Yogesh Shah, MD, MPH, FAAFM

Yogesh Shah, MD, MPH, FAAFP, is a nationally recognized dementia care specialist focused on early detection, prevention, and brain health. He completed a geriatric fellowship at the Mayo Clinic and holds a Master of Public Health from Des Moines University.

Dr. Shah serves as Medical Director of the Broadlawns Memory Clinic and the CMS GUIDE Program and is a board member of the Iowa Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association. A national and international speaker, Dr. Shah focuses on equitable early dementia detection and prevention. He has been invited to serve as Co-Chair of the Alzheimer’s Association Clinical Practice Guidelines on Dementia Risk Reduction.

Rachel Whitmer, PhD

Rachel Whitmer, PhD, is a tenured Professor of Public Health Sciences and Neurology, Chief of the Division of Epidemiology at the University of California Davis (UC Davis) School of Medicine and Co-Director of the UC Davis Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center which has a mission of a lifetime of brain health for all. Dr. Whitmer is Director of the Population Brain Health Lab (https://rachelwhitmer.ucdavis.edu) using life course epidemiological and clinical translational methods to reduce inequities in brain aging; through study of dementia incidence, cognitive aging, and brain pathology in diverse racial/ethnic groups, those with diabetes, and the oldest-old. Her work has been cited over 23,000 times and she is ranked in the top .05% for Dementia Science. Prof. Whitmer is Principal Investigator of several National Institutes of Health funded cohort studies of dementia, cardiovascular health, and cognitive aging, recruiting and following over 5000 research participants, as well as US POINTER, a lifestyle multi-domain behavioral intervention clinical trial. Prior to joining UC Davis, Dr. Whitmer was a Senior Scientist and Director of the Population Cognitive Aging Lab at Kaiser Permanente Division of Research for 18 years where still holds an adjunct appointment. In her work leveraging electronic medical records for prediction models, she created the first 10-year diabetes-specific risk score for dementia, validated the CAIDE dementia risk score, and was among the first to identify midlife obesity/overweight, hyperlipidemia, smoking, and hypertension as long-term risk factors for cognitive impairment and dementia

David Aizuss, MD

David Aizuss, MD, a board-certified ophthalmologist living in Calabasas, California, is Board Chair of the American Medical Association.

Dr. Aizuss runs Ophthalmology Associates of the Valley, a multispecialty ophthalmology group in southern California. He has previously served as chief of surgery at Encino Hospital, as vice chief of staff at Providence Cedars Sinai Tarzana Medical Center, and as chair of the board of the Specialty Surgery Center of Encino.

First elected to the AMA Board of Trustees in June 2020, Dr. Aizuss was active in organized medicine and the AMA early in his career, attending his first AMA Annual Meeting while in medical school at Northwestern University and later serving on the AMA Medical Student Section Governing Council.

Active in a broad range of key leadership positions in his state and specialty societies, Dr. Aizuss has served as president of the California Academy of Eye Physicians and Surgeons, the Los Angeles Society of Ophthalmology, and the Los Angeles County Medical Association. He was elected to the California Medical Association Board of Trustees in 2010, serving as board chair from 2014-2017 and president in 2018.

Dr. Aizuss completed nearly 40 years on the faculty of the UCLA Stein Eye Institute and David Geffen UCLA School of Medicine as assistant clinical professor of ophthalmology in 2023.