(Press-News.org) The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) — the nation’s largest interdisciplinary organization devoted to the field of aging — has chosen Kathleen Wilber PhD, FGSA, of the University of Southern California (USC) as the 2023 recipient of the Donald P. Kent Award.
This distinguished honor is given annually to a GSA member who best exemplifies the highest standards for professional leadership in gerontology through teaching, service, and interpretation of gerontology to the larger society. It was established in 1973 in memory of Donald P. Kent, PhD, for his outstanding leadership in translating research findings into practical use.
The award presentation will take place at GSA’s 2023 Annual Scientific Meeting, which will be held from November 8 to 12 in Tampa, Florida. This conference is organized to foster interdisciplinary collaboration among researchers, educators, and practitioners who specialize in the study of the aging process.
Wilber is the Mary Pickford Foundation Professor of Gerontology and a professor of health services administration at USC and is the director of the USC Leonard Davis School Secure Old Age Laboratory, and co-director of the USC Family Caregiver Support Center. Her leadership expertise in elder mistreatment, caregiving, and long-term services, and supports, as well as her commitment to practice improvement, have made an enormous impact on the profession and, by extension, have improved the well-being of older adults throughout the nation.
Wilber has led several seminal projects aimed at improving gerontological practice. Over the past decade, she and her team have provided leadership in studying the effectiveness of the Elder Abuse Forensic Center model, a multidisciplinary team that links health and social services with the justice system. To inform policy and practice in an area that lacks evidence-based research, Wilber and her team have systematically identified the model’s processes and system level outcomes for clients and professional participants as well as implementation considerations and challenges.
Wilber was the principal investigator of a study that characterized and classified Elder Abuse Forensic Centers and other elder abuse multidisciplinary teams around the country, with support of a $1.3 million award from the Administration for Community Living. She also recently served as the principal investigator on a $1.4 million grant from the National Institute of Justice, where she partnered with Kaiser Permanente to develop and pilot-test an approach to preventing elder mistreatment through caregiver education and supports.
Additionally, she has worked with the city and county of Los Angeles to develop an age-friendly initiative and more recently consulted with these systems of government to determine the best organizational structure for providing aging services in the diverse and expansive Los Angeles region. At the state level, she is a governor’s appointee to the Disability and Aging Community Living Advisory Committee, she oversaw the state-funded Center for Long-Term Care Integration and the California Task Force on Family Caregiving, and has had major leadership roles in improving assessment and data integration for California’s long-term services and supports. Her efforts to inform policy and practice have extended to the national level as well, providing input to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the White House Conference on Aging, and the American Bar Association, among other organizations.
Wilber is a GSA fellow, which represents the highest category of membership within the Society, and a fellow of GSA’s educational member group, the Academy for Gerontology in Higher Education. She is also a previous recipient of GSA’s Elaine M. Brody SRPP Thought Leader Award.
###
The Gerontological Society of America is the nation's oldest and largest interdisciplinary organization devoted to research, education, and practice in the field of aging. The principal mission of the Society — and its 5,500+ members — is to advance the study of aging and disseminate information among scientists, decision makers, and the general public. GSA’s structure also includes a policy institute, the National Academy on an Aging Society.
END
The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) — the nation’s largest interdisciplinary organization devoted to the field of aging — has chosen David Almeida, PhD, FGSA, of The Pennsylvania State University as the 2023 recipient of the Robert W. Kleemeier Award.
This distinguished honor is given annually to a GSA member in recognition for outstanding research in the field of gerontology. It was established in 1965 in memory of Robert W. Kleemeier, PhD, a former president of the Society whose contributions to the ...
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Michigan State University (MSU) and the French research organization, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, or CNRS, today signed an agreement to establish the International Research Laboratory on Nuclear Physics and Astrophysics (IRL NPA) during a ceremony at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) at MSU.
CNRS has nearly 80 international research laboratories worldwide, and IRL NPA at FRIB is the first dedicated to nuclear physics and astrophysics.
