Our distinguished faculty members are knowledgeable and supportive of their students.
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Stephen Anton, PhD
Dr. Anton is an Associate Professor and Chief of the Clinical Research Division within the Department of Aging and Geriatric Research at the University of Florida and also holds a joint appointment in the Department of Clinical and Health Psychology. He has dedicated over a decade of his career to disciplines surrounding obesity, metabolic disease, aging, and cognitive behavioral issues related to weight loss. He has a particular interest in the role that lifestyle factors and natural compounds may have in influencing biological mechanisms related to the aging process, as well as age-related metabolic disease conditions. Dr. Anton currently has over 75 peer-reviewed papers, many of which are in top clinical journals. He has also co-authored seven book chapters and has given over 50 national and seven international presentations. Dr. Anton completed his doctoral degree in Clinical and Health Psychology at the University of Florida, where he received training in health promotion and the delivery of lifestyle interventions designed to modify eating and exercise behaviors. Dr. Anton teaches Lifestyle Interventions in Aging I: Behavioral Aspects.
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Thomas Buford, PhD
Dr. Buford is currently appointed as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Aging and Geriatric Research. He also serves as the Director of the Institute on Aging (IOA) Health Promotion Center. Dr. Buford completed his master’s degree in exercise physiology at Oklahoma State University followed by a doctorate in interdisciplinary health sciences from Baylor University. After arriving at the University of Florida (UF) in 2009, he was designated as a junior scholar within both the UF Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center (OAIC) and Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI). As a scholar, he completed a post-graduate certificate in translational health science, which covered topics including research ethics, epidemiology, conduct of clinical and translational research, and design/management of clinical trials. Dr. Buford currently serves as principal investigator or co-investigator for numerous clinical research studies funded by the National Institutes of Health, private foundations, and industry sponsors. Notably, Dr. Buford currently serves as a co-investigator for the NIH-funded LIFE study, a Phase 3 randomized clinical trial to determine if long-term, structured physical activity can prevent the onset of mobility disability among mobility-limited older adults. Dr. Buford is also involved in providing graduate and professional education by teaching several courses, including the Integrative Physiology of Aging and Interdisciplinary Family Health.
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Christy S. Carter, PhD
Dr. Carter is an assistant professor in the Department of Aging and Geriatric Research at the University of Florida’s College of Medicine, is a UF Institute on Aging Executive Board member and serves as the co-leader of the Pilot and Exploratory Studies Core for the UF Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center. She received her Ph.D. in Experimental and Biological Psychology in 1998 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her post-doctoral training continued at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in the Department of Medicine, Section of Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine. Dr. Carter accepted her position as assistant professor here at the University of Florida in 2005 and, since that time, her major contribution to the field of aging has been establishing rodent models of functional decline. Using these models, she tests both pharmacological and behavioral interventions to mitigate declining physical function by targeting age-related loss of skeletal muscle or sarcopenia. Ultimately, Dr. Carter’s research program is directed toward improving both life- and health-span in older individuals. As an educator, Dr. Carter serves as the graduate advisor to the online educational programs in the Department of Aging and Geriatric Research.
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Todd Manini, PhD
Dr. Manini attended Ohio University in Athens, OH, where he graduated with honors in biology, exercise science, and biochemistry. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. as well as a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Gerontology from Syracuse University. He completed a fellowship at the Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography and Biometry at the National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD. He now resides at the University of Florida in the Department of Aging and Geriatric Research. He has two major areas of research: 1) developing interventions to combat losses in physical performance seen with aging and 2) understanding the degree to which aging modifies the metabolic cost of performing daily activities. He receives support from the National Institute on Aging, American College of Sports Medicine, and The McKnight Brain Foundation for his work.
Laurence M. Solberg, MD AGSF
Dr. Laurence M. Solberg earned his medical degree from the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. He completed his residency training in internal medicine and fellowship training in geriatric medicine at Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut. Dr. Solberg has been active in the last decade in educating a variety of learners in geriatrics. His research has focused on geriatrics education and delirium, and he recently completed an interprofessional education project on nurse recognition of delirium in hospitalized older patients and the communication between nurses and doctors using electronic order sets and computerized decision support tools. In 2012, Dr. Solberg was inducted as a fellow in the American Geriatrics Society for contributions to the field in clinical, educational, and research activities.
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Lauren Solberg, JD, MTS
Professor Solberg is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Community Health & Family Medicine’s Program in Bioethics, Law & Medical Professionalism. Her teaching and research interests include bioethics and aging, the protection of human subjects in research, the responsible conduct of research and, in particular, the uses of social media in biomedical and social/behavioral research. Professor Solberg earned her BA from the University of Florida in English and Religion, her Master of Theological Studies from Harvard University, and her JD from Vanderbilt University.
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Shinichi Someya, PhD
Dr. Someya is a biochemist/neuroscientist and is Assistant Professor in the Department of Aging and Geriatric Research at the University of Florida. Dr. Someya received his BA from the University of California, Berkeley in Molecular and Cell Biology in 1991 and a Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo in Applied Biological Chemistry in 2005. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Wisconsin, Madison working with Dr. Tomas Prolla. He became an Assistant Professor in the Department of Aging and Geriatric Research at the University of Florida in 2011. Dr. Someya has joint appointments in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology and Department of Otolaryngology at the University of Florida.
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