2020/2021 IOG Report

New Books, Research Breakthroughs, Promotions & Awards

Waverly Duck, PhD (2004) has been named the North Hall Endowed Chair of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He will begin there this fall after 12 years as an associate professor of sociology at the University of Pittsburgh.

He is the author of No Way Out: Precarious Living in the Shadow of Poverty and Drug Dealing, which was a finalist for the Society for the Study of Social Problem Mills Book Award. The book was inspired by Dr. Duck's experience as an expert witness in the sentencing of a drug dealer charged with accessory to murder. His 2020 book on unconscious racism, Tacit Racism, co-authored with Anne Rawls, illustrates the many ways racism is coded into the everyday social expectations of Americans. The book won the 2021 Charles Horton Cooley Award from the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interactions.

After receiving his Ph.D. in sociology from WSU, Dr. Duck was a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania then held a post-doctoral appointment at Yale University. Dr. Duck describes his years at the IOG as an excellent launching pad for his current achievements. He is especially grateful to his faculty advisor, "for being an excellent mentor even years after my departure from the IOG," he wrote. Dr. Lichtenberg is "truly a great scholar and one of the best advisors I've ever had."

Elham Mahmoudi, PhD  (2012) is a health economist and research assistant professor at the University of Michigan department of Family Medicine. She studies health disparities; health care predictive modeling; and the cost-effectiveness of preventive interventions primarily in older adults.  Her latest research, funded by a P30 award from the National Institute of Health, linked hearing aids to a lower risk of dementia, depression and falls. Unfortunately, only 1 in 8 older adults with hearing loss has access to a hearing aid.

Dr. Mahmoudi spent 18 years in the business world, with degrees in accounting, business administration and computer information systems before enrolling at WSU to earn a doctorate in economics. As an IOG pre-doc trainee, Dr. Mahmoudi became interested in the economics of health disparities in older adults, evaluating public policies with the potential to reduce disparities. She has published more than 50 peer-reviewed articles on the economics of healthcare disparities. "Dr. Mahmoudi is a committed researcher and an original thinker," said IOG faculty mentor Dr. Gail Jensen. "Much of the industry knowledge about Medicare Part D and its effects on disparities comes from her research."

Benjamin Mast, PhD (2002) is a professor and chair of the Department of Psychological and Brain Services at the University of Louisville, where he also heads the Aging and Neuropsychology Lab. Most recently, Dr. Mast chaired the task force that developed the American Psychological Associations 2021 guidelines for the Evaluation of Dementia and Age-Related Cognitive Change.  In addition to numerous research publications, Dr. Mast has written two, well-received books about the power of religious faith in treating persons with Alzheimer's disease. The first is Whole Person Dementia Assessment, published in 2011. His second book, Second Forgetting: Remembering the Power of the Gospel in Alzheimer's Disease, was a favorite of reviewers, "filled with helpful, up-to-date information . . . and practical suggestions for how the church can offer help and hope to victims of this debilitating disease."

Stacey Schepens Niemiec, PhD, OTR/L (2009) is an associate professor of research at the University of Southern California division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy. Her research focuses broadly on the promotion of health and wellness in older individuals and more specifically on the mechanisms that facilitate or inhibit healthy aging, as well as technologies that encourage activity. As an IOG trainee, she won travel and research competitions, published research articles on falls and balance testing in older adults, and won the Everett J. Soop Award from the Michigan Society of Gerontology for outstanding performance in aging studies.  Her latest research looks at long-term lifestyle interventions to help rural Latinos in primary care.

Jacquelyn Taylor, PhD, PNP-BC, FAHA, FAAN (2004) is a profes­sor of nursing at Columbia University. She started her post-graduate career at the Yale School of Nursing where she was the first African American woman to achieve tenure and was named the school's first associate dean of diversity.

Dr. Taylor received her undergraduate, masters and doctoral degrees in nursing from WSU with a research focus on hypertension among African Americans. High blood pressure affects a significantly higher proportion of African Americans and puts them at greater risk of stroke, heart attack and early death. Dr. Taylor believes strongly in the "bench-to-bedside" model, helping nurses translate research into clinical practice that makes a direct patient difference.

Due in large part to her research and colleagues at the IOG, she continues to be concerned about the problems of health disparities across the lifespan.

"I am committed to teaching students and conducting research that focuses on improving health outcomes," Dr. Taylor said, "particularly among under-represented minority children and their families."

LaShawn Wordlaw, PhD (2004) received North Carolina Central University's Excellence in Teaching honors for 2021 for her innovative use of multiple forms of technology to engage her students. Dr. Wordlaw is a tenured associate professor in Public Health Education at NCCU. Her research focuses on promoting heart-healthy behaviors in college students by designing projects that address students' barriers to healthy eating and physical activity. Dr. Wordlaw holds a master's in sociology and a doctorate in medical sociology from WSU. She credits her mentor, Dr. Peter Lichtenberg, as the inspiration to accept her first teaching position in higher education which lead to 14 successful years (and counting) of teaching public health education.

Dr. Xiao Xu, PhD, is an associate professor at the Yale School of Medicine and a faculty member of two Yale research centers. As a health economist and health services researcher, she identifies factors that influence the delivery of high-quality and high-value care for women and older adults. Recent studies examined the impact of medical legal pressure on obstetric practice, and gender and socioeconomic differences in health and health care.

While at the IOG, Dr. Xiao won several awards for research competitions and conference travel.  Shortly after graduation, she partnered with her IOG mentor to co-lead a grant to study Drug Insurance, Medication Adherence and Subsequent Outcomes Among Seniors.  Since then, Dr. Xu has served as a principal investigator or co-investigator on multiple research grants funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, National Institutes of Health, and various research foundations. Dr. Xu also teaches medical students, clinical residents, and postgraduate and postdoctoral fellows.

Brian Yochim, PhD, ABPP (2003), is a board-certified clinical neuropsychologist at the VA St. Louis Health Care System, where he works primarily with older adults in a neuropsychology clinic and a Community Living Center. He helped to develop the Verbal Naming Test, an assessment of cognitive impairment that can be administered verbally, making it of special use for clients with visual impairment or when the assessment must be done remotely. This nonvisual measure of word finding is now validated for use in telehealth assessments to detect mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's Disease.

Dr. Yochim also co-edited Psychology of Aging: A Bio-psychosocial Perspective with Erin Woodhead. Reviews call the textbook, "the resource that geropsychologists have needed for years," and a "must read for undergraduate and graduate students studying aging."

2020/2021 IOG Report