Conference Presenters

Gene D. Cohen, Keynote Speaker
"Why Creativity Matters"

Gay Hanna, Executive Director
National Center for Creative Aging

Susan Perlstein, Founder and Director of
Education and Training
National Center for Creative Aging

Roy Ernst, Professor Emeritus
Eastman School of Music and
Founder of the New Horizons
Band Program

Marsha Gildin
Director of Programs & Training
Elders Share the Arts (ESTA)

Jennifer Haywood, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Music Education
Ithaca College

Sue Perlgut, MA
Founder of the Senior Citizen Theatre Troupe of Lifelong

Harry R. Moody
Director of Academic Affairs for AARP

Gene Cohen, M.D., Ph.D.
Director, The Center on Aging, Health and Humanities
George Washington University, Washington, D.C.
Dr. Cohen is a graduate of Harvard College and the George Washington University School of Medicine, and holds a doctorate in gerontology from the Union Institute. He was the lead investigator in the "Creativity and Aging Study: The Impact of Professionally Conducted Cultural Programs on Older Adults" sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts. In addition, Dr. Cohen is the author of several books including The Brain in Human Aging, The Mature Mind: The Positive Power of the Aging Brain, and The Creative Age: Awakening Human Potential in the Second Half of Life.

Gay Hanna, Ph.D., M.F.A. is the executive director of the National Center for Creative Aging (NCCA), an affiliate of George Washington University, NCCA is an interdisciplinary nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering an understanding of the vital relationship between creative expression and the quality of life for older people regardless of their ethnicity, economic status, or level of physical or cognitive function. Gay has 30 years of management experience in the arts, education, and health related program services.

Susan Perlstein, M.S.W., is the founder and director of education and training for the National Cener for Creative Aging. She is an educator, social worker, administrator, and artist, and has written extensively on creativity and late-life learning. Her professional journal articles appear in Arts in the Public Interest and Gerontology and in the American Society on Aging's Aging Today, The Older LEARNer and Dimensions. She has written or co-authored Alert and Alive, Generating Community: Intergenerational Programs through the Expressive Arts and Legacy Works: Transforming Memory into Visual Art. 

Roy Ernst, Ph.D., professor emeritus at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, is the founder of the New Horizons Band program. Started in 1991 there are currently more than 100 New Horizons Bands in the U.S., and Canada. Dr. Ernst’s vision is to provide entry points to music-making for adults, including those with no musical experience at all and those who were active in school music programs but have been inactive for a long period. Sometimes referring to himself as the Johnny Appleseed of senior bands, Roy Ernst has made it his goal to bring seniors to music offering a window of musical opportunity so often thought to exist only for children.

Marsha Gildin has taught young and old in school and community settings since 1974. Her passion for connecting generations through the art of storytelling led her to become a leading teaching artist with Elders Share the Arts (ESTA) where she now serves as Director of Programs & Training. In addition Marsha manages the Pearls of Wisdom, ESTA’s touring ensemble of elder storytellers and is a trainer with the Timeslips Creative Storytelling Project designed for people with dementia and those who work with them. Ms. Gildin holds a Masters of Science in Education and has taught courses on multiple intelligence learning and arts infused curriculum design in the Graduate School of Education at CUNY Queens College.

Jennifer Haywood, Ph.D, shares perspectives of her work with choral ensembles of all ages and experiences. Active as a guest conductor at All-state, regional and county levels, she has also presented as a choral clinician at state, division, and international presentations, and has published with the Exeter Music Education Research Journal, among others. Dr. Haywood serves as Associate Professor of Music Education at Ithaca College where she mentors undergraduate and graduate conducting and music education courses, and where she conducts the Ithaca College Graduate Concert Choir, the Ithaca College Campus Choral Ensemble, and the Ithaca College/Longview Intergenerational Choir. She has been honored as an Affiliate of the Ithaca College Gerontology Institute with whom she has taught the courses "Creative Arts Methods with Older Adults" and "Fostering Lifelong Learning."

Sue Perlgut, MA
For more than thirty years Sue Perlgut has worked as a director, performer, playwright, storyteller, puppet maker, teacher, arts administrator and producer of theatre in colleges, public schools, community centers and alternative performing spaces in New York City and Ithaca NY. She was one of the founding members of It’s All Right To Be Woman Theatre in NYC (1970-76). She is the founder of the Senior Citizen Theatre Troupe of Lifelong in Ithaca NY, where she is the director/writer and at times performer with this ensemble. In 2007 she formed CloseToHome Productions to reach a wide-ranging audience with videos that feature topical and socially relevant issues. Her first documentary 101 Ways To Retire—or Not! won a Mature Media Award.

Harry R. Moody, Ph.D., is Director of Academic Affairs for AARP. Before coming to AARP, he served as Executive Director of the Brookdale Center on Aging at Hunter College and Chairman of the Board of Elderhostel. He is the author of many articles and several books on the humanities and aging, including Aging: Concepts and Controversies (now in its 6th edition); Ethics in an Aging Society; and The Five Stages of the Soul: Charting the Spiritual Passages That Shape Our Lives, translated into seven languages worldwide. Dr. Moody edits a monthly e-newsletter, “Human Values in Aging,” which explores the role of growth and creativity in later life.

Martha Strodel has over 35 years experience in not-for-profit arts administration, working as an executive director, program director, funding reviewer, consultant to other nonprofit staffs and boards, and researcher/writer on resources and issues related to building strong community arts organizations. Since 1993, she has been director of the NYS ARTS Rural Arts Program, which directly serves cultural organizations based in rural counties of New York State with technical assistance, information, services, and networking.