Marla F. Gilson has recently been appointed to be the president and chief executive officer of the Association of Jewish Aging Services. Prior to joining AJAS, she was director for National Hadassah in the Washington Action Office in Washington, D.C. since 1997.

Marla advocates on health policy, and her background includes extensive legislative, political, managerial and administrative experience. She has been working on or around Capitol Hill for over 30 years.

After graduating from the University of Maryland, Marla worked on Capitol Hill for Congresswoman Bella Abzug (D-NY) and Congressman Bob Traxler (D-MI) for several years. As the director of community relations and a registered lobbyist for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), she met with members of Congress and staff, monitored legislation, directed AIPAC's grass-roots lobbying efforts, and stimulated local political activism. She established the Washington office for the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago working out of the Washington office of the then Council of Jewish Federations (now known as the Jewish Federations of North America.)

During the 1984 Mondale presidential campaign, Marla was responsible for coordinating Jewish community support, was a national surrogate scheduler and served as the Maryland primary director, New York surrogate scheduler, New Jersey field coordinator and Pennsylvania field coordinator. During the general election campaign she planned all aspects of "surrogate" campaign trips to more than 25 states.

In 1998 she served as a lead advance person in the Dukakis-Bentsen campaign. During the 1994 election cycle, she joined the campaign staff of Senator Paul Sarbanes, and organized a Baltimore luncheon featuring Senators Barbara Boxer, Patty Murray and Barbara Mikulski. She also arranged an event with Vice President Al Gore.

Marla is very involved as a volunteer with charitable organizations, having served as the co-president of the Rock Creek Forest PTA, vice-chair of the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange and was a longtime member on the board of directors of the D.C. Jewish Community Center. She is a former member of the UJA Young Women's Leadership Cabinet, and was co-chair of the Sixth Biennial UJA Young Leadership Washington Conference.

Marla is listed in Who's Who in America, is on the board of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research (CAMR), an advocacy/education group concerned with promoting human embryonic stem cell research and is founder and officer of the Coalition for Genetic Fairness. She serves on the governing council of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, served on the board of directors of the National Breast Cancer Coalition and has been a consultant to the Genetics Public Policy Center and Wyeth, Inc. She is a member of the American Society of Association Executives, Women in Government Relations and was on the Population Advisory Committee of the National Institute of General Medicine.

Marla and her husband, Carl Tuvin, a Washington public affair consultant, live in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

Marla can be reached at marla@ajas.org.