MGS Alum Bei Wu, PhD
PhD in Gerontology, 2002
Current Employment:
- Professor and Director of International Research at Duke University
Bei Wu is a professor and director of international research at Duke University. She holds a number of additional appointments at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and at the West Virginia University School of Dentistry. She also holds adjunct professor/senior fellow positions in three academic institutions in China, conducting numerous aging-related studies there. Her research fields include aging and health, including dementia, care giving, oral health, long-term care, and health services utilization among older adults.
Wu received her MS and PhD in Gerontology from the University of Massachusetts Boston in 2000. During the period of 1997 through 2002, she worked as a research associate and research methodologist at the Wellesley College Center for Research on Women and as a senior research associate at the Center for Health Economics Research in Massachusetts.
Before joining UNCG, she was an associate professor in the Center on Aging within the Department of Community Medicine at West Virginia University and a faculty associate in the Center for Women’s Studies at WVU.
Professor Wu is a fellow of the Gerontological Society of America (GSA) and the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education (AGHE). She also serves as a member-at-large on the AGHE Executive Committee and as a co-chair of the AGHE Public Policy Committee.
Wu is the principal investigator on two ongoing NIH/NIDCR-funded projects. The first examines cognitive impairment and oral health and the other investigates the association between social support, depression and oral health in later life. She also works with colleagues nationwide on a CDC-funded project promoting cognitive health among older adults.
She is extensively involved in international research. She currently holds adjunct professor/senior fellow positions at three academic institutions in China and has conducted numerous aging-related studies in that country. As co-investigator of a NIH/NIA-funded project, she examines the influence of cultural beliefs and values on the dementia caregiving experience in China. Her extensive publications cover a variety of topics related to aging and health, such as long-term care, dementia, depression, oral health, health services utilization and successful aging.
Wu has taught and mentored both graduate and undergraduate students from various disciplines. She has taught a variety of courses including Survey Methods; Culture, Diversity and Aging; Aging, Women and Cultural Issues; The Aging Woman; and Community-based Long-Term Care. She has received several teaching awards including a Ford Foundation sponsored teaching fellowship.
