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Dr. Briceno’s research focuses on cognitive health disparities and cognitive measurement across culturally and linguistically diverse older adult populations.

Dr. Sheria G. Robinson-Lane is a gerontologist with expertise in palliative care, long-term care, and nursing administration. Her work aims to reduce health disparities and improve health equity for diverse older adults and family caregivers managing pain and chronic diseases such as Alzheimer’s. 

Dr. Duchowny’s research seeks to bridge the social, environmental, and biological determinants of musculoskeletal health and physical functioning in older adults. She is most interested in identifying which aspects of the built and social environment matter most in helping older adults maintain independence and understanding life course sociobiologic mechanisms (e.g., viral infections, mitochondrial function) that drive disparate outcomes in physical disability especially related to neighborhoods.

Dr. Patterson’s research addresses whether and how social norms and family composition influence caregiving behaviors and wellbeing for family members. She has also studied the role of complex families and kinlessness in the lives of older adults.

Dr. Friedman’s research examines how families and communities facilitate the health and wellbeing of older adults. Much of her recent work focuses on family caregiving, including social support networks of family caregivers, the economic costs of family caregiving, and current and future kin availability for dementia care. Dr. Friedman leads MiCDA’s Network core and Longitudinal Studies on Aging in the U.S. Network.

Sue Anne Bell is an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan School of Nursing, with expertise in disaster preparedness and response, community health and emergency care. Her work focuses on the health and well-being of aging populations in the context of a disaster. She studies the long-term health impact of disasters with an emphasis on chronic health conditions and the relationship between community resilience, aging and disasters.

Dr. Polenick’s research interests center on family relationships and family caregiving in middle and later life. She is particularly interested in understanding mutual influences within care dyads that inform interventions to maintain the well-being of both care dyad members.

Dr. Leggett’s research focuses on the development of a taxonomy of dementia caregiving care management styles and determining how style might be used to target interventions and optimize care. She is also working to study family caregiving networks more broadly and intersections with health and well-being for persons living with dementia.

Dr. Karvonen-Gutierrez’s research focuses on the impact of chronological aging, reproductive aging and obesity and their intersections.  She also studies the development and progression of chronic disease and musculoskeletal outcomes through the creation of a metabolically-dysfunctional and pro-inflammatory environment.

Dr. Ehrlich is a clinician-scientist whose research on vision impairment cross-cuts population health and health services research. He has an interest in the health and disability trajectories of older adults with visual and multisensory impairments. He conducts research on low vision and vision rehabilitation; aging and vision; and the epidemiology of eye disease. As a co-investigator on the National Health and Aging Trends Study, he has collaborated on the design of a set of vision tests for use by interviewers in the home. He is also one of the PIs of the Longitudinal Study of Health and Ageing in Kenya (LOSHAK) project.