Dr. Samus is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and the founding Director of the Memory and Aging Services Innovation Center in the Department of Psychiatry. She is applied gerontologist trained intervention health services research and epidemiology, and the goal of her work is to improve dementia care quality and health care equity through translation of evidence-based research to practice. She has led several large federally funded dementia-related projects guided by interdisciplinary collaborative and community-based participatory research principles. She has served in an advisory role on a number of state, national, and international Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders (ADRD) initiatives regarding dementia care and services, and recently served a 3 year term as Chairperson of the State of Maryland’s Virginia I Jones Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders Council.