Concordia University’s Center for Gerontology to Host Dawn Carr, PhD

On Thursday, May 21, Concordia University Chicago’s Center for Gerontology will host a virutal seminar with Dawn Carr, PhD, an expert on the longevity of aging, as part of its Distinguished Speaker Series. She will present on “Redesigning Post-Retirement Life in the Context of Increased Longevity.” The event will begin at 10 a.m., CDT.

Dr. Carr will offer a dynamic presentation on the changes in the way we navigate phases of our lives today. She will also explain how to redesign later life, which is gaining importance as more and more people are expected to live three decades beyond retirement. She believes expanding longevity requires us to consider a new script for later life and how this may be influenced by current COVID-19 challenges.

Her expertise lies in understanding the factors that bolster older adults’ ability to remain healthy and active. She seeks to identify the complex pathways between health and active engagement during later life, particularly with respect to the ways in which engaging in paid work, volunteering, and caregiving shapes cognitive, psychological, and functional health and the onset of disability.

Dr. Carr is particularly concerned with issues of inequality, including barriers and facilitators of these activities as well as the differential effects these activities have on well-being.

Before joining Florida State University in 2016, she was a researcher at the Stanford Center on Longevity, a postdoctoral fellow in the Carolina Program for Health and Aging Research (CPHAR) at the Institute on Aging at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a researcher at Scripps Gerontology Center. She holds her doctorate from Miami University, the Department of Sociology and Gerontology.

About Concordia’s Center for Gerontology

The Center for Gerontology at Concordia University Chicago encompasses research efforts that include generating, organizing, and disseminating high-quality multidisciplinary, aging-related practice and knowledge.

The Center strives to make a difference in the lives of older adults and their families through faith-based research and education, which will have a far-reaching impact on the communities we serve.

About Concordia’s Online Gerontology Programs

Concordia University Chicago offers offers several graduate programs of study that equip individuals with the expertise and experience to make a difference in the field of gerontology.

• Online Graduate Certificate in Gerontology
• Online Master’s in Gerontology
• Online PhD in Leadership: Gerontology
• Online EdD in Leadership: Gerontology

The PhD in Leadership (Gerontology), is ranked fifth in the nation by the Grad School Hub. College Choice ranks the online gerontology PhD program as sixth in the nation and the online gerontology master’s as 15th in the nation.