Dr. Tom Teasdale is a health educator with 40+ years in the fields of public health, geriatrics, and gerontology. After 20 years working jointly at the Houston Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX, he moved to Oklahoma joining the Oklahoma City Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the University of Oklahoma Department of Geriatric Medicine. At the VA, he led the Geriatrics and Extended Care Service education mission and served as the OK site leader for the VISN 16 Mental Illness Research Education and Clinical Center (MIRECC). In the University of Oklahoma’s College of Medicine, he led the geriatric department’s education mission, was PI of the HRSA-funded Oklahoma Geriatric Education Center, was associate director of the Oklahoma Healthy Aging Initiative, and rose to department vice chair. In 2015, he moved to the University’s Hudson College of Public Health as chair of the Department of Health Promotion Sciences. He retired from full-time service in 2022 and now works or volunteers part-time on dementia care grants (https://dcn.ouhsc.edu/), Tribal Nations’ behavioral health programs, workforce development in populations experiencing disparities, National Multiple Sclerosis Society endeavors, and the family garden. He still serves on national committees, develops novel educational products for instruction in aging/dementia, and adds to his 60 publications/chapters.
