Dr. Charnetta Gadling Cole earned her Ph.D. from Howard University School of Social Work. She received her Master of Social Work from the University of South Carolina and Bachelors of Psychology from Johnson C. Smith University. She has served as a fellow at the National Institute of Health, a scholar at the Michigan Center for Urban African American Aging Research and as a Frederick Douglass Visiting Scholar at West Chester University. She holds secondary appointments as a Scientist in the UAB Center for Aging, Center for AIDS Research, Center for Outcomes and Effectiveness Research and Education and the Minority Health and Health Disparities Research Center for which she completed the health disparity research training program. She is a Scholar in the UAB Center for Palliative and Supportive Care and also serves as the assistant director for the UAB Office of Global Social Service Research. Dr. Gadling-Cole has conducted international research for persons living with HIV/AIDS and their Caregivers in Kenya, Haiti and South Africa. She has served as the CO-PI of a research project funded through the UAB Minority International Health Research Training Program, Gender Based Violence Among HIV Positive Women in Kenya, and is currently the PI of a development grant funded through the Center for AIDS Research, A Culturally Competent Family Group Conferencing Intervention for Persons Living with HIV/AIDS in Alabama's Black Belt.  She primarily conducts research and publishes in the areas of gerontology, caregiving and international social work.