CEO Blog

The next convening of the National Advisory Council on Aging (NACA) is taking place with an open portion of the meeting accessible via live videocast from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. ET on Wednesday, September 15. This is a convenient way to get a birds-eye view of what’s been happening, and what’s in store, at the National Institute on Aging (NIA), with which many GSA members have long-standing relationships.

I currently serve as a member of the council, which convenes three times annually. It reviews new proposed concept clearances, reviews applications for grants and cooperative agreements for research and training, and recommends approval of applications for projects that show promise, along with other duties.

As we wrap up the 2021 National Immunization Awareness Month, it’s also back-to-school season. There are many debates taking place right now about vaccine requirements and masking in local school districts and across campuses. And as many GSA members are based in university settings, they may find themselves engaged in dialog with people approaching these issues from many perspectives — not to mention with family and friends as well!

August is National Immunization Awareness Month — led by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — so it’s a good time to turn our personal attention to the incredible arsenal of life-saving vaccines we have at our disposal.

With our collective focus almost exclusively on COVID-19 vaccines right now, let’s not forget that flu season will soon be here as well. Last year, the flu shot was reassuring to many as it was a proactive step we could take to protect our well-being in a time of great uncertainty. Thanks to the power of the vaccine, combined with widespread mask use and physical distancing in place to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, we ended up experiencing the mildest flu season on record.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) — the largest biomedical research agency in the world — has a new chief officer for scientific workforce diversity, and it’s a member of the GSA community: Marie Bernard, MD, FGSA, FAGHE!

This leadership appointment is well-deserved for someone as experienced and credentialled as Dr. Bernard, who for the last 13 years has served as deputy director of the National Institute on Aging (NIA). If you haven’t done so, read our recent interview with her in the July issue of Gerontology News. You’ll learn why she was the ideal candidate for this position, which reports directly to NIH Director Francis Collins, MD, PhD.

The latest journal impact factors are in, and I’m proud to say that GSA’s journals have reached all-time highs. This is a testament to the hard work and scholarship that the GSA community has produced, from authors to reviewers to editors. Peer-reviewed journals are how fields of inquiry have conversations among themselves, and impact factor is a leading metric we look to gauge success.