March 24, 2025

Contact Jill Miller at 608-796-3615 or jmmiller@viterbo.edu

“THIRD PLACES SINCE COVID 19: ARE WE LOSING ESSENTIAL SITES OF COMMUNITY, CONNECTION, AND CARE?” PRESENTATION AT VITERBO UNIVERSITY APRIL 3

LA CROSSE, Wis. – Professor Jessica Finlay, PhD, will present “Third Places Since COVID-19: Are We Losing Essential Sites of Community, Connection, and Care?” at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 3 in the Viterbo University Fine Arts Center FSPA Lobby.

The event is free and open to the public, and audience members are invited to enjoy snacks and light refreshments beginning at 6:30 p.m.

A faculty member in the University of Colorado department of geography and the Institute of Behavioral Science, Finlay is a health geographer and environmental gerontologist who uses mixed methods to investigate how built, social, and natural environments affect health, well-being, and quality of life. She focuses on aging in place and cognitive health disparities among underrepresented and underserved older adults. Finlay also investigates impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on neighborhood environments and health among aging Americans.

Finlay is the co-author of a popular science book The Whole-Body Microbiome, which examines aging and lifelong well-being through people’s microbes. She wrote the book with her father, microbiologist Brett Finlay, PhD, a faculty member at The University of British Columbia.

This presentation is part of the D.B. Reinhart Institute for Ethics in Leadership’s Spring Lecture Series and is presented by The Jack Schwem Memorial Lecture in Healthcare Ethics. It is sponsored by the La Crosse Medical Health Science Consortium and Emplify by Gundersen. For a full schedule of Ethics Institute events, visit www.viterbo.edu/ethics.

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