Upcoming Events for ISL
Spring 2026
ISL Planning Grant Cycle 2026-2027
Submission Opens: January 10, 2026
Deadline: March 27, 2026
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ISL Aging Expert Panel
Title: Staying Sharp and Connected: What Science Says About Aging Well
Date & Time: January 29, 2026, 10:00 AM - 11:15 AM
Location: Tallahassee Senior Center
Panelists: Dr. Kenneth M. Langa (University of Michigan), Dr. Zhe He, Dr. Dawn Carr, Dr. Lucinda Graven
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ISL Distinguished Lecture
Title: Study Healthy Aging Around the World in the HRS International Network of Aging Studies
Speaker: Dr. Kenneth M. Langa, Cyrus Sturgis Professor of Medicine, University of Michigan
Date & Time: January 29, 2026, 3:30 PM - 5:00 PM
Location: Broad Auditorium, Claude Pepper Center
Dr. Langa is an internationally recognized leader in aging research, with a career spanning medicine, public policy, and population health. He is Co-Principal Investigator and Co-Director of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), and Principal Investigator of the Harmonized Cognitive Assessment Protocol (HCAP) Project, both funded by the National Institute on Aging. An elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, AAAS, and ASCI, his work has shaped our understanding of the epidemiology and costs of chronic disease in older adults, particularly Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. He has published more than 375 peer-reviewed articles and continues to lead major studies examining dementia prevalence, cardiovascular and acute illness impacts on cognition, and cross-national dementia outcomes.
ISL Brown Bag Talk
Title: Wearables, Agentic AI, and Living Labs: The Future of Health Innovation
Speaker: Dr. Amir Rahmani, Professor of Nursing and Computer Science, University of California, Irvine
Date & Time: February 5, 2026, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
Location: Zoom
Dr. Amir Rahmani is a Professor of Nursing and Computer Science at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), where he also holds the Samueli Endowed Chair of Integrative Health. He serves as the Co-Director of the UCI Institute for Future Health and leads the multidisciplinary HealthSciTech Group at UCI. His research spans mHealth, data science, wearable and mobile computing, machine learning and AI, affective computing, bio-signal processing, health informatics, and embedded computing. Dr. Rahmani's contributions have been recognized with the UCI Beall Applied Innovation’s inaugural Faculty Innovation Fellowship, the Nokia Foundation's Research Excellence Award, and the European Union’s Global Marie Curie Fellowship.
Abstract: Traditional controlled studies often fall short in capturing the complexity and diversity of real-world healthcare settings. In this talk, we explore how Living Labs—community-embedded, user-centered innovation environments—can bridge this gap by integrating research directly into everyday life. We highlight the role of advanced methodologies like SMART trial design and a suite of digital health platforms including Centralive, ZotCare, and Personicle. These tools enable personalized, data-driven interventions by leveraging mobile and wearable technologies, multimedia inputs, and real-time analytics. Building on this foundation, we introduce openCHA, a new open platform for agentic conversational health agents powered by large language models (LLMs) and multimodal data fusion. Through real-world deployments—such as community-centered maternity care and stress-level monitoring among students—we demonstrate how AI can support dynamic, empathetic, and culturally aware health interventions. This talk outlines a vision for democratizing healthcare innovation through technology that is personalized, accessible, and grounded in real communities.
Public Forum
Title: Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Medicine
Speaker: Dr. Mia Liza A. Lustria, Professor, School of Information, Florida State University
Date & Time: Tuesday, February 10, 2026, 2:00 PM
Location: Maguire Center, Westminster Sciences
Are you ready for an appointment with Dr. AI? Want to know more about how AI is benefitting medicine, including enhanced diagnostics, faster drug development and automated administration? Then please join us on Tuesday, February 10, at 2:00 PM for a presentation by Dr. Mia Liza Lustria, a professor in the School of Information at Florida State University, where she teaches graduate courses in health informatics and research methods and serves as chair of the Ph.D. in Information Program. With more than 25 years of experience conducting interdisciplinary, federally funded research, Dr. Lustria’s work sits at the intersection of health informatics, health communication, and digital health intervention development. Drawing on her research, Dr. Lustria will discuss both the promise and the limitations of artificial intelligence in medicine, including potential benefits for diagnosis and care, as well as concerns related to privacy, trust and access. This presentation is free and open to the public.
ISL Brown Bag Talk
Title: Salty Solutions: Exploring Alternative Dietary Strategies to Mitigate Sodium’s Cardiovascular Impact
Speaker: Dr. Andrea Lobene, Assistant Professor, Department of Health, Nutrition, and Food Sciences
Date & Time: February 25, 2026, 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location: Zoom
Dr. Andrea Lobene is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health, Nutrition, and Food Sciences. Prior to joining FSU in 2024, Dr. Lobene completed her postdoctoral training at the University of Delaware in the area of applied cardiovascular physiology. She received her PhD in Nutrition Science from Purdue University, and she is also a registered dietitian. Dr. Lobene’s research is focused on how various dietary factors, especially sodium and potassium, affect cardiovascular health across the lifespan. Her aim is to develop and implement effective dietary interventions to improve early cardiovascular disease risk factors. She also hopes her work can contribute to improving current dietary guidelines and policies to improve cardiovascular health at the population level.
Abstract: High sodium diets are a key modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Unfortunately, most adults exceeds current sodium intake recommendations. The link between sodium and blood pressure is well-documented, but beyond blood pressure, excess dietary sodium is shown to impair vascular health. Reducing sodium intake to align with current recommendations can mitigate these effects, but unfortunately, reducing sodium intake is challenging and often unsuccessful at the individual level. Exploring alternative dietary strategies to instead offset the deleterious effects of sodium is necessary. This talk will briefly review the evidence linking sodium intake and cardiovascular health, especially highlighting its effect on endothelial function. We will then discuss previous evidence from Dr. Lobene and others that potassium may be an effective dietary countermeasure for excess sodium intake. Dr. Lobene’s ongoing work expands upon this foundational knowledge, using controlled feeding studies to establish proof-of-concept for the interactive effects of sodium and potassium on cardiovascular health, then translating these findings into real-world interventions. The future directions and long-term goals of this work are to develop practical, effective, evidence-based dietary strategies to reduce cardiovascular disease burden.
Esther & Del Grosser Scholarship 2026
Deadline: March 2, 2026
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Student Poster Day
Date & Time: March 23, 2026, 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Location: Innovation Hub
Call for Posters: TBD
More Brown Bag Series
TBD
About ISL Events
The Institute for Successful Longevity (ISL) organizes a variety of events throughout the year to foster collaboration, innovation, and the exchange of ideas. These events bring together thought leaders, researchers, and the community to discuss important topics related to longevity, health, and aging.
