Maria T. Brown

Maria T. Brown, Ph.D., LMSW, is an Assistant Research Professor in the David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics, and a 2008-2010 John A. Hartford Foundation Doctoral Fellow in Geriatric Social Work. She earned her Ph.D. from Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. Her dissertation, entitled, “Psychiatric history and cognition trajectories in later life: variations by sex, race and ethnicity, and childhood disadvantage,” examined the relationship between psychiatric history and cognitive function in later life.

Brown is the Principal Investigator of Early Identification of Cognitive Impairment among Vulnerable Adults Living at Home, a community collaboration with SUNY Upstate Medical University’s Department of Geriatrics and Southwest Community Connections, which is funded by the Health Foundation of Western and Central New York. She is co-Investigator of the Genesis Health Project’s African American Dementia Caregiver Support Program (Principal Investigator: Luvenia W. Cowart), funded by a 2016-2021 grant from the New York State Department of Health. She has published her research in Supportive Care in Cancer, Women & Health, the Health Education Journal, Gerontology, Research on Aging, Children & Youth Services Review, the Journal of Family Issues, the Journal of Gerontological Social Work, The Gerontologist, and the Journal of Sexuality Research and Social Policy. Dr. Brown is the author of a chapter on LGBT Lives and Military Service, in Life Course Perspectives on Military Service, and co-author of chapters on Chronic Illnesses and Conditions in Gender and Sexual Minorities (with Jane. A McElroy) in LGBT Health: Meeting the Health Needs of Gender and Sexual Minorities, Addressing Behavioral Cancer Risks from a LGBT Health Equity Perspective (with Karen Fredriksen-Goldsen and Charles P. Hoy-Ellis) in Cancer and the LGBT Community: Unique Perspectives from Risk to Survivorship, and Gerontological Social Work (with Deborah J. Monahan), in Gerontology: Perspectives and Issues.

A social gerontologist who uses the life course perspective to research the later-life experiences of socioeconomically disadvantaged individuals, women, and racial, ethnic, and sexual minorities, Dr. Brown is also interested in dementia caregiving, the long-term care experiences of cognitively disabled older adults and their caregivers, and the treatment and survivorship experiences of breast cancer patients.