Director and Staff

Edward F. Ansello, Ph.D., Director

Dr. Ansello is Director of the Virginia Center on Aging, and is Professor in the Department of Gerontology at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. His work in the field of aging spans more than 30 years, with focuses that include elder caregiving, aging with lifelong disabilities, pre-retirement planning, geropharmacy, coalition building, and the humanities, media and aging. The author of a dozen books, monographs, special issues, and book chapters, and over three dozen published articles, he has made over 600 presentations before professional and civic groups nationally and internationally. A recent book is Community Supports for Aging Adults with Lifelong Disabilities, co-edited with Dr. Matthew Janicki, published by Brookes in July 2000.

Dr. Ansello is a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America and of the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education. He was named Distinguished Academic Gerontologist by the Southern Gerontological Society in 1990 and received the Distinguished Teaching Award from the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education in 2001. He is Past President of both of these professional organizations. He currently serves on the boards of several organizations dedicated to improving later life.

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Constance L. Coogle, Ph.D., Associate Director of Research

As the Associate Director for Research, Dr. Coogle administers the Alzheimer's and Related Diseases Research Award Fund (ARDRAF), and leads many of the research projects conducted by the VCoA. An accomplished experimental psychologist, Dr. Coogle has conducted aging research and training since joining the Center in 1989. Her extensive grant-funded experience encompasses work as Evaluation Director, Co-Investigator, or Principal Investigator on more than ten competitively-supported projects in a variety of content areas, including mental health, geropharmacy, eldercare, and second careers for older workers. Her areas of interest include family caregiving, Alzheimer's Disease, geriatric alcoholism, rural and minority aging, and lifelong disabilities. In addition to her publications in peer-referred journals, she has issued 35 technical reports or manuals and almost 50 presentations at professional meetings.

Dr. Coogle also holds the rank of Associate Professor in the Departments of Gerontology and Psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University. A long-standing member of the Virginia Association on Aging and the Gerontological Society of America, her service to the Southern Gerontological Society has been as Program Chair and Board Secretary. Currently, she is a member of the Board of Directors and Chair for the Interest Group Committee.

Since 1997, she has been the Associate Director of Evaluation for the Virginia Geriatric Education Center and is a current member of the Govenor's Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders Commission.

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Catherine D. Dodson, M.S., Elderhostel Site Coordinator, Richmond

Ms. Dodson is the site coordinator of the Richmond Elderhostel program sponsored by the Virginia Center on Aging at Virginia Commonwealth University. As the site coordinator, Ms. Dodson schedules classes, recruits faculty, develops course topics, and plans the Elderhostel catalog copy. Ms. Dodson began working at the Virginia Center on Aging in the summer of 1989. She received her Bachelors degree in Psychology and her Masters degree in Gerontology from VCU. Before becoming involved with the Center, Ms. Dodson was the Activities Director of a local nursing home. She is a member of the Virginia Osteoporosis Coalition and a member of the Southern Gerontological Society. Her interests in the field of aging include caregiver issues, adult learning theories, and practices and leisure activities of mature adults.

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Lisa G. Furr, M.A., Project Coordinator

Lisa Furr is Project Coordinator for the Central Virginia Task Force on Older Battered Women, a collaboration of organizations, led by VCoA, working since 1998 to raise awareness and improve the community’s response to women aged 50 and older who experience domestic, sexual or family violence. Lisa serves on the governing body (board) of the Virginia Sexual and Domestic Violence Action Alliance and is a trainer for the Alliance, as well. She was previously the Community Educator and Volunteer Coordinator at Safe Harbor, a domestic violence program in Henrico. She brings to VCoA over 15 years of experience in group dynamics, training, diversity, and human resource management. Lisa holds a Master degree from the Presbyterian School of Christian Education.

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James R. Gray

Jim Gray completed his MS in Geochemistry at the University of South Florida (USF). His research studies included tidal patterns in Florida and carbonic mudbank stability. Jim taught marine sciences at USF until he discovered the Appalachian Mountains. He and his wife moved to Virginia, where he teaches chemistry, geology, biology and physical sciences at James Madison University.

Jim Gray has been the Program Director for VCU's Natural Bridge Elderhostel location since its inception in the late 1980s. Besides planning and coordinating these programs, Jim is also a popular Elderhostel instructor who covers topics from plate tectonics and cosmology to Appalachian flora/fauna and the expedition of Lewis and Clark. Jim says the hundreds of Elderhostelers who annually come to his programs are "…the best of students - curious, thoughtful, interested, interesting, and they expand my horizons in unexpected directions." Elderhostelers, in turn, say that "Jim's knowledge, enthusiasm and inspired teaching…stimulate the imagination" and that "he could teach anything!"

