Dr. Margaret Perkinson will lead UH Center on Aging as Director

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Contact:
Theresa Kreif, (808) 956-6120
Assistant to the Dean, MBT School of Social Work

Posted: Sep 6, 2016

Dr. Margaret Perkinson
Dr. Margaret Perkinson

The UH Mānoa Myron B. Thompson School of Social Work has announced the appointment of Dr. Margaret (Peggy) Perkinson as Director of the UHM Center on Aging. She will start in this position on January 1, 2017.

Dr. Perkinson is a medical anthropologist and social gerontologist, specializing in global aging, dementia care research and cultural dimensions of aging. She comes to UHM with more than 30 years of experience in gerontological research, teaching and community service.  In teaching, she is skilled at introducing students to community-based collaborations and engaging them in service learning, inter-professional projects and participatory action research.

Dr. Perkinson holds a PhD in Human Development and Aging from the University of California, San Francisco. She has served on the faculty of Saint Louis University, Washington University at St. Louis, University of Missouri and University of Maryland, and served as Senior Research Scientist at the Philadelphia Geriatric Center.  She co-founded the NAPA (National Association for the Practice of Anthropology)-OT Field School in Antigua, Guatemala, and directed its gerontology component. She also provided gerontological training to staff of a newly developed community care retirement community in Changzhou, China.

With a strong record of research and publications, she is the author of her most recent book, Occupational Therapy with Aging Adults: Promoting Quality of Life through Collaborative Practice, which was released this year. She is active on a number of national and international professional organizations, and is an elected Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America (GSA), Association for Gerontology in Higher Education (AGHE) and Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA). She has served as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology since 2005.

As Director of the UHM Center on Aging, Dr. Perkinson will provide academic and administrative leadership, serving as an active supporter and proponent of the missions and goals of the Center on Aging at UHM, and the larger University of Hawai’i system; administer current education and research initiatives of the COA; develop curriculum in gerontology; teach and supervise student research; establish, coordinate and strengthen funded interdisciplinary gerontological research and education initiatives at UHM; and strengthen interdisciplinary research and education in aging at UHM by encouraging wider faculty and departmental participation in gerontology research and education initiatives.

For more information, visit: http://www.hawaii.edu/aging/