Researchers from CINTESIS – Center for Health Technology and Services Research / the University of Aveiro are promoting the first international group of students from the Gerontological Society of America (GSA) formed outside the USA. They are current and future students of any cycle of Higher Education and from areas, such as Medicine, Psychology, and Nursing, among many others, with an interest in the area of aging.
The kick-off meeting for the “GSA Student Chapter” will take place on October 21, at 16h30 (Local Time in Lisbon, Portugal – WEST), online and with free access to the whole community. World experts in this area, namely Joyce Weil from Towson University, Melissa Batchelor from George Washington University, and Marilyn Gugliucci, representing the GSA, will also participate.
“This chapter was created by students for students to serve as an opportunity for networking, education, research, and community work,” explains Giuliana Casanova, a researcher at CINTESIS/the University of Aveiro, Ph.D. student and president of the “GSA Student Chapter”, who has received two important Awards (“James McKenney Travel Award” and “Carol A. Schutz Travel Award”) to attend the GSA Annual Conference, which will take place in November.
One of the goals is to “create a bridge between Portugal and the United States that can promote educational and research opportunities, as well as raise awareness in the area of aging, provide research tools and more, through the organization of online and in-person events.”
Besides Giuliana Casanova, the CINTESIS/UA researchers Lígia Passos and Edna Darlene Rodrigues are part of this new group, as well as CINTESIS’ AgeingC principal investigator Oscar Ribeiro, acting as “advisor”.
“I endorsed and encouraged the constitution of this group, which will certainly promote greater internationalization and bring CINTESIS researchers closer to renowned US researchers,” stresses Oscar Ribeiro, who is also the director of the Ph.D. Program in Gerontology and Geriatrics at the University of Aveiro.
Giuliana Casanova, Peruvian-American and psychologist by training, is currently in the USA, more precisely in Florida, to work on her research project entitled “Older adult peer-educator: A comparative case study between Portugal and the USA”, developed within the scope of CINTESIS.
“I am researching the Senior Universities in Portugal and in the USA (Lifelong Learning Institutes). I am focused on people who are already retired and who have decided to integrate these institutions, not as students, but as teachers. The objective is to find out whether or not having a function teaching their peers after retirement impacts their aging process. There are many ‘idadist’ ideas that life ends after retirement and it doesn’t have to be that way,” explains Giuliana Casanova.
Lígia Passos, Brazilian and a speech therapist, is the other CINTESIS/the University of Aveiro researcher that integrates the new GSA Chapter, as vice-president. CINTESIS is the host unit of the researcher, who won a grant from the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT).
“My project is related to the feeding difficulties of people with dementia who are institutionalized. The goal is to create an intervention program for professional caregivers that aims to empower them with techniques that allow them to better feed people with dementia, especially at more advanced stages. The pilot study will soon begin in a nursing home in Estarreja,” she explains.