Previous SOGIE Award Winners

2023 Award Recipients 

Utilization of Recommended Preventive Health Screenings Between Transgender and Cisgender Older Adults in Sexual and Gender Minority Communities

Charles P. Hoy-Ellis, PhD, MSW, LICSW, is a clinician-researcher with more than 2 decades of experience providing clinical social work services to the LGBTQ+ community. His scholarship focuses on the health and well-being of LGBTQ+ individuals, families, and communities, particularly midlife and older adults. He seeks to develop, implement, and evaluate culturally sensitive interventions that address the social determinants of health disparities among marginalized communities, physical, mental, and social. He also has more than a decade of experience as an educator, teaching reflexive social work practice and advanced social work practice with older adults. He currently serves as the Training Coordinator for the translational research unit of the Goldsen Institute, the AgePride Center, which provides trainings on best practices for providing culturally responsive, evidence-based care for LGBTQ+ older adults. As a Research Scientist, Dr. Hoy-Ellis also directs the intervention research unit of the Goldsen Institute—Interventions for Underserved Communities (IDEA). Based on findings from the federally funded ongoing longitudinal Aging With Pride: National Health, Aging, and Sexuality/Gender Study, the basic science research unit of the Goldsen Institute, Dr. Hoy-Ellis is currently focused on piloting randomized control trial interventions for LGBTQ+ older adults experiencing dementia— Innovations in Dementia Empowerment and Action (IDEA). 


Karen Fredriksen-Goldsen, PhD, is Professor and Director of the Goldsen Institute at the University of Washington, School of Social Work. Professor Fredriksen-Goldsen is a nationally and internationally recognized scholar addressing health equity, disparities, resilience, aging, and well-being among underserved populations. She is the principal investigator of many landmark studies, including Aging With Pride (R01): National Health, Aging, and Sexuality/Gender Study (NHAS), the first federally-funded longitudinal study of LGBTQ midlife and older adults; Innovations in Dementia Empowerment and Action (IDEA, R01), Wellness With Pride, and Global Pride Study as well as multiple other funded studies that identify factors accounting for health trajectories and longevity to create innovative solutions to complex social issues. Dr. Fredriksen Goldsen is the author of six books and special issues and more than 100 publications in leading journals. Her research has been cited by top news sources such as the New York Times, Washington Post, U.S. News & World Report, CNN, NBC News, and more than 75 international news outlets. Based on the ground-breaking nature of her work, she has received many awards, including the inaugural National Institutes of Health’s Sexual & Gender Minority Distinguished Investigator Award, PBS’s Next Avenue’s inaugural Top 50 Influencers in Aging, Gerontological Society of America’s Maxwell A. Pollack Award for Healthy Aging, and the UW-wide Distinguished Teaching Award. She is a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America and the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare. 


Hyun-Jun Kim, PhD is a research assistant professor at the School of Social Work, University of Washington, serving as the director of Health and Wellness Research at the School’s Goldsen Institute. Dr. Kim’s primary research interests center around health and social inequities faced by disadvantaged older adults, including examining disparities in physical, mental, and cognitive health and quality of life, the intersectionality of sexuality, gender, race, and ethnicity, and the roles of social exclusion, social isolation, and support networks as risk and protective factors. He also aims to translate findings to develop and implement interventions designed to improve health and well-being of historically and socially marginalized populations. He has served as co-investigator of multiple landmark studies including Aging With Pride: National Health, Aging, and Sexuality/Gender Study (NHAS) and Innovations in Dementia, Empowerment and Action (IDEA), funded by the National Institutes of Health and National Institute on Aging. He has served as Multiple PI on Care Network-IDEA, pilot-testing an intervention to improve quality of life for LGBTQ+ older adults experiencing memory loss without a caregiver. Currently, he is also researching variations in social isolation and social and kin relations among older adults by sexuality, gender, race, and ethnicity and how they are associated with healthcare access and cognitive health interplaying with social exclusion, stress, and other health-promoting and adverse factors.