Outreach: A sense of community
Outreach as a tool to Empower Women to be their own best health care advocates.
Outreach is a part of the Howell Foundation’s mission to help educate women to be catalysts for family health. By motivating and inspiring women to learn more about healthful living, we hope to turn their knowledge into action.
Howell Events

An important part of the Howell Foundation’s outreach mission is to help educate women to be catalysts for family health by providing information of the results in current scientific research. By motivating and inspiring women to learn more about healthful living, we hope to turn their knowledge into action.
A trademark of the Howell Foundation’s outreach efforts, our events, provides a forum for medical researchers and experts to convey the very latest information on topics relevant to women’s health and wellness.
Relaying the latest in Women's Health Research

Please join us!
Friday, November 13, 2020
Howell Webinar:
What are RNA Vaccines and Why is the New Vaccine Technology Being Used Against COVID-19?
Speaker:
Andy Geall, PhD
About the Topic
Dr. Geall will give an overview of the different types of vaccines being developed. The presentation will focus on mRNA vaccines, why they are different from the conventional technologies, and what to expect in the coming years. He will also present the latest published scientific findings regarding the results of his clinical trials.

Lunch or Coffee?
Making Women's Health Research a Priority
If our work empowers one individual to work towards women’s health research, then we are just a step closer to ensuring women’s well being and family health.
Research must be at the forefront of any women’s health initiative. Today, women are still underrepresented in clinical trials. The exclusion of female subjects in current research efforts translates into women being misdiagnosed and treated for any given illness on the basis of results from male subjects, often putting women at a higher risk. A “one-size-fits-all” approach does not apply to medicine when diagnosing and treating women’s health. We believe that by empowering women with information about the latest research on women’s health, we help keep the women we love healthy!
As part of our outreach efforts, the Speakers Service extends the Howell foundation educational mission into corporations and nonprofit organizations. One hundred percent of the speaking fees go directly to the Doris A. Howell Foundation. All topics are evidence-based and provide research about organizational and individual wellness. Some topics cover healthy living in the 21st century. Other topics focus on the quality of people’s mental and physical health in the workplace.
All presentations are highly interactive unless the client specifically requests a one-way presentation from the podium. The presentations are structured to include opportunities for the audience members to talk with each other and with the speaker at intervals during the presentation rather than waiting for a traditional Q&A session at the end. When the setting allows, speakers go out into the audience to talk during those discussions.
To contact us for more information about the speakers or topics, please call 858-454-7797 or email [email protected].
Meet our Speakers!

Andrea Z. LaCroix, Ph.D.
Professor and Chief of Epidemiology
Director, Women’s Health Center of Excellence
Family Medicine and Public Health
University of California, San Diego
Dr. LaCroix has an extensive research program devoted to studies on factors associated with healthy aging in postmenopausal women. She has conducted numerous randomized clinical trials and observational studies on the prevention of cancer, fracture, heart disease, and frailty in postmenopausal, as well as large, prospective studies of exceptional aging and maintaining function into later life. She served on the National Advisory Council on Aging for the National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Aging from 2009-2012. In 2010, she received the McDougall Mentoring award. In 2014, Dr. LaCroix was elected as a member of the American Epidemiological Society. She has authored more than 300 scientific publications, and was selected as a Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researcher in 2014.
Topics for Dr. LaCroix include:
- The Silver Tsunami coming in 2050: Will we be prepared?
- Exceptional Longevity in Women: What we know, what we’d like to know
- Having a Mellow Menopause: A new menu and comparative results
- Sitting and Your Health: Impacts on longevity, telomeres, and falls
- Physical Activity and Healthy Aging: Do you really need to feel the burn to benefit?

Katherine Richman, MD
Clinical Professor of Radiology,
University of California, San Diego
Dr. Richman is a board-certified diagnostic radiologist who specializes in body imaging, particularly women’s body imaging. Dr. Richman has been Chief of Radiology at UC San Diego Health’s Thornton Pavilion in La Jolla since 1999. She completed her Body Imaging fellowship training at UC San Diego School of Medicine. She earned her medical degree from UC San Diego School of Medicine.
Topics for Dr. Richman include:
- Healthy, (Nutrient) Wealthy, and Wise: Impact of plant-based nutrition on health
- Gut Instinct: The importance of our microbiome for our health

Carole L. Banka, Ph.D.
Associate Project Scientist
Department of Medicine
University of California, San Diego School of Medicine
Dr. Banka is known in the research community as an ardent champion of gender inclusion in basic and clinical research. In the local community, she is known as a public speaker for which she has received several awards. Dr. Banka received her Ph.D. from UCSF and did postdoctoral training at UCSD and The Scripps Research Institute. She has held faculty positions at The Scripps Research Institute and the La Jolla Institute for Molecular Medicine where she was Director of Women’s Health Research. She is currently in the Department of Medicine at UCSD. Her areas of research include heart disease, fat and cholesterol metabolism, breast cancer and reproductive biology.
Banka’s topics include:
- Coping with stress: gender matters: It isn’t just “fight or flight.” It is hormonally based.
- Of mice and menopause: Dr. Banka correlates data from her mouse models of menopause and peri-menopause with clinical findings
- Gender differences in health and disease
- Heart disease in women
- In defense of fat

Abigail D'Agostino, RN, BSN, MBA
Director, Patient Care Services
Light Bridge Hospice
Founder and President
Nurses for Health
Abigail D’Agostino has over 13 years of wide range experience in the healthcare industry. Ms. D’Agostino obtained her Bachelors of Science in Nursing, Registered Nurse license and Public Health Nursing certificate in 2002. She began her nursing career in medical-surgical and critical care nursing. During this time, she attained her critical care nurse certification and earned an award for her clinical excellence.
Ms. D’Agostino is the Howell Foundation 2019 Chair
Topics for Abigail include:
- Having the crucial conversations: Goals of care
- Discussions related to physical illnesses
- Plant-Based Diet: What is it and why we should explore it
- Hungry? Fasting for primary and secondary prevention
- Tick Tock: General cardiac health
- Advanced care planning & palliative care
- End-of-life care
Speaking Fees for Howell Speakers
Local Fees in San Diego
Corporations
$5000per engagementNon-profit organizations
$3000per engagementVolunteer based non-profits
$0per engagement
To contact us for more information about the speakers or topics, please call 858-454-7797 or email [email protected]. 100% of fees go directly to the Howell Foundation
In 2018, the Howell Foundation decided to take women’s health research a step farther: support institutions that aligned with our mission to advance women’s health.

WISDOM Trial
That same year, we supported the WISDOM Trial (Women Informed to Screen Depending On Measures of risk). Led by UC San Diego Health, UC Davis Health, UCSF, UCLA Health, UC Irvine, and Sanford Health, the mammography screening research trial is searching to determine which strategy produces the most benefit and least harm for women, especially if women make a series of decisions based on the information provided by their screening. Read about Advances in Breast Cancer Research here.

Susan G. Komen Foundation
In 2019, the Howell Foundation was approached by the Susan G. Komen Foundation to participate in its Second Metastatic Breast Cancer Conference:. ‘Concept to Cure: The Process from Research to Market and Living with Metastatic Breast Cancer’. The focused on the latest advances in metastatic breast cancer treatments, clinical trials, patient support and national issues for metastatic/stage IV breast cancer (MBC). Scientists presented ‘research pitches’ to a panel of judges on their latest work in metastatic breast cancer for a chance to win a $1,000 award provided by the Howell Foundation. Read More about our collaboration.