UCF Nursing Aging Expert Named National Fellow

Florida Blue Endowed Professor for Healthy Communities Ladda Thiamwong has been selected as fellow of the Gerontological Society of America, the nation’s oldest and largest interdisciplinary organization focused on aging.

She is among 47 experts from across the U.S. named to the 2025 class for outstanding contributions to the field. The newest fellows will be formally recognized during the organization’s 2025 annual scientific meeting in mid-November in Boston.

For more than 20 years, Thiamwong has dedicated her clinical practice and research on promoting healthy aging and preventing falls — the second leading cause of unintentional injuries and deaths worldwide.

Her research findings have been presented at more than 100 national and international conferences and published in more than 100 peer-reviewed journals. She has been awarded more than $7 million in funding to date.

In her native Thailand she developed the healthy aging instrument to assess processes involved in healthy aging. The instrument is available in seven languages and used in nine research institutions around the world.

She is currently leading an interdisciplinary team of experts at UCF to develop a technology- and community-based approach to fall prevention. The innovative intervention is being piloted through a $2.3 million grant and partnership with the City of Orlando.

At UCF, where she’s been on faculty since 2016, Thiamwong leads a healthy aging lab, which seeks to empower older adults to cultivate their capacity to cope with challenges.

Thiamwong has also been honored as a fellow of both the American Academy of Nursing and National Academies of Practice and recognized as a Distinguished Educator in Gerontological Nursing by the National Hartford Center of Gerontological Nursing Excellence.

In addition to her faculty appointment, Thiamwong shares her expertise as an appointed member of the City of Orlando Mayor’s Committee on Livability and Healthy Aging and a section editor for Aging Matters in the Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services.