Alliance for Aging Research's video: Perennial Hero Award: Geri and Jim Taylor

The Perennial Hero Award is presented each year to honor an older individual who is actively contributing to create positive societal change and serves as a role model for people of all ages. This year's honorees are Geri and Jim Taylor. The Alliance for Aging Research’s annual Heroes in Health celebration took place virtually on Tuesday, September 15, 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this was the first year that the event was held online. This year’s theme was Heroes in Health: An Event to Celebrate Community, Strength and Healthy Aging. The celebration honored individuals for their contributions to advance the experience of aging and recognized those whose outstanding efforts have helped older Americans and those with underlying conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Learn more about The Alliance's Heroes in Health event here: https://www.agingresearch.org/event/2020dinner/ Geri Taylor has an MPH from Columbia University with a concentration in bio-statistic and an RN. During her forty-five year career, she was a successful health care executive in New York City, serving in senior executive positions at Beth Abraham Hospital and the Jewish Guild for the Blind. Geri’s legacy includes building a Medicare/Medicaid program to provide nursing-home eligible seniors with medical services in their homes. This program is now serving approximately eighty thousand people in New York City. Jim has a math degree from DePauw University and an MBA at the University of Chicago. During his 30 years in IBM finance, he also served four years as president of the White Plains NY Board of Education. Geri was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2012, and since that time the couple have spoken to over ten thousand people around the country and Europe in order to educate others about the disease, reduce the stigma, and encourage participation in Alzheimer’s clinical trials. The New York Times published an acclaimed twelve page article Fraying at the Edges, as a special section of the paper on May 1, 2016 about Geri’s journey with Alzheimer’s. In July 2017, Geri spoke to the Board of Directors of the Alzheimer’s Association in London at the AAIC conference. In December, 2017, the couple spoke at the OECD International Alzheimer’s Conference in Switzerland. In addition to their speaking engagements, Geri and Jim are actively engaged in several national Alzheimer’s projects, serving on executive steering committees; and FDA panels to review Alzheimer’s drugs and devices. They recently spoke to the US Biogen organization in Orlando and have been invited to speak to the Biogen Board of Directors meeting in Boston. Geri was in Biogen’s drug trial of aducanumab for four years and is now restarting the medication. Their most recent project is co-founding MAP (Memory Advocates Program) a peer-to-peer support organization to assist newly diagnosed individuals who have cognitive issues and their care partners. Trained volunteers will bring emotional support, information regarding online resources about the disease, information about local support services, and assist clients in finding a clinical trial, if the clients are interested. A New York City pilot, partnering with NYC’s CaringKind and NYU medical school neurologists, will hopefully begin next year.