The recipient of the 2024 Dr. Suzanne Kneuper Linder Research Award for Patient-Centered Outcomes Research is Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Karen Schlag. 

Her research mentor, Dr. Monique Pappadis, wrote the following:

“Dr. Schlag has been a great addition to the SCoA family. She embodies the Dr. Suzanne Kneuper Linder Research Award for Patient-Centered Outcomes research. She has been an instrumental member of our research team where she interviews persons with MCI/ADRD, their care partners and healthcare providers and is contributing to the development of an elder mistreatment risk assessment tool and brief intervention. Her passion and commitment to maximizing the quality of care and support of persons with dementia and their caregivers is evident. She lights up when discussing anything related to understanding dementia-related stigma, support seeking, and decision support needs, which are areas where she has already made scholarly contributions.  She is also the principal investigator of a pilot study examining the challenges experienced by marginalized families seeking professional diagnostic and therapeutic dementia services.  She has a unique expertise in journalism and communication with an emphasis on aging and health. As a result, her recent publications have been recognized nationally as contributions to the field of communication. Her fascinating research focused on dementia-related stigma within a family caregiver stress and coping model resulted in receipt of the Forum on Aging's Excellence in Research Award for Education. Earlier this year, she was named a Tamkin Scholar for her new elder mistreatment research on supporting older adults with MCI/ADRD and their families. She is eager to learn new skills and immediately puts them into practice by diving into the use of post-acute Medicare and longitudinal cohort data to examine patient- and caregiver- risks and outcomes. I am excited to see what the future holds for Dr. Schlag as she develops into a federally funded, patient- and family-centered researcher who implements psychosocial and lifestyle interventions to improve dementia-related caregiving and patient outcomes. It is truly a privilege to work with her.”

The Dr. Suzanne Kneuper Linder Research Award Fund is a permanent endowment in the School of Health Professions, established in memory of Dr. Suzanne Linder, former Edna Seinsheimer Levin Endowed Professor in Cancer Studies and Assistant Professor in the former Division of Rehabilitation Sciences. Funds distributed from the endowment are used to give an award to a Fellow, Student, or other Trainee working in patient-centered research. The awardee is selected by the Director of the Sealy Center on Aging in consultation with the Dean of the School of Health Professions.