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School of Public Health

Biography

Mara Getz Sheftel, Ph.D. is an instructor in the Department of Health Behavior, Society, and Policy at Rutgers School of Public Health. She is also a member of the Rutgers University Institute for Health, Health Policy and Aging. Dr. Sheftel is part of the scientific leadership team of the New Jersey Population Health Cohort Study and the Center for State Health Policy. She was previously a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Population Research Institute at Pennsylvania State University working in the Crossnational Aging Research Lab. Dr. Sheftel has a Ph.D. in Sociology from the CUNY Graduate Center.

Research Interests

Dr. Sheftel is a sociologist and demographer who uses a life course perspective to study new drivers of stratification for aging adults in three domains: (1) distinct structural and social determinants of health, (2) rising socioeconomic stratification and occupational segregation, and (3) changing family structure and intergenerational support. Currently, Dr. Getz Sheftel is a co-investigator on a National Institute on Aging (NIA) R01 (PI: Jennifer Van Hook, Penn State) investigating how immigrant legal status exposures impact the health and wellbeing of older (50+) Latino immigrants.

Dr. Sheftel has an interdisciplinary background spanning sociology, demography, public policy and international studies and her research is aimed at informing policies and services to improve population health and functioning for older adults. Her scholarship has been published in Demography, Population Research & Policy Review, The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, and Socius among other peer-reviewed publications. With a background in mentorship and service-learning, Dr. Sheftel is an experienced and enthusiastic educator.