Donna Benton
Delivered on April 2, 1998 by Donna Benton, PhD
Donna Benton, PhD is an assistant research professor of gerontology at the University of Southern California (USC) Andrus Gerontology Center. She is currently the co-director of the Research Training, and Information Transfer Core of the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at USC. She has served as co-convener of the Mental Health Practice Interest Group for the Gerontological Society of America. In addition she was Chair of the Ombudsman Blue Ribbon Committee at WISE senior services. Dr. Benton has presented numerous lectures, workshops, training projects and conferences on ethnic issues in elder abuse and neglect. She is the author of over twenty articles, book chapters, and books published in the United States and abroad. Her most recent works include a presentation on "Treatments for older battered women" at the American Society on Aging, 1996 national conference. She has served as a consultant for the Los Angeles County, Area Agency on Aging. As a consultant, she developed a risk assessment form for elder abuse to be used by the county social service programs and worked on designing and implementing the nationally recognized fiduciary abuse specialist team (FAST).
Dr. Benton received her B.A. from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, and her PhD from the California School of Professional Psychology-Los Angeles in clinical psychology. She received a post-doctoral fellowship from the National Institute of Aging for study in geropsychology at the University of Southern California-Rancho Los Amigos Gerontology Center. She worked as a research associate for UCLA-NPI on a five year study of aging and immunity and as a researcher with the Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center at the Veterans Administration, Sepulveda.