Sara Czaja, Ph.D.

1975     B.S.   Honors Psychology, Magna Cum Laude
            State of New York College, Buffalo, NY

1976     M.S.   Industrial Engineering  
            State University of New York, Buffalo, NY

1980     Ph.D.   Industrial Engineering/Human Factors  
            State University of New York, Buffalo, NY

N/A

Sara J. Czaja is Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry &
Behavioral Sciences, and Industrial Engineering at the University of
Miami. She is also the Co-Director of the Center on Aging at the
University of Miami and the Director of the Center on Research and
Education for Aging and Technology Enhancement (CREATE).   CREATE is
funded by the National Institute on Aging and it involves collaboration with
the Georgia Institute of Technology and Florida State University. The
focus of CREATE is on making technology more accessible, useful, and
usable for older adult populations.

Dr. Czaja has extensive experience in aging research and a long
commitment to developing strategies to improve the quality of life for
older adults. Her research interests include: aging and cognition,
caregiving, human-computer interaction, training, and functional
assessment. Dr. Czaja is very well published in the field of aging and
has written numerous book chapters and scientific articles. She recently
co-authored a book with other members of the CREATE team concerning the
design of technology for older adult populations. In addition, she is
Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Human Factors
and Ergonomics Society, and the Gerontological Society of America. She is
the past chair of the Risk Prevention and Behavior Scientific Review
Panel of the National Institutes of Health.

Books and Book Chapters

Fisk AD, Rogers W, Charness N, Czaja SJ, Sharit J. Designing for Older Adults: Principles and Creative Human Factors Approach, 2nd ed. London: CRC Associates, 2009.

Czaja, S.J.  Ergonomics. In: Mezey M, Siegler G, Capezuti L, eds. The Encyclopedia of Elder Care, 2nd ed. New York: Springer; 2008:272-275.

Czaja SJ. Productivity and Age. In: Birren J, ed. Encyclopedia of Gerontology, 2nd ed. New York, NY: Elsevier Inc.; 2007:384-391.

Charness N, Czaja SJ, Sharit J. Age and technology for work. In: Shultz KS, Adams GA, eds. Aging and Work in the 21st century. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum; 2007:225-249.

Journal Articles

Lee C, Czaja SJ, Sharit J. Training older workers for a technology-based job. Educational Gerontology.  2009;35: 15-23.

Schulz R, Czaja SJ, Lustig A, Zdaniuk B, Martire LM, Perdomo D.  Improving the quality of life of caregivers of persons with spinal cord injury: A randomized controlled trial. Rehabilitation Psychology. 2009;54(1):1-15.

Czaja SJ, Sharit J, Nair SN. Usability of the Medicare health website.  JAMA.  2008;300(7):790-792.

Nichols LO, Chang C, Lummus A, Burns R, Martindale-Adams J, Graney MJ, Coon DW, Czaja SJ. The cost effectiveness of a behavior intervention with caregivers of Alzheimer's patients. Journal of American Geriatric Society. 2008;56(3):389-592.

Ownby R, Czaja SJ, Loewenstein D, Rubert M  Cognitive abilities that predict success in a computer-based training program. The Gerontologist.  2008;48(2):170-180.

Pak R, Czaja SJ, Sharit J, Rogers WA, Fisk AD.  The role of spatial abilities and age in performance in an auditory computer navigation task. Computers in Human Behavior.  2008;24:3045-3051.

Schulz R, McGinnis KA, Zhang S, Martire LM, Hebert RS, Beach SR, Zdaniuk B, Czaja SJ, Belle SH. (2008). Dementia Patient Suffering and Caregiver Depression. Alzheimer Disease & Associated Disorders.  2008;22(2):170-186.

Sharit J, Hernandez M, Czaja SJ, Pirolli P. Investigating the roles of knowledge and cognitive abilities in older adult information seeking on the Web. Transactions of Computer-Human Interaction.  2008;15(1):1-25.

Finkel S, Czaja SJ, Schulz R, Martinovich Z, Harris C, Pezzuto D. E-care: a telecommunications technology intervention for family caregivers of dementia patients. American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry. 2007;15(5):443-448.

Nair SN, Czaja SJ, Sharit J. A multilevel modeling approach to examining individual differences in skill acquisition for a computer-based task. Journals of Gerontology Series B-Psychological Sciences & Social Sciences. 2007;62 Spec No 1:85-96.

Schulz R, Hebert RS, Dew MA, Brown SL, Scheier MF, Beach SR, Czaja SJ,  Martire LM, Coon D, Langa KM, Gitlin LN, Stevens AB, Nichols L. Patient suffering and caregiver compassion: new opportunities for research, practice, and policy. Gerontologist. 2007;47(1):4-13.

Bank AL, Arguelles S, Rubert M, Eisdorfer C, Czaja SJ. The value of telephone support groups among ethnically diverse caregivers of persons with dementia. Gerontologist. 2006;46(1):134-138.

Belle SH, Burgio L, Burns R, Coon D, Czaja SJ, Gallagher-Thompson D, Gitlin LN, Klinger J, Koepke KM, Lee CC, Martindale-Adams J, Nichols L, Schulz R, Stahl S, Stevens A, Winter L, Zhang S. Resources for Enhancing Alzheimer's Caregiver Health (REACH) II Investigators. Enhancing the quality of life of dementia caregivers from different ethnic or racial groups: a randomized, controlled trial. Annals of Internal Medicine. 2006;145(10):727-738.

Czaja SJ, Charness N, Fisk AD, Hertzog C, Nair SN, Rogers WA, Sharit J. Factors predicting the use of technology: findings from the Center for Research and Education on Aging and Technology Enhancement (CREATE). Psychology & Aging. 2006;21(2):333-352.

Czaja SJ, Schulz R, Belle SH, Burgio LD, Armstrong N, Gitlin LN, Coon DW, Martindale-Adams J, Klinger J, Stahl SM. Data and safety monitoring in social behavioral intervention trials: the REACH II experience. Clinical Trials. 2006;3(2):107-118.

Mitrani VB, Lewis JE, Feaster DJ, Czaja SJ, Eisdorfer C, Schulz R, Szapocznik J. The role of family functioning in the stress process of dementia caregivers: a structural family framework. Gerontologist. 2006;46(1):97-105.

Mitrani VB, Feaster DJ, McCabe BE, Czaja SJ, Szapocznik J. Adapting the structural family systems rating to assess the patterns of interaction in families of dementia caregivers. Gerontologist. 2005;45(4):445-455.

Belle SH, Zhang S, Czaja SJ, Burns R, Schulz R. Use of cognitive enhancement medication in persons with Alzheimer disease who have a family caregiver: results from the Resources for Enhancing Alzheimer's Caregiver Health (REACH) project. American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry. 2004;12(3):250-257.

Loewenstein DA, Acevedo A, Czaja SJ, Duara R. Cognitive rehabilitation of mildly impaired Alzheimer disease patients on cholinesterase inhibitors. American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry. 2004;12(4):395-402.

Sharit J, Czaja SJ, Hernandez M, Yang Y, Perdomo D, Lewis JE, Lee CC, Nair S. An evaluation of performance by older persons on a simulated telecommuting task. Journals of Gerontology Series B-Psychological Sciences & Social Sciences. 2004;59(6):P305-316.

Schulz R, Belle SH, Czaja SJ, McGinnis KA, Stevens A, Zhang S. Long-term care placement of dementia patients and caregiver health and well-being. JAMA. 2004;292(8):961-967.