Shaping a career dedicated to healthy aging
HDFS alum Eric Cerino, PhD ’19, shares his path to a fulfilling career in human development and healthy aging research
Conversations with his grandfather and a desire to make a meaningful impact in his community inspired Eric Cerino to embark on a career focused on aging.
In 2019, Eric earned his PhD in human development and family sciences from Oregon State University’s College of Health. Today, he serves as an assistant professor at Northern Arizona University, where he leads the Healthy Aging Research Group, dedicated to promoting well-being across the adult lifespan.
What inspired you to choose a career in human development and family sciences?
My family inspired me to choose a career path that brought fulfillment to my everyday life and opportunities to make meaningful impact in our community.
My mom is a teacher, and I’ve always enjoyed learning from her and my dad as I grew up. My close relationship with my grandfather, Pop Pop, inspired me to pursue a career in aging – our frequent calls discussing strategies to promote healthy aging and build connections in our community continue to influence the work I pursue with my students and colleagues.
Internships and volunteer opportunities with a community center for older adults in Trumbull, Connecticut, and regional chapters of the Alzheimer’s Association in Connecticut and Oregon inspired me to continue my degree path at Oregon State.
My students continue to inspire me to pursue this line of research and community outreach moving forward in my career.
Why did you choose OSU’s HDFS PhD program?
I was drawn to OSU’s HDFS PhD program because of the interdisciplinary nature of its training and curriculum.
I was fortunate to have the opportunity to train as a National Science Foundation IGERT Trainee for my first two years in the program. This provided integrative graduate education and research training in aging sciences and created pivotal experiences in HDFS, gerontechnology, biochemistry and public health disciplines.
Tell us about your time at Oregon State and in the college. Is there someone or something who/that helped you be successful?
OSU’s HDFS program and the College of Health in general mean a great deal to me. There are too many people to name who helped me be successful to fit in one post!
My time at OSU taught me so much about how to pursue science with my heart as a compass that directs research questions with public health and community impact in mind.
My cohort provided inspiration, guidance, friendship and support in the five years I spent at OSU.
My co-advisors Karen Hooker and Rob Stawski provided unwavering support and constructive scaffolding to my professional and personal development. They both dedicated their time every week to help me grow as an academic and as an individual, and I’m so grateful to continue to learn from them today.
What challenges did you overcome during your academic journey?
I overcame the challenges associated with a long-distance relationship for a few years with my partner, who was still living in Connecticut at the time I moved to Oregon. It was a challenge that taught us both about finding shared goals and supporting one another through the steps required to achieve those goals.
I also learned how to embrace the growth opportunities academia and doctoral training often present. When the first manuscript I submitted for publication was rejected by my top-choice journal, Karen Hooker gave me a handwritten uplifting note that helped me make sense of the experience.
Beyond the adages of normalizing the experience of rejection in academia, Karen used a card with a Winston Churchill quote on the front that read, “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.”
In addition to the quote’s relevance for our work as lifespan developmental scientists interested in studying change over time, this quote stays close to my heart every day as I have the incredible opportunity to mentor students in my own lab at Northern Arizona University with this message at its foundation.
Were you involved in any organizations or clubs when on campus?
I was involved in Carolyn Aldwin’s Gerontology Club (now the Healthy Aging Club) on campus and the Willamette Valley regional chapter of the Oregon Alzheimer’s Association.
I really enjoyed participating in these organizations and clubs for the opportunity to apply what we learned in the program to the community. I have fond memories of tabling at the Corvallis Farmers Market for the Alzheimer’s Association with other doctoral students and sharing brain health resources with community members.
What is your current position? What do you love about your career in healthy aging?
I am an assistant professor in Northern Arizona University’s Department of Psychological Sciences and affiliate faculty in NAU’s interdisciplinary health PhD program.
I love the opportunity to connect with students and colleagues who share a similar passion for promoting health and well-being as people in our community grow older.
My favorite parts about my career include seeing graduate students apply their passion and hard work to develop their own research questions and seeing lightbulb moments happen in undergraduate classrooms when an idea resonates with students.
Our Healthy Aging Lab at NAU is composed of undergraduate and graduate students dedicated to promoting health and well-being across the adult lifespan, as well as age inclusivity in our community through local outreach and advocacy efforts. Together, we pursue a multi-faceted program of empirical research examining psychosocial and cognitive health processes in everyday life across the adult lifespan.
We take an intraindividual variability approach in this research using innovative, intensive, repeated measurement designs, such as ecological momentary assessments, daily diaries and measurement bursts, to identify psychosocial determinants of cognitive health and early behavioral markers of cognitive decline and impairment.
How did OSU’s HDFS program prepare you for what you are doing now?
Oregon State HDFS faculty are role models who I learned from while I was in the program and continue to learn from in my current faculty position. I often think back to lessons learned from Karen and Rob when mentoring my own students at NAU.
Additionally, the interdisciplinary training situated within the College of Health prepared me to collaborate across disciplines and mentor a wide range of students.
My current PhD student, Gillian Porter in NAU’s interdisciplinary health PhD program, has a committee with a chair in the Psychological Sciences Department and committee members from the departments of Social Work, Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy. The training I received at OSU gave me the experiences needed to lead this committee and help guide Gillian across milestones in her doctoral training.
If someone was considering getting a PhD in HDFS to progress their career, what would you tell them?
I would enthusiastically tell them that a PhD in HDFS at OSU provides an unparalleled offering of strong methodological and statistical training, theoretical and conceptual foundations to research questions, and impactful scholarship opportunities with community impact and public health relevance.
This question brings me back to a conversation I recently had with Chloe Horowitz, an emerging scholar who just graduated from our master’s program in psychological sciences at NAU. In one of our weekly meetings after her first year of master’s training, we were discussing what kinds of PhD programs might be a good fit for her academic identity, research interests and professional goals.
Thinking of these three points outlined above, it brought me so much joy and fulfillment to know that OSU’s HDFS program was the perfect fit for Chloe to learn the tools necessary for her to promote health and well-being for as many individuals as possible through a strengths-based resiliency framework.
Chloe is now a first-year doctoral student in OSU’s HDFS program, and I am excited for her to experience all that the program has to offer!
Anything else you’d like to add?
I’m grateful for everything OSU’s HDFS program offered to me and my cohort. I have friends and mentors for life who began in the program, and I hope for as many other students to enjoy the program’s benefits for years to come.
Learn what other PhD HDFS graduates are doing with their advanced degrees.
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