RAVAZZINCENTERFACULTY RESEARCH SCHOLARS

Faculty research scholars are faculty members working on projects under the aegis of the Ravazzin Center.

Cathy S. Berkman, Ph.D., ACSW, is Faculty Research Scholar at the Ravazzin Center for Social Work Research in Aging and Associate Professor at the Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service.  Her current research interests in aging include:  health and mental health, minority populations, psychiatric epidemiology, end-of-life care (including advance directives, palliative care), physical restraint use in acute care settings, and the role of culture in each of these areas.

Patricia Brownell, Ph.D., C.S.W., is Faculty Research Scholar at the Ravazzin Center for Social Work Research in Aging and Assistant Professor at the Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service.    She has a Master's of Social Work degree and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) from Fordham University. She is a Hartford Foundation Geriatric Social Work Faculty Fellow, and is the United States Representative to the International Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse (INPEA).  She currently represents INPEA on the NGO Committee on Ageing of the United Nations. Her areas of interest are gerontology, elder abuse and domestic violence. Dr. Brownell has been active in the fields of domestic violence, aging and public welfare for over 30 years.

Roslyn Chernesky, D.S.W., is Faculty Research Scholar at the Ravazzin Center for Social Work Research in Aging and Professor at the Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service. She received the University's award for twenty years of service to the University in March 2001 and was recipient of the Career Achievement Award of the Association of Community Organization and Social Administration in 2002. A Gerontological Society of America Post-Doctoral Fellow in 1989, Dr. Chernesky’s interests are in foundation funding, changing agency environments, case management, service delivery and agency administration.

Cynthia Cannon Poindexter, MSW, Ph.D., is Faculty Research Scholar at the Ravazzin Center for Social Work Research in Aging and Associate Professor at the Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service where she teaches HIV policy, HIV practice, and supervision. She has been a practitioner in the human services field for 26 years, 16 of those years in the HIV field. She was a Hartford Foundation Geriatric Social Work Faculty Fellow. She received her B.A. from Duke University, her MSW from the University of South Carolina, and her Ph.D. from the Jane Addams College of Social Work at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her research includes HIV education, older HIV-affected caregivers, and HIV service provision.