She co-chairs two new Department of Health and Human Services Healthy People 2020 objectives: 1) Older Adults and 2) Dementias, including Alzheimer’s Disease. Within NIH she co-chairs the Inclusion Governance Committee, that oversees inclusion in clinical research by sex/gender, race/ethnicity, and age – inclusive of pediatric and older adult subjects. She has been recognized for her leadership in geriatrics by receipt in the Clark A Tibbits Award from the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education (2013), and the Donald P Kent Award from the Gerontological Society of America (2014).

Until October 2008 she was the endowed professor and founding chairman of the Donald W. Reynolds Department of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine (the third department of geriatrics in the U.S.), and Associate Chief of Staff for Geriatrics and Extended Care at the Oklahoma City Veterans Affairs Medical Center. She has held numerous national leadership roles, including chair of the Clinical Medicine Section of the Gerontological Society of America, chair of the Department of Veterans Affairs National Research Advisory Committee, board member of the American Geriatrics Society, president of the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education, and president of the Association of Directors of Geriatric Academic Programs. She has lectured and published widely in her area of research, nutrition and function in older populations, as well as related to geriatric education.