BU-SHARP Network, Community, and Priorities
August notes from MPI Maria Glymour
It’s back to school season here at BU-SHARP and the MPI team is excited to welcome the community. We have several upcoming events planned—an (online) ‘meet and greet’ open house (9/10, 3-4 pm); research accelerator meetings offering help on conference preparation, skills-building, and problem solving (9/14, 1045-1145 am); a data analysis “hackathon” focused on data from the Health and Aging in Africa: Longitudinal Studies in South Africa (HAALSA) cohort; and many other activities we hope the BU-SHARP community will find useful.
Overall, our goal is to foster interdisciplinary research on social, economic, and demographic factors and Alzheimer’s Disease and Alzheimer’s Disease Related Dementias (AD/ADRD). I realize that to newcomers this is a bizarrely clunky acronym, but please know that every letter is precious.
BU-SHARP is part of a nationwide network of NIA-sponsored centers, coordinated by a terrific team at the University of Minnesota. We are a new center, just launched in the summer of 2026.
Our specific points of focus include understanding why some groups of people persistently have a higher risk of AD/ADRD than others, and what we could do about that. We are also interested in fostering high quality of life for people affected by AD/ADRD and their loved ones. With growing emphasis on early diagnosis, many people will live for decades after being diagnosed with some condition on the AD/ADRD continuum. We believe it is critical to ensure those individuals continue to thrive and engage in our society, but evidence will be needed to understand what strategies work to achieve that. Our center aims to elevate concerns in particular of people with disabilities and rural communities, incorporating consideration of life course factors and modifiable factors.
As we launch BU-SHARP, we are trying to find the ways to be the most supportive and generative for the research and practice communities. Please don’t hesitate to drop us a line and let us know what you’d like to see here in the blog and in BU-SHARP sponsored activities—for yourself or for your students and mentees.