Bio

Briony Dow is a social work academic with a career long interest in ageing well. As well as being Associate Professor with The University of Melbourne's Social Work and Psychiatry Departments, she heads up the Health Promotion Division at the National Ageing Research Institute (NARI). At NARI she conducts research that aims to improve the health and wellbeing of older people. This includes lifestyle interventions to address depression and cognitive decline and research into improving care for older people in a range of settings. Briony is involved in teaching and supervising undergraduate and post-graduate students. Current research projects include investigating elder abuse, improving mental health service responsiveness for older people from diverse cultural backgrounds and lesbian and gay elders, and understanding intergenerational relationships. She is CI on an NHMRC funded RCT investigating the effectiveness of a physical activity program for older carers. Briony is currently President of the Australian Association of Gerontology (AAG), which has over 900 members from a range of disciplines and backgrounds.