Kevin Foley, MD, FACP, AGSF is a professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the College of Osteopathic Medicine at Michigan State University.
He received his medical degree from the Medical College of Virginia and completed his residency in internal medicine and fellowship in geriatric medicine at the University of Michigan. Following his fellowship, he practiced at Henry Ford Health Systems in Detroit and the Cleveland Clinic Foundation.
Foley offers a depth of expertise in geriatric medicine and has helped with several projects including the Dell fellowship project last year. At the Trinity Health West Michigan Hauenstein Neuroscience Center in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Foley helped open the Alzheimer’s Disease and Memory Disorders Program and has served as medical director since 2003.
“Nobody else was doing it,” he said via Trinity Health. “It was a huge need.”
Foley has done extensive research on the geriatrician workforce, which faces many of the same issues as the direct-care workforce, including an aging population and projected supply and demand. He is an excellent resource for clinical education, understanding best practices and caring for older adults.
Lisa Richey
Lisa Richey is the assistant director at MSU AgeAlive, a position she has held since August 2023. Prior to working at AgeAlive, Richey was a program manager at Prime Time, the senior program at the City of East Lansing, for almost nine years. She ended her time there as the interim director. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from the University of Michigan.
Originally starting her professional life in copywriting, Richey soon began working at nonprofits to help people in a more direct way. She sat on the Age-Friendly Communities Steering Committee while the City of East Lansing received its age-friendly designation as part of the AARP Network of Age-Friendly States and Communities, an independent partner of the World Health Organization Global Network for Age-Friendly Cities and Communities.
While working at the City of East Lansing, Richey developed a better sense of how ageism impacts older adults. She mentioned she loves to see how popular AgeAlives strategies to encourage younger adults to connect with older adults has been.
“You get the pleasure of knowing you’re impacting people in a positive way,” Richey said of working in her role at AgeAlive. “Intergenerational relationships are one of the best ways to combat ageism. They allow people, younger and older, to connect in a way that they are truly seen.”
Richey has spent her life connecting people to needed resources, building community and studying optimal communication strategies. Her experiences have led her to drive storytelling at AgeAlive through the arts and humanities as a powerful force for change. She oversees programs and events for AgeAlive that are in line with the organization’s vision to contribute to a world in which there is respect, wellbeing and quality of life for all people of all ages and abilities.