Dr. Desirée Ciambrone

Desirée Ciambrone received her B.A. from our very own Rhode Island College and her M.A and Ph.D. in Sociology from Brown University.

Prior to coming to Rhode Island College in 2003, Dr. Ciambrone was awarded an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) postdoctoral fellowship for 1999-2002 at Brown University’s Center for Gerontology and Health Care Research. She then held a faculty research position at Center for Gerontology. During this time, Dr. Ciambrone was awarded a National Institute on Aging grant to study treatment and surveillance decisions among older women with breast cancer.

Dr. Ciambrone's areas of interest include medical sociology, social gerontology, gender and qualitative methods. She has published over a dozen articles in scholarly journals on topics including women with HIV, older women with breast cancer and informal caregiving/social support. She has also published a book based on her doctoral research entitled Women's Experiences with HIV/AIDS: Mending Fractured Selves, and co-edited Experiencing Aging: A Social Gerontology reader.

Dr. Ciambrone enjoys teaching courses in gerontology, sociology of health and illness, gender, and sociological theory. She is also proud to be the faculty advisor for emPOWER a newly formed student club to peer educate young women about objectification and sexual violence.