Yifan Lou, a first-year doctoral student at Columbia University School of Social Work and a doctoral fellow of the Columbia China Center for Social Policy, has been selected as a Fellow for the 9th cohort of the AGESW Gerontological Social Work Pre-Dissertation Fellows Program. The honor is awarded by the Association for Gerontology Education in Social Work (AGESW), along with support from the Gerontological Society of America (GSA) to provide ongoing academic support from nationally recognized faculty who are experts in the field. Yifan is selected in recognition of her great potential for the field of academic gerontological social work. Yifan’s research areas include palliative and hospice care policies, community-based health care services for older adults with severe medical conditions, and Medicare policy.
Yifan has been practicing and researching on hospice care using mixed methods throughout her academic study with interdisciplinary settings including health economics, sociology, and narrative medicine. Through this fellowship, she will receive academic mentoring to further develop her research skills to better understand older adults’ end-of-life decision-making behaviors. Specifically, she will use longitudinal datasets in hospice and living will to provide quantified results and cost-effectiveness analysis of advance care planning and conduct observational research in primary care settings in New York City. Mentors in the fellowship, together with Dr. Jinyu Liu, Yifan’s academic advisor at Columbia, will also support Yifan to develop a career plan to expand this study to other areas of aging and end-of-life care.
The AGESW pre-dissertation fellowship provides Yifan valuable opportunities to develop skills in researching, teaching, publishing, and grant writing, with the goal of preparing her for a successful academic career. Congratulations to Yifan Lou!