Taryn Lindhorst—School of Social Work Carol LaMare Associate Professor—is the 2014 recipient the Social Work Hospice & Palliative Care Network Award of Excellence in Research and Education. The award recognizes Lindhorst’s career-long devotion to advancing palliative social work training and education, as well as her celebrated scholarship, strengthening the field’s knowledge base and reach. She is also distinguished for building an infrastructure of support and collaborative partnerships that will benefit future graduates in medical social work.
Lindhorst chairs the School’s MSW health-practice concentration, developed the practice curriculum, and teaches core courses. She has played a key role in developing a new MSW course on life-limiting illness. As an expert in mixed methods research, she teaches an interdisciplinary, doctoral-level methods course on qualitative research design.
Lindhorst is a also member of the leadership team of the University of Washington Palliative Care Center of Excellence—one of few centers in the country that focus on the development of clinicians, educators and researchers adept in work with people facing serious illness or who are at the end of life. Says Randall Curtis, her colleague and center director: “Dr. Lindhorst is a true example of the interdisciplinary, practice-based scholar and educator. She has depth in her own field and is able to use her knowledge to educate others across a variety of practice areas to advance the field of palliative social work.”