PhD, MSW, FGSA, FNAP
Associate Professor
Director, Luci Baines Johnson and Ian J. Turpin Center for Gerontological Nursing
Areas
Biography
Dr. Jung Kwak is an Associate Professor in the School of Nursing and Director of the Luci Baines Johnson and Ian J. Turpin Center for Gerontological Nursing at The University of Texas at Austin. She also serves as Director of Community Outreach for the Texas Institute on Dementia, Aging and Longevity and holds a courtesy faculty appointment in the Department of Medicine at Dell Medical School.
Dr. Kwak received her PhD in Aging Studies from the University of South Florida and her MSW from the University of South Carolina. She is a Distinguished Fellow of the National Academies of Practice in Social Work, a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America, and a former Sojourns Scholar Leader and National Institute on Aging IMPACT Collaboratory Health Care Systems Scholar.
Her research focuses on improving care for persons living with dementia and their family caregivers, particularly during transitions between hospital, post-acute, and community settings. Her work examines dementia and palliative care decision-making, family caregiving, care transitions, culturally responsive care, and development of a dementia-capable workforce.
Dr. Kwak is Principal Investigator of an NIH/National Institute on Aging R01, Matching Care to Need in Dementia Care Transitions: Identifying Patient-Caregiver Profiles and Co-Developing Provider and System Implementation Tools. The study examines how the needs and resources of persons living with dementia and their caregivers can be used to better guide services during care transitions.
She also leads CEDART (Connecting and Empowering Persons Living with Dementia and Caregivers during Transitions), a community health worker–led intervention designed to provide dementia-specific, caregiver-focused support from hospitalization through the post-discharge period. Her related work includes development of dementia care navigation tools and community health worker training, interprofessional dementia education for health professions students, and cross-cultural research on person-centered dementia care in the United States and Japan.
Dr. Kwak’s research on dementia care, family caregiving, and end-of-life decision-making has been featured in national media, including the Associated Press and USA Today, and in Consider the Conversation, a documentary film about end-of-life care.
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NUR 4.146