The Center has four main objectives: 

1. To lead the field in dementia and aging services research through pioneering the development and dissemination of practical interventions;
2. To work collaboratively with interdisciplinary networks that involve diverse stakeholders and settings to advance high priority research initiatives and amplify research impacts; 
3. To transform health care policy, care practices, and public health through innovation and collaboration; and,
4. To engage and train a new cohort of scientists who are fully prepared to conduct services research and continue care transformation into the future.

The MASI Center provides multidisciplinary services research expertise focused on memory and aging issues, access to clinical trial and observational study data for secondary data analyses, mentorship opportunities, collaboration with research centers at JHU, and access to established network of aging and ADRD partners.

• Consultation from multidisciplinary aging services researchers. Supported by eight principal faculty members with research and clinical expertise spanning geriatric psychiatry, gerontology, health services research, geriatric psychiatry geriatrics, nursing, and public health.
• Access to existing datasets. Research-ready data from a range of projects available for primary and secondary analyses.
• Individually-tailored mentorship. Opportunities for training for pre-doctoral students, post-docs, and faculty, at JHU and beyond, covering a broad range of behavioral intervention foci and settings and individualized support and mentorship matching.
• Collaboration across JHU aging research and services network. Collaboration with six research centers across Schools in the JHU, a specialty outpatient memory clinic, and JH Technology Ventures to promote cross-disciplinary collaboration.
• Access to aging services partners. Access to an established network of health care and aging services providers, community-based organizations, and ADRD oriented partners for the promotion of intervention/service co-design, trial recruitment, and project implementation.

Internal Collaborators

• Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center
• Johns Hopkins Resource of Centers for Minority Aging Research
• The Center for Transformative Geriatric Research
• Center for Innovative Care in Aging
• Center on Aging and Health
• Roger C. Lipitz Center for Integrated Health Care
• Johns Hopkins Home Care Group
• Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
• Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
• Johns Hopkins School of Nursing
• Hopkins Technology Ventures
• Hopkins School of Business and School of Engineering

External Collaborators

• Alzheimer’s Association (National)
• Alzheimer’s Association (Great Baltimore/Maryland)
• Alzheimer’s Association (Washington)
• AARP
• UMBC Hilltop Institute
• Sibley Memorial Hospital
• BrightFocus Foundation

• MIND at Home
• MEMORI Corps
• Other projects
• Sibley Club Memory Evaluation
• Video-assisted home monitoring for agitation in dementia

• MAH on the Commonwealth Fund Chart on Promising Models
• Wall Street Journal – New Help for Dementia Patients, Delivered via Games and Puzzles
• Wall Street Journal – What Science Tells Us About Preventing Dementia
• WMAR-2 News – Role Reversal: Caring for your Parents
• Health Care Deep Dive News – Alzheimer’s Patients Need Special Care, but Providers Aren’t Ready to Give it?
• Wall Street Journal – New Hopes for Dementia Care
• Psychology Today – The Comforts of Home: Helping People with Dementia Stay at Home Longer
• Baltimore Jewish Times – JCS Partners with Hopkins on Innovative Dementia Study
• The Commonwealth Fund – In Focus: Spreading Innovative Approaches to Dementia Care, Transforming Care
• Forbes – How People with Dementia Can Live at Home Longer

Principal Investigator, an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, is an applied gerontologist, trained in epidemiology and health services research. Her research focuses on the care and delivery of health services to older adults and families affected by mental health conditions, primarily dementia, living in community and residential care settings. She directs the Memory and Aging Services Innovation (MASI) Center, whose mission is to support the development and dissemination of effective interventions and models of care to improve the lives of older persons and their families who are caring for them. She has served as the lead field investigator or Principal Investigator on several large projects including the Maryland Assisted Living Study (MDAL), an epidemiological study of mental health disorders in assisted living (AL); The Maximizing Independence at Home Trial (MIND at Home), a randomized trial to test the efficacy of a novel community-based dementia care coordination model; and the Quality of Mental Health Care in assisted living study. The overarching goal of her work is to improve care quality and outcomes through translation of evidence-based practices to real world settings.

