Interim Co-Director
Co-Lead, Healthy Aging Program
Mary H. Palmer, PhD, RNC, FAAN, Interim co-director of the University of North Carolina Institute on Aging and the Helen W. and Thomas L. Umphlet Distinguished Professor in Aging in the School of Nursing. Dr. Palmer is the project director of Health Resources and Services Administration Comprehensive Geriatric Education Program grant (D62 HP01913), “Improving the Care of Acutely Ill Elders” that includes an innovative online library of peer-reviewed geriatric clinical simulations located at www.geroclinsim.org. Dr. Palmer is an Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society and serves on the Editorial Boards of Geriatric Nursing and Clinical Geriatrics. She is a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing, the Gerontological Society of America, and the American Geriatrics Society.
Dr. Palmer has conducted research, published, and lectured extensively for 25 years on urinary incontinence in adults. Her research has led to a better understanding of the correlates of and risk factors for urinary incontinence in adults. Dr. Palmer is the author of award winning books on urinary continence and was a member of the 4th International Consultation on Incontinence committee on incontinence in the frail elderly.
Dr. Palmer is a past Chair of the Clinical Medicine Section (now Health Sciences Section) and the Fellows Committee of the Gerontological Society of America. She is the nurse representative to the International Continence Society’s Ethics Committee and she serves on the Public Education Committee of the American Geriatrics Society.
Dr. Palmer received her BSN and Master of Science degrees from the University of Maryland at Baltimore, her PhD in Behavioral Sciences and Health Education from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health (now Bloomberg School of Public Health), and an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College. She was a senior staff fellow in the Behavioral Sciences Laboratory of the Gerontology Research Center, National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health from 1994 to 1996. Honors include UNC Institute for the Arts and Humanities Academic Leadership Program fellowship, American Geriatrics Society Public Education Committee Outstanding Service Award, and the 2009 American Geriatrics Society/ National Association for Continence “Continence Care Champion Award.”
Interim Co-Director