Dr. Laura P. Sands

Laura is a professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Science at Virginia Tech and Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine. A distinguished scholar in gerontology, her research focuses on determining risks for later life cognitive and functional decline and improving the quality of care for vulnerable older adults. She has published 161 articles in peer-reviewed journals and was the founding editor-in-chief of Innovation in Aging, an open-access scientific journal of the Gerontological Society of America, published by Oxford University Press. The couple are proud parents and grandparents to four children and three grandchildren.