Susan Bodnar-Deren, Ph.D.
Research Scientist in Perinatal Mental Health
Email: smbodnar@vcu.edu
Dr. Bodnar-Deren is a medical sociologist whose research focuses on the life course and social determinants of health and health behaviors, and the ways that macro social factors affect individual-level health and well-being. Broadly, her research interests take a life course perspective in the areas of environmental gerontology, applied sociology, health /illness, and social psychology all within medical sociology, but her work spans various sub-disciplines, including behavioral health, health disparities, and social policy. She earned her Ph.D. in Sociology from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and is currently an Associate Professor and Chair of Sociology at VCU and an Affiliate Researcher at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Prior to coming to VCU, she was a postdoctoral fellow at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Excellence Fellow at the Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research at Rutgers University.
Among the courses that she teaches are: Medical Sociology (undergraduate and graduate), Sociology of Aging and the Life Course (undergrad and grad), Sociology of Mental Disorder, and Senior Seminar.
Her research focuses on two distinct areas of the life course – maternal reproductive years and older age (and the end-of-life). In both areas of her research, the projects on which she works seek to illuminate the links between individual and environmental factors that affect health beliefs and behaviors.