I am an Associate Professor of Gerontology at the Towson University. I have a B.S. in Health Science/Community Health Education from Hunter College, City University of New York (1993); an MP.H. in Public Health, Population and Family Health from Columbia University, a Ph.D. in Sociology with a concentration in Demography from Fordham University (2007); and a Certificate in Gerontology from the Institute on Aging, School of Medicine, Temple University (2008). My research interests include: aging in place, inequalities across the lifecourse, social support and well-being, social demography of aging, and comparisons of performance-based and self-rated health. I am trained in both quantitative and qualitative methodologies and a reviewer for gerontological journals and conferences.
I have worked in applied health research settings (as an Assistant Project Manager position in a Department of Health Policy, for example) and as a consultant for the statistical and international organizations (the American Statistical Association and the United Nations, respectively). I am an active member of the Gerontological Society of America (one of three co-leaders of the Qualitative Research Interest Group), American Sociological Association, the International Sociological Association, and the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education and present at national meetings.
I am the author of the New Neighborhood Senior Center (2014), Rutgers University Press. I am co-editor of Race and the Lifecourse (2014), Palgrave Macmillan, and a chapter co-author in the same volume with N. Mendoza. My articles appear in the Gerontologist, the Journal of Aging, Humanities, and the Arts, the Journal of Loss and Trauma, Social Forces, the International Journal of Aging in Society, and Research on Aging.
My latest book, Research Design in Aging and Social Gerontology: Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed Methods (Routledge)was published in March 2017. My latest book about the meaning of place in under contract with Routledge.