About Dr. Wharton

I am a clinician-scientist, with a focus on community-engaged outcomes.

For 3 years, I served with the National Network of Public Health Institutes as the Principal Research Scientist for the Washington D.C. office. As a federal contractor and implementation partner, my team and I brought communities together across 208 counties in 45 languages to identify community-based solutions and actions for health equity. Please check out the Guide to Advancing Health Equity that our team published together.

Previous to joining NNPHI, I was a tenured Associate Professor of Social Work and Coordinator of the Social Work/ Public Affairs PhD at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, with a secondary joint appointment to the UCF College of Medicine and affiliate appointment to the Disability, Aging, & Technology Faculty Cluster. I am a founding organizer and the lead for the Behavioral Health team for the nationally recognized UCF Community Outreach clinic in Apopka, and a Behavioral Health team partner for the UCF/UF Interprofessional Education steering team, where I served as lead for 6 years. The FL-REACH/ TeleREACH project was implemented with UCF- take a look at the page for more info!

Prior to my work as a faculty member at the University of Central Florida, and three years as the Principal Research Scientist in the D.C. office of NNPHI, I was in Michigan, Alabama, England, and further back- New England.

I completed a NIH/NIMH funded Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Michigan Medical School. I hold a PhD in Social Work (University of Alabama) with a minor in intervention research. I hold Masters degrees in Social Work (Health focus; University of Michigan), Social Welfare (Evidence-based Social Intervention; University of Oxford), and Psychology (Marriage & Family Therapy; Cambridge College), and a Bachelors degree in Psychology (Family & Community Systems; Cambridge College). My full curriculum vitae is available on the research page of this website.

I received honours for my work in large-scale intervention designs at Oxford. Adjunct to training, I apprenticed with clinical psychologist Marguerite Malone, PhD, to learn equine facilitated psychotherapy and learning techniques.

During my postdoctoral fellowship, I was affiliated with the Department of Geriatric Psychiatry & the Program for Positive Aging at the University of Michigan Medical School, and with the VA- Center for Clinical Management Research/ HSR&D Center of Excellence. I served as a program evaluator with the Geriatric Research Education and Counseling Center (GRECC) at the Ann Arbor VA, and a Senior Research Specialist in the Dept of Geriatric and Palliative Medicine in Internal Medicine at University of Michigan Health Care System. My year-long MSW internship was with the multidisciplinary Inpatient Geriatric Consultation Team at the University of Michigan Hospital, where I rounded three days a week with some of the leading geriatric physicians and specialists in the country, and provided specialized social work services to geriatric inpatients, families, and caregivers.

I was a Lecturer for the School of Social Work at the University of Michigan, where I taught macro courses, and was a faculty member at Cherry Hill Seminary in the United States, where I taught graduate level courses online in the pastoral counseling track on Compassion Fatigue, Foundations in Counseling, & Research and Evaluation.

Prior to my positions at UMich, I was the Program Director for the Alabama Resources for Enhancing Alzheimer’s Caregiver Health (REACH-OUT) project, which won the Rosalyn Carter Institute Leadership in Caregiving Award in 2007, and a consultant for the North Carolina state implementation of the REACH project, where I provided implementation training to social workers across the state. 

I previously worked as a marriage and family therapist with MSPCC in Massachusetts, Community Counseling Center in Rhode Island and as the Family-Based Service Coordinator for the Cape & Islands child protective region of Massachusetts.