Aging Initiatives and programs have always been a part of the fabric of the School. These include the long-standing Hartford Partnership Program for Aging Education and the new part-time online MSW option which includes our gerontology certificate.
The School’s work in the community has been especially evident this year as faculty and school leaders work closely with Age-Friendly Greater Pittsburgh (AFGP), an initiative by Southwestern Pennsylvania Partnership for Aging (SWPPA) and the School, that brings generations together to make the Pittsburgh region more inclusive and welcoming of all ages. In May, in recognition of the hard work by this partnership, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro announced that the Commonwealth has become the 13th officially designated Age-Friendly State. “Involvement in this program has been a true privilege and opportunity. Drs. Engel and Lee have worked closely with community participants and AFGP leadership to help capture and understand the effects of community-based and community-led efforts to improve livability and cross-generational relationships in a range of Allegheny County communities. And seeing how these local efforts helped to drive state-wide expansion has been really exciting,” said Dean Farmer.
Faculty research, engagement, and recognition in gerontology in in a resurgence at Pitt.
- Recently retired faculty member Dr. Rafael Engel was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from SWPPA.
- Dr. Kyaien Conner’s work with Pitt’s Alzheimer's Disease Research is supported by a National Institutes of Health grant. Dr. Conner is also co-investigator on several critical projects in aging funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the National Institute of Mental Health, and others. Her “Brain CHEC-AC (Brain and Cognitive Health Equity Campaign for Allegheny County)”project pulls together leaders from Nursing, Medicine, Public Health, and Social Work to create counter-narratives using narrative storytelling to reduce stigma and encourage early evaluation and intervention in communities of color and also explores the use of blood-based biomarker testing for Alzheimer's diagnosis.
- Dr. Quinton Cotton, the school’s most recent addition to its tenure-track faculty, is a gerontologist whose work aims to increase the adoption of effective policy and programmatic interventions for persons with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD) and their caregivers, especially among populations experiencing vulnerability and marginalization.
- Dr. Shaun Eack has recently branched out from his groundbreaking National Institute of Mental Health-funded research in schizophrenia to more closely study “Neural Mechanisms of Anticholinergic Burden in Mid- to Late-Life Schizophrenia Spectrum Illness.”
- Professor Beth Mulvaney is leading the School’s interprofessional education efforts as an Associate Director of the University of Pittsburgh Health Sciences Program in Interprofessional Education. Mulvaney is working colleagues from Dental Medicine, Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, and Public Health to help create opportunities for, and curriculum to, promote interprofessional teams of students learning about, from, and with each other to create effective team collaboration and improve outcomes for the people and communities they serve.
- Dr. Fengyan Tang is PI of several funded projects examining the intersection of aging and immigration, including her National Institutes of Health grant “Preventing Cognitive Decline and Dementia Among Older Chinese Immigrants: The Role of Activity, Engagement, Immigration Experience, and Neighborhood Environments.”