Professor Utz completed her PhD in Sociology from the University of Michigan in 2004. Before that, she completed a Master degree in gerontology (long term care administration) from Miami University, and worked as an applied research associate in Washington DC. She has been a faculty member at the University of Utah since 2004. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and has an adjunct appointment in the College of Nusing. She also serves as Director of the 'Health Society & Policy' program (an interdisciplinary undergradaute degree), Co-Director of the Consortium for Families & Health Research, and senior faculty associate for the "Family Caregiving Collaborative."
In the classroom, she teaches both undergraduate and graduate students how to be better consumers and producers of researchers (research methods). She also teaches courses related to epidemiology, population studies, and families & health. She has mentored countless students, and takes great pride in providing hands-on advising so students can learn to be independent researchers.
Current research interests center around her broad interdisciplinary interests in the health and aging of the American population. She is most interested in how families manage end-of-life and chronic disease care transitions. This includes work in the areas of both bereavement/widowhood and family caregiving. Her current research interests are focused on the development and testing of a self-administered, online intervention for caregivers to persons with Alzheimer's Disease & Related Dementia aimed at maximizing the benefit of respite time use.
She enjoys living in Utah, with her husband and two daughters.
Research Statement
I am a life course sociologist, embracing the interdisciplinary traditions of demography and gerontology. My substantive research focuses on issues of health and aging in America. More specifically, I am interested in how families cope with the end-of-life experience, including widowhood and caregiving. I am also interested in how families manage chronic conditions and familial health risks of their family, with a particular interest in caregivers to persons with Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias. My work has involved primary data collection (surveys & qualitative interviews), creation and implementation of intervention studies, and statistical analysis of large population-based data sets.