Education

• PhD in Health Related Sciences, Virginia Commonwealth University
• MS in Gerontology, Virginia Commonwealth University
• MBA in Healthcare Administration, George Washington University
• MSc in Housing and Strategic Management, University of Wales, Cardiff
• Post-Graduate Diploma in Housing Management, University of Wales, Cardiff
• BA in Art History, George Washington University

Research Interests

Disrupting ageism in long-term care settings through workforce development and leadership, deepening our understanding of elderhood as a distinct developmental period in our lives, and understanding how elders enrich and are enriched by cultural connections.

Bio

Dr Jenny Inker is an assistant professor of gerontology and the co-program director for the Assisted Living Administration Specialty Area in the M.S. in gerontology program at VCU.

Dr Inker teaches Sociology of Aging, and Aging and Human Values (ethics). She also supervises masters students completing their Assisted Living Administrator-in-Training practicum and doctoral students in the Health Related Sciences PhD program. Dr Inker co-leads a number of popular workforce trainings throughout the year, including a leadership master class series, ethics workshops, and an exam preparation class for the Residential Care Assisted Living (RCAL) national exam.

Dr Inker’s personal and professional goals are to raise conscious awareness of the potential for elderhood as a time of life which enriches individuals and society and to disrupt ageism and other barriers to developing elderhood.

Highlights

• VCU Faculty Development Program scholar 2018-19
• Received the VCU Master of Gerontology Student of the Year Award, 2013

Publications/projects

• Managing Intergenerational Conflict Training. 2019. Funded by Virginia Commonwealth University Division for Inclusive Excellence PI ($3,500).
• Video Intervention on Ageism (VIA). 2019. Funded by Retirement Research Foundation. Co-PI ($92,068).
• Gendron, T., Inker, J., Andricosky, R., & Zanjani, F. (in press). Development of the Relational Ageism Scale: Confirmatory Test on Survey Data. The International Journal of Aging and Human Development
• Gendron, T., Inker, J., & Welleford, E.A. (2017). “How old do you feel?” The difficulties and ethics of operationalizing subjective age. The Gerontologist.
• Gendron, T., Inker, J., & Welleford, E.A. (2017). A Theory of Relational Ageism: A Discourse Analysis of the 2015 White House Conference on Aging. The Gerontologist.
• Use of Antipsychotic Medications by Residents with Dementia in Assisted Living Facilities. 2016-17. Funded by the Alzheimer’s and Related Dementia Award Fund. PI ($44,449).
• Jensen, C., Inker, J., & Gendron, T. (2016). Supporting Patients and Peers Who Are Family Caregivers. Journal of Family Medicine.
• Gendron, T.L., Welleford, E.A., Inker, J., White, J.T. (2015). The language of ageism: Why we need to use words carefully. The Gerontologist, 1-10, doi:10.1093/geront/gnv066.