Taryn Lindhorst

Taryn Lindhorst, PhD, LCSW, is the Behar Professor and Director of the Center for Integrative Oncology and Palliative Care Social Work. Prior to receiving her doctorate in 2001, Dr. Lindhorst spent 15 years providing medical social work services in public health settings in New Orleans, Louisiana. She worked as an inpatient oncology and infectious disease social worker, hospice social worker, and bereavement counselor and as a manager of social work services in the HIV Outpatient Program at Charity Hospital in New Orleans. This work led her to focus broadly on issues of social justice and health equity, health care systems reform, violence against women and end-of-life care.

Dr. Lindhorst is a mixed methods scholar and her research has been honored with several national awards. She has been the principal investigator or co-PI on grants from the National Institute of Justice, National Institute of Mental Health, and the William T. Grant Foundation, along with serving as a co-investigator on 10 additional research grants. In addition to numerous journal articles, she has co-authored two books, The Safety Net Health Care System: Health Care at the Margins and Women and Children Seeking Safety: A Study of Domestic Violence and the International Hague Convention, which received the inaugural Social Work and Research Book Award in 2015.

Recently, she was ranked as one of the top 25 female scholars in social work.Dr. Lindhorst has received the UW Distinguished Teaching Award and was recognized for the originality and quality of her scholarship when she was selected to become a Fellow of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare (AASWSW), the pre-eminent honor society of the social work research profession.

As the Behar Professor for Integrative Oncology and Palliative Care Social Work, Dr. Lindhorst leads a center focused on training and research to promote health equity in cancer and end of life care. She is the head of the Carol LaMare Scholars program which provides MSW students with specialized educational and field placement opportunities in oncology, hospice and palliative care programs throughout the Seattle region. Dr. Lindhorst is also the concentration chair for the School's health practice sequence. She teaches advanced practice classes in health care in the MSW program, and theory and qualitative research methods in the doctoral program.