Honoring a Renaissance Woman: Revisiting Our Conversation with Dr. Elders
Release Date: 11/26/2025
Data-Driven Change in Seniors Housing with Lisa McCracken
Elevate Eldercare
In this week’s episode, AgingIN CEO Susan Ryan sits down with industry leader Lisa McCracken to explore how data, innovation, and bold thinking are reshaping the future of eldercare. With more than 26 years of experience spanning Holleran, Ziegler, and now the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care, Lisa shares how research and analytics can drive access, affordability, and meaningful choice for older adults. From the growing urgency of serving the “forgotten middle” to the promise (and noise) of AI, this conversation offers a candid,...
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Rethinking Affordable Housing for Older Adults with Amy Schectman
Elevate Eldercare
In this week’s episode AgingIN CEO Susan Ryan sits down with Amy Schectman, CEO of 2Life Communities, to explore how affordable housing, community connection, and supportive services can transform the experience of aging. She shares insights into how innovative housing models are helping older adults thrive while remaining connected to their communities....
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Building Communities Where Aging Thrives with Christie Hinrichs
Elevate Eldercare
In this week’s episode, AgingIN CEO Susan Ryan sits down with Christie Hinrichs, president and CEO of Frasier, a life plan community in Boulder, Colo., who shares her journey from growing up on a farm in rural Nebraska to pioneering the Green House model at Tabitha, a senior living community in Omaha, Neb. Throughout their conversation, Christie reflects on the experiences that shaped her commitment to older adults—from childhood visits with “adopted grandparents” to her early work in hospice social work. Now leading Frasier, Christie describes a thriving community that offers a range...
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Healing Workplace Culture Through Nature-Inspired Leadership with MaryCay Durrant
Elevate Eldercare
In this week’s episode, AgingIN CEO Susan Ryan sits down with MaryCay Durrant, founder of Leading Naturally. In this enlightening discussion, MaryCay shares her journey from corporate leadership to developing nature-inspired practices that help organizations thrive. Drawing from her upbringing in North Dakota and a transformative personal awakening, MarCay challenges transactional workplace models and instead looks to ecosystems as a guide for cooperation, resilience, and trust. She introduces her WORK framework — Wake Up, Orient, Reimagine partnering, and Keepnourishing what matters —...
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A Bit About Dementia: Introducing “Brain Bytes”
Elevate Eldercare
Introducing Brain Bytes, a new micro-cast hosted by Kelly Tremblay, PhD, neuroscientist, World Health Organization advisor, NIH grant reviewer, advocate, and professor. Brain Bytes features “byte”-sized nuggets of knowledge aimed at making neuroscience accessible for the senior living world. In each episode, which will air on the fourth Friday of each month, Dr. Tremblay will share research-backed information related to aging and brain health. This week, she explores the different types of dementia and examines what evidence-based researchtells us about it. While encouraging...
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The Power of Making Brain Science Accessible with Dr. Kelly Tremblay
Elevate Eldercare
This week on the podcast, AgingIN CEO, Susan Ryan, welcomes Kelly Tremblay, PhD, a neuroscientist, World Health Organization advisor, NIH grant reviewer, advocate, and professor. As a first-generation college student, Kelly’s path was shaped by lived experience. Growing up with a father who had multiple sclerosis, she became an early advocate for accessibility and healthcare equity. At the University of Washington, Kelly led research focused on the aging brain and collaborated with the National Institutes of Health and the World Health Organization to help translate...
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Aligning Leadership, Mission, and Innovation with Mary Naber
Elevate Eldercare
In this episode, AgingIN CEO, Susan Ryan, sits down with Mary Naber, president and CEO of PACE Southeast Michigan, to explore her remarkable leadership journey and the transformative potential of the PACE (Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly) model of care. Mary shares how her career evolved from respiratory therapy into executive leadership. With degrees in psychology, business, and an MBA from the University of Michigan, Mary blends clinical insight, business acumen, and people-centered leadership. Susan and Mary discuss how Mary’s transition to PACE was deeply...
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A Daughter’s Fight to Change Long-Term Care with Susie Singer Carter
Elevate Eldercare
This week on the podcast, AgingIN CEO Susan Ryan is joined by Susie Singer Carter, a filmmaker, advocate, and caregiver, who shares her deeply personal journey into caregiving—and how it transformed her life, her work, and her mission. Inspired by her mother’s 16-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease, Susie recounts moving from “caregiver by surprise” to outspoken advocate for systemic reform in long-term care. Her mother, Norma Pecora, a former opera singer and art dealer, wasdiagnosed at age 72. Norma lived with Susie for a year following the death of her husband—an experience...
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Why Senior Living Leaders Can’t Afford to Ignore Technology with Kim Brawley & Stu Hamilton
Elevate Eldercare
What if better care actually costs less? And what if technology is the bridge to get us there? In this episode, AgingIN CEO Susan Ryan is joined in this week’s episodeby Kim Brawley, regional vice president of AgeWell Solvere Living, and Stu Hamilton,CEO and founder of Amba Health and Care, for a timely conversation about how technology—when implemented thoughtfully—can transform senior living. Against the backdrop of demographic shifts, aging infrastructure, workforce challenges, and rising healthcare costs, the discussion explores how passive sensor...
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Bioharmony and the Future of Wellness-Centered Living
Elevate Eldercare
In this episode, AgingIN CEO Susan Ryan sits down with Gautam Gulati, MD, physician, entrepreneur, producer, and “health artist.” Also known as “Dr. G,” hisbackground makes for a wide-ranging discussion that bridges medicine, storytelling, real estate, and wellness design. He shares his unconventional journey from medical doctor to real estate professional and certified interior designer—and how that path led him to reimagine the home as a powerful driver of health. At the center of the conversation is Dr. G’s framework for optimizing well-being through what he calls...
info_outlineThis week on Elevate Eldercare is an encore episode with former U.S. Surgeon General and current AgingIN Board Member, Joycelyn Elders, MD. In honor of the Thanksgiving holiday, we thought this very special discussion, in which AgingIN’s Susan Ryan and the late Alex Spanko (who served as director of communications from 2021 to 2024) engage Dr. Elders in a discussion about her trailblazing life and career.
An added motivation for the replay of this episode is that the New York Academy of Medicine recently presented Dr. Elders with the Alma Dea Morani Renaissance Woman Award.
With humor and refreshing honesty, Dr. Elders shares her perspectives on racism, sexism, and all the other “isms” that continue to shape the way health care is provided in the United States. As an elder herself, she also provides insights into what she might want out of the U.S. eldercare landscape and how supports and services might fit into her still-busy life as a widely sought-after and admired public health expert.
Dr. Elders is renowned for breaking barriers and sparking essential conversations throughout her remarkable career. Appointed in 1993 as the 15th Surgeon General of the United States, the first African American and only the second woman to hold that office, Dr. Elders brought unprecedented visibility to issues ranging from adolescent health and reproductive rights to substance use prevention and health education. TIME magazine named her “1994 Woman of the Year” and “One of the 100 Most Influential Women of the 20th Century.”