Shelbie Turner

As a gerontologist, Dr. Turner’s program of research responds to the growing need for families to become physically, emotionally, and financially prepared to care for older relatives, especially those with Alzheimer’s disease or related dementias. She designs and evaluates tools to train and educate family caregivers throughout all stages of disease progression. As a part of this work, Dr. Turner aligns closely with clinical care sites to better integrate family caregiver training into home-based care (e.g., home health care) and community-based care (e.g., adult day services; PACE sites).

Dr. Turner’s recent work focuses on pain and injury within dementia caregiving dyads. She received a prestigious K99/R00 grant from the National Institute on Aging to adapt a pain management intervention for dementia family caregivers to help them cope with care-related pain and injury (e.g., back pain from lift and transfers). She is also a part of a multi-institutional team funded by the National Institute on Aging to develop tools to help caregivers identify and manage pain in people with dementia who, because of cognitive impairment, are unable to accurately communicate their pain.

In addition to her research endeavors, Dr. Turner serves on the Advisory Board for Virginia Tech’s Engagement Center for Creative Aging (ECCA). She also teaches the HDFS course “Adult Development and Aging” at the graduate and undergraduate levels.

Dr. Turner completed her PhD at Oregon State University, and a National Institute of Aging-funded T32 postdoctoral fellowship in behavioral geriatrics at Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University. She is a two-time graduate of Virginia Tech, completing an undergraduate degree in Human Development and Family Science in 2015 and a Master of Public Health (MPH) in 2017.

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