Principal Faculty, Dr. Albert is a professor in neurology at Johns Hopkins University and director of the Division of Cognitive Neuroscience. She focuses on the cognitive and brain changes associated with aging and Alzheimer’s Disease. She has made major contributions to delineating the cognitive changes associated with aging and early Alzheimer’s Disease, along with potential methods of early identification. Dr. Albert’s research currently focuses on the early identification of Alzheimer’s Disease and potential ways of monitoring the progression of disease to permit early intervention.

Principal Faculty, Dr. Amjad is an Assistant Professor of medicine. Her areas of clinical expertise include geriatric medicine and geriatric psychiatry, with a focus on individuals living with dementia. Her research focuses on informing and improving the care of older adults with dementia with research into safety, undiagnosed dementia, health services and new models of care.

Principal Faculty, Dr. Arbaje is the Director of Transitional care Research and associate professor of medicine. Her areas of clinical expertise include general internal medicine and geriatric medicine, with a particular interest in helping older adults stay at home as they age and working with a team to coordinate care for her older patients. Her research interests include designing health care systems to enhance safety and improve outcomes for older adults. She has been recognized with numerous awards, including the Top 10 Doctors Under 40 by the Baltimore Sun Magazine and the American Geriatrics Society New Investigator Award.

Principal Faculty, Dr. Jin Hui Joo is a Johns Hopkins Community Physician and an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She is board certified in general psychiatry. She has an expertise in adult psychiatry, focusing particularly on the diagnosis and treatment of late-life depression and the management of dementia.

Principal Faculty, Dr. Leff is the Director of the Center for Transformative Geriatric Research and professor of medicine. He holds a joint appointment in the department of health policy and management in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Leff is an internationally recognized leader and researcher in the development, evaluation and dissemination of novel models of care for older adults. His research interests extend to issues related to multi-morbidity, performance measurement and case-mix issues. He has a strong interest in health policy issues, is a Health and Aging Policy Fellow of the American Political Science Association, and has served on multiple technical expert panels for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Principal Faculty, A world expert in the care and treatment of patients with Alzheimer’s and related dementias (AD), he has carried out pioneering work on the epidemiology and treatment of neuropsychiatric features of AD. An active clinician, teacher, and researcher, Dr. Lyketsos was the founding director of the Johns Hopkins Neuropsychiatry Service, which he led for over a decade. He developed one of the largest and most successful academic neuropsychiatry programs in the USA with special expertise in dementia and traumatic brain injury. Prior to taking leadership of Johns Hopkins Bayview Psychiatry, he was co-director of the Johns Hopkins Division of Geriatric Psychiatry and Neuropsychiatry. He has held a joint faculty appointment at the Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health since 1994.  His team is developing biomarkers to accelerate treatment development for AD and other forms of brain injury while designing and implementing innovative clinical trials. He leads efforts to ensure the provision of state-of-the-art Dementia Care for people with dementia in the community. Dr. Lyketsos co-leads a Hopkins-wide effort to advance recovery of the wounded warrior and his family. He also serves on the NFL Players Association Mackey-White Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Committee for which he Chairs the Long-Term Outcomes subcommittee.

Principal Faculty, Dr. Leoutsakos is the Director of the Psychiatry Biostatistics and Methodology Core, and an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.  Her research involves the application of biostatistics to psychiatric research, both clinical and epidemiological, with interests in latent variable methods, including latent class analysis and growth mixture models which allow for the modeling of risk factors, treatment response, or outcomes as a function of latent class membership based on patterns of symptoms or shapes of trajectories over time.

Principal Faculty, Dr. Sloan is an assistant scientist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is a social work researcher with experience as a clinician in home-based hospice and palliative care. Her research focuses on the improvement in the delivery of palliative care to the medically underserved through behavioral research methods and interventions. Her research interests extend to spiritual therapies, caregivers, and needs assessmen

Principal Faculty, Dr. Wolff is the Eugene and Mildred Lipitz Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management and Director of the Roger C. Lipitz Center for Integrated Health Care at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She also holds a joint appointment in the Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Wolff’s research focuses on the care of persons with complex health needs and disabilities, including those living with memory loss, and applied studies and initiatives directed at better supporting them and their family caregivers within systems of care delivery.