AFAR is pleased to announce three new members of its Board of Directors: Alex Colville, PhD, Sara Espinoza, MD, MSc, and Catherine Kaczorowski, PhD. Each brings a unique set of expertise and experience that will help further facilitate and expand AFAR’s continued mission.

Alex Colville

Alex Colville, PhD, is General Partner and cofounder alongside Laura Deming of age1, the first longevity-focused venture capital fund supporting breakthrough longevity biotech companies. He is an advisor to and was previously Chief of Staff of the Amaranth Foundation where he built out the longevity focus of the family office. He completed his PhD in Genetics at Stanford University in the lab of AFAR President Thomas A. Rando, MD, PhD, studying the biology of aging after having worked in management consulting. He also is an advisor to the TIME Initiative, which AFAR helped launch to activate undergraduate students' interest in aging biology and innovative career paths in aging. A passionate investor, philanthropist, and family office advisor, he is dedicated to driving innovation in biotech to achieve increased healthy lifespan.

Sara Espinoza

Sara Espinoza, MD, MSc, a dual board-certified internist and geriatrician, directs the Center for Translational Geroscience and co-directs the Diabetes and Aging Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Her research focuses on understanding and improving the geriatric syndrome of frailty and geroscience-guided interventions to improve healthspan in older adults. Previously, she directed the Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Center (GRECC) at the South Texas Veterans Health Care System and was Professor with Tenure at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, where she co-directed the San Antonio Claude D. Pepper Center. The physician-scientist provides care for adults in outpatient and inpatient settings. She shares her passion and knowledge by precepting medical students, residents, and fellows in both clinical and research settings. Dr. Espinoza also serves as the Co-Chair of the Leadership Core of the Clin-STAR (Clinician-Scientists Transdisciplinary Aging Research) initiative and Member of the Advisory Committee of the Paul B. Beeson Emerging Leaders Career Development Awards in Aging Program of the NIA, which AFAR helps lead.

Catherine Kaczorowski

Catherine Kaczorowski, PhD,is the Elinor Levine Endowed Chair for Dementia Research and Professor of Neurology at the University of Michigan. A neurophysiologist, she is an expert in the systems genetics of ‘normal’ nonpathological Aging and pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s disease (AD). She has been a driving force in uncovering and describing the phenomenon of cognitive resilience in the context of ‘normal’ nonpathological aging, AD and more recently Huntington’s. She is a recognized authority in the development and application of genetically diverse mouse models for studies on aging and age-related neurodegenerative disorders, having pioneered the generation of the first translationally relevant polygenic model of human AD (AD-BXDs) published in Neuron. Among her honors and grants, Dr. Kaczorowski received AFAR’s New Investigator Award in Alzheimer's Disease in 2014. She is an inventor on 3 patents, with one licensed to Acadia Pharmaceuticals. She is a Butler-Williams Scholar of the NIA and recipient of The Glenn Foundation for Medical Research award. She co-chairs the newly established Data Management Coordinating Center for the Exceptional Longevity Projects and serves on the External Advisory Board for the NIA Reserve and Resilience Non-Human Studies Workgroup, the Functional Genomics Consortium, and the Resilience/Resistance to Alzheimer’s Disease in Centenarians and Offspring (RADCO). She served on the NIA Intervention Testing Program Access Panel until starting as the University of Michigan Deputy Director in March of 2023.

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