Kara Dassel, PhD, FAGHE, FGSA is an associate professor in the Gerontology Interdisciplinary Program in the College of Nursing at the University of Utah. Before beginning her current position, Dassel served as an affiliate faculty member several institutions including: Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Arizona State University, Center for Gerontology at Western Kentucky University, and Interdisciplinary Studies at Bellarmine University in Louisville, KY. Her research interests focus on Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD) end-of-life care planning and caregiver health outcomes.
Dassel earned her doctoral degree in Gerontology from the University of Kentucky in 2007. Following graduation, she completed a two-year post-doctoral fellowship in the Neuropsychology and Neuroimaging Laboratory at Barrow Neurological Institute located in Phoenix, Arizona. Nationally, she is a Fellow in both the Gerontological Society of America (GSA) and the Academy for Gerontology in Higher Education (AGHE). Dassel is currently a member of the editorial board of the GSA-sponsored journal, The Gerontologist and also serves on the editorial board of Educational Gerontology. She has published in several well-known journals including The Gerontologist, American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition, and Dementia and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders. Dassel serves as the project lead for the ADRD Interdisciplinary and Community Programs section of a federal grant focusing on geriatric workforce education. On a community level Dassel has served on the professional advisory board of State Chapters of the Alzheimer’s Association since 2015.