ALBANY, N.Y. (December 12, 2007) -- Professor Ron Toseland of the University at Albany's School of Social Welfare has received the Association for Gerontology Education in Social Work (AGE-SW) Career Achievement Award. AGE-SW, a membership society for social worker scholars and practitioners focused on improving the lives of older adults, gives the award to a person who has made an outstanding contribution to the field of gerontology. Toseland, director of the UAlbany Institute of Gerontology, has worked in the field since 1974. The award was presented at the 60th annual Gerontological Society of America meeting in November.

"Professor Toseland has dedicated his career to social work practice and improving the quality of life for older persons," said Katharine Briar-Lawson, dean of the School of Social Welfare. "We applaud Ron for his outstanding achievement and thank AGE-SW for their recognition of his life-long commitment to social work education."

Toseland, a professor in the School of Social Work since 1979 and director of the Institute of Gerontology since 1990, has a compelling and sustained research record, both as a scholar and methodologist. An internationally recognized gerontologist, Toseland's research has been funded regularly by the National Institutes of Health and by various other state and federal funding sources and foundations. He has applied more than 30 years of concentrated interdisciplinary research principally to two areas: social work practice with groups, and effective interventions for problems faced by older persons - including dementia, multiple chronic health problems and the physical and emotional demands of providing care for an ill family member.

Throughout his research career, Toseland has sustained and developed his interests in social group interventions and social services to elderly people and their families, and consistently produced research relevant to the delivery of social services and to clinical work with older adults. His work addressees the gap between research findings and their practical application toward providing effective and efficient social and health care services to older persons. Toseland, one of the only researchers who has studied and integrated the role of professional social services and self-help initiatives in serving the elderly, received an "investigator initiated award" from the National Institutes of Mental Health for comprehensive work in that area in 1986.
 
Today, within the field of social work, Toseland is recognized as one of the most important contributors to empirical knowledge about group work. He is a member of the editorial boards of several prestigious social work and social science journals, and also serves on the highly selective research advisory board of the Institute for the Advancement of Social Work Research.

UAlbany's School of Social Welfare is ranked second in per capita scholarly productivity among the social work programs in the nation. The school's mission is to further social and economic justice and to serve people who are vulnerable, marginalized or oppressed. This mission is implemented through education, knowledge development, and service that promote leadership for evidence-based social work with a global perspective. As a recognized national and international leader in developing innovative and creative programs, along with facilitating public-private partnerships, the school has been able to attract premier students, providing them with an unsurpassed educational experience at the bachelor's, master's and doctoral level.