Paula Knapp Kupstas, Ph.D., Project Director

Dr. Kupstas has served on the staff of the Virginia Center on Aging at Virginia Commonwealth University since 1996. She obtained her PhD in health economics from the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University; an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh; and a BS from Virginia Tech.

Dr. Kupstas is a founding member of the Central Virginia Task Force on Domestic Violence in Later Life (formerly the Central VA Task Force on Older Battered Women), a regional collaboration of service providers, criminal justice and other allied professionals working since 1998 to raise awareness and improve the community response to older victims of domestic, family and sexual violence. She directs three grant-funded training projects on elder abuse and domestic and sexual violence in later life. She also serves on the Board of the Virginia Coalition for the Aging.

In her doctoral research she targeted the time allocation decisions of family caregivers of persons with severe mental illnesses. Her research interests include elder abuse, domestic and sexual violence in later life, the economic impact of elder caregiving on the family, and the cost-effectiveness of family caregiver training. Dr. Kupstas also teaches a graduate-level health care finance course in the VCU Department of Health Administration.

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Tara Livengood B.S. Office Administrator

Tara Livengood joined the staff of the Virginia Center on Aging in March 2004. A native Texan from Austin, she says that everything is "big" in Texas. She thinks that half of the Chevy and Ford pick-up trucks in the United States are in Texas, that cows and horses occupy about half of the land in Texas, and that the other half is used for farming hay for the horses. While she admires Virginia's rural areas, she thinks that Texas Country will always hold her heart. She has enjoyed living in Richmond for over four years, but travels regularly to visit her friends and family. Tara earned a Bachelor of Science in Psychology with a double major in Criminal Justice in 2005. She began a Master's Program in Forensic Psychology at Argosy University in Arlington, Virginia in the Summer of 2005. Tara hopes to work in criminal justice and to help improve the criminal justice system. Tara has already expanded the scope of her responsibilities at VCoA, adding research assistance and administrative duties to her primary work in Elderhostel. She has expressed interest in VCoA's initiatives in aging with lifelong disabilities. In her free time, Tara enjoys the outdoors, especially visiting the gardens and animals at Maymont, as well as other parks in and around Richmond, since "Virginia has so many wonderful parks." Tara, an avid reader, makes great use of her VCU and Henrico County library cards. She also enjoys traveling, favoring the Virginia coast, but has also visited New York City, Montreal, South America and, of course, Texas and the southwest.

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Jane F. Stephan, Ed.D., Assistant Director of Education

Jane Stephan is Director of Virginia Commonwealth University's Elderhostel Program and Assistant Director of Education for the Virginia Center on Aging. Dr. Stephan is responsible for VCU's Elderhostel sites at Richmond, Natural Bridge, Hampton Roads and Petersburg, for VCU's sponsorship activities at the Lifelong Learning Institute in Chesterfield, and for administering VCoA's lifelong learning programs for older adults. She has been an enthusiastic supporter of Elderhostel since 1987 - first as coordinator for Elderhostel programs at Ball State University in Indiana, where she also completed her doctorate in gerontology and adult and community education, and then as department administrator for Elderhostel and Senior Programming at Northern Kentucky University. Dr. Stephan also taught Gerontology, Adult Development and Psychology courses at the College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati. She moved to Richmond, Virginia, early in 1999 to assume her current position at VCU.

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Bert Waters, M.S., Program Manager

Leland "Bert" Waters joined the staff of the Virginia Center on Aging (VCoA) in August, 2000. Mr. Waters serves as program manager for various activities, including the Geriatric Training and Education (GTE) and the Geriatric Academic Career Advancement (GACA) programs. He also serves as Principal Fiscal Officer, Personnel Administrator, and manages the Information Resource Center for the VCoA.

Mr. Waters' received a M.S. in Gerontology from VCU in 2002. He is currently enrolled in the Ph.D. program in Health Related Sciences at VCU's School of Allied Health with a specialization in Gerontology. He received a B.S. in economics from VCU in 1987. He has served as Student Representative on the Executive Committee of the Association of Gerontology in Higher Education, ESPO Technology Chair, President of the VCU Graduate Student Association, and is currently the treasurer for VCU's Department of Gerontology Sigma Phi Omega chapter.

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