Geri Spotlight: Mara Rosenberg and Katrina Hough

Interviewed by Katrina Hough over Zoom
 

About Mara’s Role/Ongoing Projects

Currently, Mara is working on establishing new projects in the Division, including a project with Faculty Dr. Ashwin Kowal for SIL for patients with Dementia. She’s also excited to hopefully start a project with Dr. Veronica Yank (UCSF SOM) that focuses on rural caregiver support. 

Mara is also still involved with a project from residency focused on improving delirium in hospitals using stuffed animals or dolls and improving loneliness by helping older adults develop a sense of purpose in long-term care.

These projects aim to learn more about social isolation and caregiver needs, and can support the creation of programs and interventions to optimize care for older adults.

Mara’s favorite aspect of her role is having the opportunity to learn from so many passionate, caring, and interesting people as she works towards becoming a geriatrician.

What is a professional goal you would like to accomplish by the end of this year?
Mara hopes to make more connections within the Geriatrics research community at UCSF. She hopes to become involved in data analysis and aims to write or co-write a paper this year.

More about Mara
What is a “fun fact” about you that not many people know?
Mara has a twin sister!

What are you happiest doing in your free time?
Mara is happiest hiking, being outside, and petting large dogs.

What is the best advice you’ve ever heard?
“Follow your passion.”

Who is someone you admire?
Mara’s grandmother comes to mind, as she was a passionate, opinionated lady who never let others dictate her path in life.

What are some causes you care about?
Mara cares about older adults (of course!) and supporting transitions for aging.

What would your backup career be?
Mara would be a trapeze artist in the circus!

Interviewed by Mara Rosenberg over Zoom

About Katrina’s Role/Ongoing Projects

Katrina is currently focused on a California COVID prevention and recovery grant. Its goal is to assess peer programs on both how they were affected by and how they are recovering from the pandemic. Katrina’s role involves interviewing participants, many of whom are older adults living in San Francisco’s Tenderloin. The exciting component of this project is gaining a deeper understanding of how the pandemic affected these vulnerable individuals.

Katrina’s work is focused on implementation sciences and making changes at the community level to address the social isolation and loneliness of older adults, which can then improve holistic outcomes.

She feels lucky for the opportunity to work with ambitious leaders within the fields of Geriatrics and Palliative Care who are dedicated to using research to improve the lives of older adults.

What is a professional goal you would like to accomplish by the end of this year?
By Thanksgiving, Katrina would like to submit a paper from a previous project on a pilot intervention between a telephone-based helpline and a healthcare provider.

More about Katrina
What is a “fun fact” about you that not many people know?
Katrina’s favorite animal is a polar bear. One of her bucket list items is to see one in the wild.

What are you happiest doing in your free time?
Katrina enjoys reading and baking cookies in her free time.

What is the best advice you’ve ever heard?
“Know your worth.”

Who is someone you admire?
American writer and Professor Audre Lorde is someone Katrina admires. She is very talented and eloquent in sharing messages about resilience.

What are some causes you care about?
Outside of her role with the Division, Katrina is a teacher. She is passionate about education, literacy, and advocating for disadvantaged youth. She also cares about women’s health, reproductive rights, and disability advocacy.  

What would your backup career be?
Katrina would be a novelist.