For her contributions to gerontology and geriatrics education, UCLA Luskin adjunct professor emerita of social welfare JoAnn Damron-Rodriguez has been recognized as a leading educator in the field of aging. She is the first UCLA faculty member to receive the Clark Tibbitts Award from the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education.
Given each year to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the advancement of gerontology and geriatrics education, the award, which Damron-Rodriguez received at the association's annual meeting on March 10 in Miami, honors Clark Tibbitts, a leading developer and pioneer in the field of gerontological education.
Damron-Rodriguez is a UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award winner and federally appointed member of the Veteran’s Health Administration Gerontology and Geriatrics Advisory Committee. As a licensed clinical social worker who earned a Ph.D. in social work from UCLA, she is also co-principal investigator on a statewide Archstone Foundation grant to study geriatric social work labor force demand in California.
“Gerontologists are taking the lead worldwide to build, with our communities, the future of purposeful living for the 50-plus population,” she said in a lecture as she accepted the award.
The association, which has bestowed the award annually since 1981, is dedicated to education, training and research programs in the field of aging, and counts more than 160 institutional members throughout the United States, Canada and abroad.
