R. Turner Goins received her BA in Psychology from East Carolina University and her MS and PhD in Gerontology from the University of Massachusetts-Boston. In 1998, she completed a two year National Institutes of Aging’s research post-doctoral fellowships at Duke University’s Medical Center with an emphasis in Epidemiology. She was faculty at West Virginia University’s School of Medicine and Oregon State University’s School of Public Health and Human Development before coming to Western Carolina University in 2013. Dr. Goins is the Ambassador Jeanette Hyde Distinguished Professor in the Department of Social Work, College of Health and Human Sciences.     Read More

For the last 20 years, Dr. Goins’s research has focused on American Indian and Alaska Native aging-related issues. She has had the pleasure of working with many tribal communities across the U.S. in the area of elder health although her longest collaborative relationship has been with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Dr. Goins’s research adopts a community-based participatory research approach, wherein her research examines issues of local importance. In 2018, she was a J. William Fulbright Scholar at the University of Auckland for six months which allowed her to examine physical and cognitive health issues among older Māori. Dr. Goins has received over 5.7 million dollars in support of her research program, including funding by the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Health Resources and Services Administration, the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, the National Council on Aging, the Reed Foundation, and the Cherokee Preservation Foundation. She is a fellow in the Gerontological Society of America and served as the President of the Southern Gerontological Society (2016-17). To date, she has published her research in 82 peer reviewed journal manuscripts, 6 books and book chapters, and 9 research reports.