Faculty

Dr. Kathy Black

Professor

Phone: (941) 359-4200
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Curriculum Vitae.

Area of Interest: 

Kathy Black is a Professor of Aging Studies at University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee Campus. Dr. Black obtained her Ph.D. from the State University of New York, Albany and Master’s Degrees in Social Work and Gerontology from the University of Southern California and a Master’s Degree in Public Health from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Dr. Black is a Next Avenue Top 50 National Influencer in Aging, a Hartford Geriatric Faculty Scholar, and a Fellow in the Gerontological Society of America. Dr. Black led Florida’s first Age-Friendly Community and is an Age-Friendly Communities Consultant for AARP Florida. Dr. Black serves in an advisory role on aging with four state departments including the Florida Department of Elder Affairs, Departments of Health and Transportation and the Florida Consensus Center. In 2020, Dr. Black was selected by the World Health Organization to launch their Decade of Healthy Ageing Leaders programme.

Dr. Black has more than 40 years of experience in the field of aging including work as gerontological researcher, educator, and practitioner in the capacity of geriatric case manager, medical social worker, and geriatric nurse in acute and long-term care, hospital, nursing home, and community-based settings.  

Dr. Black’s expertise is broadly in the area of healthy aging, public health and aging, environmental gerontology, advance care planning and geriatric mental health.  Dr. Black has conducted over 225 presentations at local, state, national, and international venues and has authored over 60 publications. Dr. Black has been the Principal Investigator of more than a dozen grants and serves on the editorial boards of Research on Aging and Ageing & Society.