Leveraging FRIB’s world-unique research capabilities, the IRL NPA will be located at FRIB and dedicated to answering fundamental nuclear physics and astrophysics research questions.
With ...
The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) — the nation’s largest interdisciplinary organization devoted to the field of aging — has chosen Jacqueline L. Angel, PhD, FGSA, of the University of Texas at Austin as the 2023 recipient of the James Jackson Outstanding Mentorship Award.
This distinguished honor is given annually and recognizes individuals who have exemplified outstanding commitment and dedication to mentoring minority researchers in the field of aging. It was renamed in 2021 in memory of James Jackson, PhD, FGSA, a pioneering psychologist in the fields of race and culture and the impact of racial disparities on minority health, and himself ...
The lithium-ion batteries used to power electric vehicles are key to a clean energy economy. But their electrodes are usually made using a wet slurry with toxic solvents, an expensive manufacturing approach that poses health and environmental risks.
Early experiments at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have revealed significant benefits to a dry battery manufacturing process. This eliminates the solvent while showing promise for delivering a battery that is durable, less weighed down by inactive ...
A new study of UCLA Health’s large genetic biobank is giving researchers new insights into the disease risks faced by the region’s diverse communities and their access to health care. The effort, published in Nature Medicine, may prove useful in developing personalized medicine and treatment approaches to groups often overlooked by the medical system.
UCLA Health researchers identified 376 population clusters based on shared genetic ancestry by leveraging information from nearly 36,000 patients enrolled in the UCLA ATLAS Precision Health Biobank. The ATLAS ...
EL PASO, Texas (July 18, 2023) – In a new landmark chemistry study, researchers describe how they have achieved the highest level of energy storage — also known as capacitance — in a supercapacitor ever recorded.
The study, led by Luis Echegoyen, Ph.D., professor emeritus at The University of Texas at El Paso, and Marta Plonska-Brzezinska, Ph.D., of the Medical University of Bialystok, Poland, was recently featured in the journal Scientific Reports, which is published by leading research publisher Nature Portfolios.
Supercapacitors ...
Engineers and scientists at West Virginia University are developing an advanced hydrogen flexible boiler to help decarbonize the food and beverage industry and eventually eliminate greenhouse gas emissions.
The technology, proposed by Hailin Li, professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the WVU Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources, will supply thermal energy by burning clean fuel rather than traditional fossil fuels. Researchers will also work with Morgantown businesses ...
With cancer rates rising throughout sub-Saharan Africa – home to 1.1 billion people, or about 14 percent of the world’s population – researchers with the Botswana-Rutgers Partnership for Health are seeking solutions.
Cancer is among the top three causes of premature death in the vast majority of nations in the region. Without significant interventions, predictions indicate the number of cancer deaths per year in this region would nearly double by 2030, to about 1 million.
In a study published in PLOS Global Public Health, researchers associated with the partnership address the need to improve access to oncology drugs in sub-Saharan Africa, ...
Berkeley — During the summer of 2018, the Mendocino Complex Fire ripped through UC’s Hopland Research and Extension Center (HREC), transforming the Northern California property’s grassy, oak-dotted hillsides into a smoldering, ash-covered wasteland.
“It felt like something out of the Lord of the Rings — like Mordor. It was hard to imagine much surviving,” said Justin Brashares, a professor of environmental science, policy and management at the University of California, Berkeley.
But mere months after the fire, animals like coyote, gray foxes and black-tailed jackrabbits were seen returning to the area, spotted by grid of motion-sensor camera traps that ...
URBANA, Ill. — Over half of forests in the United States are privately owned, especially in the Eastern part of the country. This can make control of invasive species challenging, as efforts need to be coordinated among many different landowners. A new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign looks at how family forest landowners in Maine and New Hampshire approach invasive species management and what factors influence their decisions.
“We have mostly public land on the West Coast and privately owned family forestland in the Midwest ...
