Advancing Research and Innovation for Aging and Disability (ARIAD)

A CU Denver Research and
Creative Work Grand Challenge

The Goal

The ARIAD team aims to cultivate a powerful collaborative network of academic experts, community stakeholders, and local, national, and international industry advisors and partners to address the grand challenge of aging and aging into disability facing our world today. Funding and research support is provided by CU Denver in order to lay the foundation for building CU Denver’s reputation as a leader in research and creative work.

Project Information

ARIAD’s consortium of experts will converge to explore, develop, and deploy safe, productive, and efficient technologies to support the needs of those living with, or aging into, disability.

Leveraging and evolving CU Denver and Anschutz’s nationally recognized foundational programs is a key component of ARIAD’s plan. CIDE with its knowledge of assistive technology and human factors and design provides a vital strategic partnership. When partnered with the rest of the ARIAD group, the project team is equipped with expertise ranging from engineering to medicine to humanities and adult education. Collectively, ARIAD will forge new paths and propel creation of new knowledge to change lives by improving overall wellbeing and independence for those aging into or living with disability.

The outcome will not only make CU Denver a global destination for disability and aging technology innovation but will also make significant strides toward addressing the Grand Challenge facing our world today - how do we redesign our world when, for the first time in human history, our planet has more people over 65 than under the age of five?

Contact us to learn more or to join the effort!

Email Dr. Cathy Bodine: cathy.bodine@cuanschutz.edu
Email Dr. Caroline Clevenger: caroline.clevenger@ucdenver.edu

The Challenge

Public speaker in wheelchair in group with other adult lecturers.

One Billion

People live with disabilities worldwide.

Society is Aging

By 2030, one out of every five Americans will be at or above retirement age

Demand Fuels Innovation

One in two older adults will experience disability as they age.

Team Members

Julia Mahfouz PhD

Assistant Professor School of Education and Human Development.

School of Education & Human Development

Email Address:julia.mahfouz@ucdenver.edu

Bio

Dr. Mahfouz is an Assistant Professor for CU Denver’s School of Education and Human Development. The core of her work focuses on the development of social and emotional competencies of both adults and young people through professional development, preparation programs, and interventions. She has implemented mindfulness-based and social emotional learning (SEL)-based professional development to understand how such programs can improve the wellbeing of principals, teachers, and students. She also investigates how preparation programs and certification standards can be strengthened to enhance effective leadership by supporting principals to deepen their social and emotional competencies. She conducts basic research to better understand these relationships and evaluative, efficacy, effectiveness, and dissemination research to determine whether such programs are effective and sustainable in educational settings. These understandings seek to deepen the understanding of SEL and help create equitable spaces where all could flourish, thus, utilizing policy as a lever for change and as powerful context to shape education at multiple levels of the system.

Center for Inclusive Design and Engineering (CIDE)

CU Denver

The Hub, Bioengineering

1224 5th Street

Suite 130

Denver, CO 80204

303-315-1280

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