Dr. Cadet has a motto: “if she is not thinking about a client or patient, then she has forgotten the most important part of conducting research.” This commitment to clients and patients permeates every aspect of her research. This translates to her desire to more than ensure that communities will benefit from her innovative and impactful research but that students will learn about evidence-based practices that support populations. It is ultimately about ensuring that her research, teaching, and service are intertwined to make meaningful differences.
Dr. Cadet brings more than 25 years of practice experience in many capacities and settings to her research and teaching. Dr. Cadet has worked in the fields of substance use, adoption, mental health, health care, schools, and oncology with children, adults, families, and older adults, as both a social worker and as a community organizer. As part of her doctoral training at Simmons College (now Simmons University) School of Social Work, she learned to view her clinical experiences through a scientific lens and developed an interest in conducting qualitative and quantitative research. Her overall research focus is to advance efforts to develop health promotion interventions with and for populations and communities, and to translate research to practice. Her current work focuses on the health of older adults, particularly around cancer screening and cancer care. Her work is at the intersection of health and social work, spanning the areas of evidence-based health promotion interventions, facilitators and barriers to engaging in preventative health behaviors, and health care service utilization among populations. Dr. Cadet has received funding or research support from the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities, National Cancer Institute, National Institute on Aging and the Heath Resources Services Administration.
Her work has a continuing focus on issues of health among populations and communities which has earned her a place as a leading scholar in the arena of social work and public health. As such, she was appointed in 2018 to the “Integrating Social Care into Heath Care Delivery System” committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine Committee. She has co-chaired the Council on Social Work Education’s Health Curricular Guide. Dr. Cadet received her BA from Tufts University and her MSW and MPH from Boston University. In sum, she consistently aims to ensure that she is a change agent at the clinical, macro, policy, and organizational levels using her national reputation and her excellence in teaching to increase the quality of life with populations and communities.
