Executive Committee

The AgingME Executive Committee oversees all GWEP efforts and meets on a biweekly basis. It is composed of the two primary academic institutions: The University of New England (UNE), and the University of Maine (UMaine).

Meet the team at UNE’s Center for Excellence in Public Health!

Mary DeSilva, ScD, MS, MSFS

Program Director

Dr. DeSilva assumed leadership of AgingME in August 2025. She is an epidemiologist and demographer with expertise in design, implementation, and analysis of mixed methods public health research, with over 25 years’ experience with a variety of public health projects in global and U.S. settings. She leads the University of New England’s new Center on Healthy Aging and is the Principal Investigator of the Legacy Scholars project, an ongoing longitudinal cohort of ~750 older adults living in Maine who complete annual surveys on health and wellbeing, including cognitive assessments. She has particular interests in a lifespan approach to health and aging, mental health, caregiver/care partner wellbeing, and how aging issues affect Maine’s rural and other underserved communities.

 

Lynette Sirois, MPH

Program Manager

Lynette, Program Manager for the Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Program (GWEP), brings a wealth of experience in healthcare and public health to her role. Her expertise includes managing HRSA-funded programs, leading health center clinical quality measure (CQM) reporting, and collaborating with academic and public health partners on healthcare quality data for research. Lynette is passionate about supporting underserved communities and enjoys working with diverse groups to achieve shared goals and enhance patient care to improve health and wellness. With a Master of Public Health degree from the University of New England, she’s thrilled to be back with the UNE community. She’s especially excited to work with GWEP, where she’ll help foster a more age-capable workforce to enrich the lives of older adults in rural and tribal areas of Maine.

Ruth Dufresne

Senior Research Associate
Ruth Dufresne, SM, is a Senior Research Associate at the Center for Excellence in Public Health and the Center for Excellence in Aging and Health. She has extensive experience as an evaluator on state and federally funded programs in public health and primary care settings. She collaborates with community partners to integrate or improve care in primary care and health systems. Ruth’s focus is chronic disease prevention and management program research and evaluation. She provides both quantitative and qualitative evaluation expertise, designs and implements comprehensive evaluations, develops data collection tools such as web-based surveys and interview discussion guides, analyzes and summarizes data, and disseminates findings to funders and partners.
Prior to coming to UNE in 2010, Ruth had a public health consulting practice where she provided evaluation consultation to the Maine Center for Public Health, the Maine Cardiovascular Health Program in the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and the University of Southern Maine, Muskie School of Public Service, Maine Nutrition Network.  Prior to working as a consultant, Ruth worked for the Maine Bureau of Health (now called Maine CDC) as the Epidemiologist/Program Evaluator for the Breast and Cervical Health Program. Along with other public health positions, Ruth served as a Primary Health Care Coordinator in US Peace Corps in Cameroon, Africa.
Ruth is a Mainer. She is a graduate of University of Maine at Farmington and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Katie Keough

Project Coordinator

Katie is the Project Coordinator for the Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Program (GWEP) at UNE’s Center for Excellence in Public Health. She brings experience from her previous role at Gould Academy, where she worked as an Admissions Associate and Summer Programs Manager, developing strong skills in program management and stakeholder engagement. Currently pursuing her Master of Public Health with a concentration in public health education and communication, Katie is eager to build on her undergraduate background in community health education. She looks forward to applying her experience managing diverse projects to AgingME and supporting its mission to improve health care for older adults through training and education.

Susan Wehry, MD

Microcredentialing Lead and Physician Preceptor

Susan Wehry MD is a geriatric psychiatrist with almost 40 years of experience. During her multifaceted career, she has inspired professionals, older adults and family caregivers throughout the United States. The former Chief of Geriatrics at the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine (UNE COM), she now directs AgingME, a geriatrics workforce enhancement project (GWEP) that she hopes will help create a more age-friendly health system.

 

Meet the team at UMaine’s Center on Aging!

Patricia Oh, PhD, MSW

Assistant Director, Community Innovation and Research

As Assistant Director for Community Innovation & Research at the Center on Aging, Patricia Oh, Ph.D., MSW, coordinates its Lifelong Maine initiative, which includes providing technical support and programming for the AARP Network of Age-Friendly States and Communities (NAFSC) in Maine, advising AARP Livable about its rural outreach efforts, and supporting the AARP NAFSC nationally. In her role as Co-Director of the Consortium on Aging Policy, Research and Analysis, Dr. Oh studies the impact of policy on the lives of older Mainers. She is a frequent speaker at community events and has been invited to present age-friendly community development and healthy aging at state, regional, national, and international venues.

Dr. Oh obtained a Ph.D. in Gerontology from the University of Massachusetts, Boston and MSW from the University of Southern Maine. As a practitioner and researcher, her expertise is in translational research, program development, evaluation, research, and professional and community education. Since 2012, she has focused on age-friendly community development at the national and state levels, with a particular interest in rural communities. Currently, her research focuses on climate and aging, municipal motivation to join the AARP NAFSC, the impact of joining on the social and service environments, and multi-sector collaborations to advance age-friendly community development, and specifically, higher education’s role.

Based on her research with communities, Dr. Oh has authored more than a dozen book chapters and articles about aging in community and is lead author to the award-winning AARP Roadmap to Livability Series and Rural Livability Report.

 

Last updated: 10/30/2026