Dr. Amy Lorek

This month we had Dr. Amy Lorek as our guest speaker. She is the Assistant Research Professor in Penn State's Center for Healthy Aging, located on the fourth floor of the Biobehavioral Health Building. Dr. Lorek started by explaining the Center for Healthy Aging as a place where a lot of research takes place and has many different focus areas. Often, there is a lot of work done in the community in order to collect data for the labs. Dr. Lorek does a lot of community outreach herself as well as networking opportunities. She focuses on getting the information found in labs and in journals and sharing it with the community. There are several internships available in high-end retirement communities and Dr. Lorek is a great contact when looking for more information, usually around January is the best time to ask about them. This upcoming year, they are offering a stipend and living expenses wherever the facility is located. She welcomes any questions about the opportunities available. Her next topic was the Gerontology Club in the Center for Healthy Aging. Many students use the club as a good break from schoolwork and enjoying spending time and playing games with the elderly in the community. The Friend Services for the Aging is the best place to look for more information on this club. She also wanted to emphasize how important to be informed about how our actions today will impact us in the future. An initiative Dr. Lorek is currently doing a project where she works on getting the elderly more involved after retirement. Many older people still want to be active after they retire and these activities include going to undergraduate classes, learning about being an adult, and fun outings like visiting the arboretum at Penn State. There are generational differences that are becoming more prominent in the workforce and learning how to interact with people of different ages will be very helpful in a career. She ended by giving handouts about class opportunities and her email, amylorek@psu.edu. We are very lucky to have gained insights from Dr. Amy Lorek during our meeting on November, 4th 2019.