ALS Learning Series

Covering a wide range of topics, the ALS Learning Series is designed to empower the ALS community through the latest information and insights from financial planning to respiratory care and more. These educational webinars and interactive Q&As are hosted monthly by the Les Turner ALS Foundation and archived for later viewing below.

Find out about our next webinar below, or browse our complete archive of videos on:

Upcoming Webinars

Join us for our May ALS Learning Series Webinars:

Breaking Barriers: Building a Health Equity Approach to Make ALS Livable for All

Friday, May 16, 2025, at 12pm CT

Join us for our May ALS Learning Series with Dr. Chelsea R. Carter, an Assistant Professor of Public Health in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Yale University; she will speak on how scientific knowledge production, clinical care, and systemic marginalization impact historically underrepresented communities affected by diseases like ALS.

The Les Turner ALS Foundation is proud to offer this webinar at no cost to the ALS community. Thank you to the Gilbert & Jacqueline Fern Foundation, Biogen, & Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma America for sponsoring this webinar.

About the Speaker: Chelsea R. Carter, Phd, MPH

  Headshot of Dr. Chelsea R. Carter Chelsey R. Carter, PhD, MPH is an Assistant Professor of Public Health in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Yale University, with a secondary affiliation in the Department of Anthropology. Her research program examines how scientific knowledge production, clinical care, and systemic marginalization impact historically underrepresented communities affected by rare and neurodegenerative diseases like ALS. Dr. Carter is also undertaking a book project tentatively titled, Finding the Forgotten: Race, Bias, and Care in the World of ALS, which includes an ethnographic study of the diverse experiences of living with ALS, and draws on over 15 years of experience with Black communities affected by ALS. She is Founder & Director of The LEITH (Lived Experiences Igniting Transformations in Health) Lab.

Tackling the Delay to ALS Diagnosis: How Can We Do Better?

Thursday, May 22, 2025, at 12pm CT

Join us for our May ALS Learning Series with Dr. Kelly Gwathmey from Virginia Commonwealth University. She will explore the causes and consequences of ALS diagnostic delay, along with potential solutions to address this problem. A Q&A will follow. 

About the Speaker: Dr. Kelly Gwathmey

  Dr. Kelly Gwathmey Kelly Gwathmey is an Associate Professor of Neurology at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. She studied Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. She then attended Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Virginia. Her Neurology and Clinical Neurophysiology training was completed at the University of Virginia. Following this, she completed a Neuromuscular Medicine fellowship at both Brigham and Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. At the University of Virginia, she started the multidisciplinary MDA clinic, was co-director of the ALS clinic, and was the fellowship director for both the Neuromuscular and Clinical Neurophysiology fellowships. She joined VCU in January 2019 and currently serves in the capacity of Neuromuscular Division Chair, Neuromuscular Medicine Program Director and EMG Laboratory Director. Dr. Gwathmey sees a wide spectrum of neuromuscular patients and performs electrodiagnostic studies (nerve conduction studies and electromyography).  Her research interests include environmental risk factors in ALS, diagnostic delay in ALS, and racial disparities in healthcare.