Center for Biomedical Research on Frailty and Healthy Aging (CIBERFES) (Ministries of Health and of Economy and Competitiveness).

He coordinates the Toledo Study of Healthy Aging and has led several funded research projects and scientific publications, many of them focused on frailty and functional decline in older people, the mechanisms involved, its operational definition (diagnostics tools) and its management (RCTs), including the use of the technology in the covering of the different requirements of the older frail people or at risk of frailty. He has participated in the preparation of technical reports on these topics for national (Spanish Ministry of Health, Regional Ministry of Health of Madrid, Scientific Societies, Research Organizations and Agencies) and international organizations (WHO, PAHO, DG-SANTE, DG-Research, IAGG, Canadian Frailty Network, Governments of Mexico, Costa Rica and Chile,…).

Prof. Beauchamp is Associate Professor at Monash School of Rural Health, Victoria, Australia, and co-chair of the Underserved Populations portfolio at the newly established Victorian Heart Institute. She currently holds a 5-year Emerging Leader Fellowship from the National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC), aiming to explore the role of health literacy in cardiac outcomes. Alison has a clinical background as a Registered Nurse, working in cardiac secondary prevention for >10years, and completed her PhD in 2011, supported by a NHMRC Scholarship.

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Alison has previously held a Post-Doctoral Fellowship from the Australian Research Council, in which she managed the large Optimising Health Literacy (Ophelia) study, supporting clinicians across nine health services in Victoria to co-design and implement health literacy interventions. In 2018, she was awarded a NHMRC Translational Research into Practice Fellowship to implement evidence-based communication approaches in clinical settings.

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Alison’s research focus is understanding and addressing health literacy barriers to accessing health care, particularly among vulnerable populations. She works with multiple industry partners to co-design strategies to improve access to, and engagement with healthcare services. This includes a recent MRFF grant to identify health literacy-related factors that influence uptake of hospital services among culturally and linguistically diverse and rural populations.

Alison has co-authored over 100 publications, and has a grant income of over $8 million AUD. She currently supervises five PhD students.

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Mikel Izquierdo is full Professor of Sport Sciences in the Department of Health Sciences at the Public University of Navarra. He is Head of the Research Unit of Physical Exercise, Health and Quality of Life (E-FIT) at the Biomedical Research Center NAVARRABIOMED. He also holds an appointment as Professor of Sport Biomechanics at the Centre of Studies of the Spanish Olympic Committee. From 2005-2010, he was Head of the Research, Studies and Sport Medicine Center of the Government of Navarra. During that time, he was involved with several Olympic gold medalists in Rowing, Handball, and Basque ball. He also worked with the Liverpool and Barcelona soccer teams, with whom he won 2 European Championships, the Spanish Cup, and League.

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He is the principal investigator and collaborator on several EU-funded projects focused on frailty and exercise: VIVIFRAIL to promote and recommend lifestyle changes associated with physical exercise for frail patients at risk of functional decline, MID-FRAIL to test the efficacy of a multimodal intervention in prefrail/frail older patients with type 2 diabetes and DIABFRAIL-LATAM a multicenter study to evaluate the efficacy of an exercise and education programme in the functional capacity of older patients with diabetes with the financing of the European Commission to be held in Latin America. He is currently collaborating with WHO on implementing a physical exercise program as a global intervention strategy for frailty and fall prevention. Professor Izquierdo's research interests include investigating the effects of physical exercise across the human lifespan and in various disease states such as diabetes, obesity, and heart failure. In addition, his work focuses on the neuromuscular biomechanics underlying muscle strength and power. He has a particular academic interest in exploring strength training modalities in elite athletic populations as well as older adults. His scholarly work examines the physiological impacts and biomechanical factors related to resistance exercise across these diverse demographics. Prof. Izquierdo has published over 470 original articles in peer-reviewed journals (H-index 103) and supervised over 30 PhD students. His publications are available on PubMed.