Our Team

Clare Luz, PhD
​Director

Dr. Luz, PhD, Associate Professor, Family and Community Medicine, MSU College of Osteopathic Medicine, and founding director of both MSU AgeAlive and IMPART Alliance, is a gerontologist whose research focuses on quality of life for vulnerable older adults, long-term care health services, particularly the eldercare workforce shortage, and the intersection of aging, health, and the arts. AgeAlive is dedicated to elevating aging-related research, teaching, and outreach, in partnership with community, to promote wellbeing for all people of all ages and abilities. IMPART Alliance is an organization dedicated to helping MI build an infrastructure that expands and supports direct care workers (DCW). She Co-chairs both the statewide MDHHS DCW Advisory committee and the statewide MI DCW Coalition comprised of employers, DCWs, clients and other stakeholders who are jointly generating innovative, feasible, affordable strategies to tackle the critical DCW shortage. Dr. Luz has served on the Michigan Long-Term Supports and Services Advisory Commission, the Michigan Society of Gerontology board, and the National Quality Forum’s Home and Community-Based Care Committee.
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Shannon Harkins-Padgitt, MLIR
Projects & Operations Coordinator

Shannon Harkins-Padgitt, MLIR, MSU College of Osteopathic Medicine, Department of Family and Community Medicine is the Projects and Operations Coordinator for AgeAlive and IMPART Alliance. Shannon has worked in outreach and continuing education for more than 25 years and specifically in the aging field for 20 years, most recently for the Area Agencies on Aging Association and the Michigan Society of Gerontology.  Her deep appreciation for direct care workers stems in part from the many compassionate caregivers who assisted her father while he was living with dementia.  Ms. Harkins-Padgitt is responsible for operations, project coordination, supporting research activities, reporting and supervising volunteers.  ​

Heather Picotte,
Communications Architect

Heather Picotte, IMPART Alliance Communications Architect, has worked in nonprofit and healthcare communications for more than 20 years. Throughout her career, she has worked with a number of organizations focused on person-centered care. As a family caregiver from a young age and the daughter of a Direct Care Worker, Ms. Picotte is committed to informing and empowering DCWs and the elders they serve. Ms. Picotte is responsible for organizational communications, social media, and graphic design for the organization. ​
picotte@msu.edu

Catherine Hein
​AgeAlive Intern

As Intern, Catherine Hein provides important insight to the organization on accessibility issues and programming. Catherine shares in her own words the importance of working with AgeAlive.
This work is especially important to me professionally and personally. I was born with cerebral palsy and in my case, it affects all four of my limbs. This means that have always and will always need help with activities of daily living.
  From the time that I was young, I knew I wanted to help other people like me. When I was eighteen, I was able to qualify for assistance for a paid direct care worker. I thought that this would finally enable me to have the same experiences as my able-bodied peers.
​  Most agencies and companies say my needs are far too complex before they even meet me. People have this misconception that being a direct care worker means you are just going to go to a client’s house to play cards and chat. I have had people coming into my home from agencies and they offer to play cards with me. I have also had people come to my home and not know how physical the work is to care for me, and they decline to do work with me – sometimes because of their own health issues. Typically, they say something like I did not know you were in a wheelchair, or they say that they thought I needed to get out of the house. I have always believed that every person deserves quality care regardless of the level of the person’s needs, diagnosis, or disability.
   So many people are struggling to find and maintain care for themselves and their loved ones.  For those of us who need care for everything - care is as essential to us as breathing.  All that I have wanted as a person with a disability is to have the same opportunities as everyone else. Without care - people who need care due to aging, medical conditions, chronic illnesses and/or disabilities - cannot live a normal life with all the joy happiness, love, heartache anger sadness and freedom most people take for granted.
​  The need for care is never going to go away so I will spend as much of my life as I can trying to level the playing field and renovate broken systems so that people who need care can I have the same opportunities people that do not and can be just as productive in society as able-bodied individuals.