Director of Research, Age-Friendly Innovation Center
Dr. Dabelko-Schoeny is a community-engaged social work scholar and educator committed to improving the lives of older adults and family caregivers through community-based interventions identified and developed with older persons, practitioners, students, and other faculty. She is the Director of Research for the Age-Friendly Innovation Center and strives to improve the service, social and built environments that support the inclusion of older adults. Her work is deeply collaborative, relying on multiple methods and community-based participatory research approaches. She is a team scientist and teacher who believes answers to our most challenging questions exist in the intersection between our empirical and theoretical understandings and the lived experiences of older adults, practitioners, and students. Her passion rests in preparing future scholars and practitioners who are enthusiastic, compassionate, and armed with the skills necessary to develop and implement evidence-informed practices that support older adults in their ability to age in community.