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Jennifer R. Salmon has worked in the field of gerontology since 1989 and earned a Ph.D. in Aging Studies in 2001. Her research focuses on long-term and end-of-life care with a particular interest in how autonomy and transformation affect these periods in our lives. She also conducts research to improve planning for our aging society, including the communities for a lifetime initiative.
She managed over 1.4 million dollars in grants and contracts while at the Florida Policy Exchange Center on Aging at the University of South Florida. She is particularly skilled in data collection methodology, data analysis, and developing data-based policy and planning strategies. Click here to see her curriculum vitae.
Dr. Salmon decided to study aging, in part, due to her experiences first as a teenager when she was a caregiver for her great aunt who had Parkinson's disease and her grandmother who had throat cancer. Later, while in graduate school, she became a caregiver for her grandfather who lived four hours away and was recently widowed in his 90s. She also became a close friend and caregiver for three single women who were in their 40s, 60s, and 90s and were living with an early stroke, blindness, and frailty.
In addition to her work looking at the challenges that come with aging and caregiving, she has worked to enhance growth and meaning in later life. She developed Writing a Life Story for the USF Learning in Retirement program in 1997. This course spawned the Writers of Wisdom group. Their stories and many of Dr. Salmon's research interviews have addressed the importance of meaning and transformation in later life.
Dr. Salmon formed Aging Research Group in order to focus her time on research and her young son.