Jill Chonody, now a professor in the School of Social Work, was a first generation college student who did not start on a specific academic path. However, over the last 25 years, Chonody has dedicated her life to helping others in many capacities. Chonody earned her Master of Social Work at the University of Southern Indiana and began working as an outpatient psychotherapist for seven years before attaining her doctorate at Florida State University.
Chonody currently teaches classes in the graduate program at Boise State University and is in her seventh year as a faculty member, she states “It’s good here; it’s my favorite place that I’ve worked.”
Chonody’s research interests were originally focused on the concept of bias.
“I am really interested in studying biases and how we address those at a social and educational level,” Chonody said. Starting out studying biases towards the LGBTQ community, she transitioned towards a different bias by studying ageism.
Barbara Teater, Chonody’s close friend and a social work professor at the City University of New York, tweeted a paper that they had recently published together when Elissa Burton, faculty of health sciences at Curtin University in Perth, Australia, reached out to collaborate and replicate their study in Australia. Over 2,000 people participated in this study from different countries around the world. Chonody used open-ended questions to see what the research participants meant, leading her to a participant-oriented perspective and avoiding her own research biases.
The Gerontologist, a journal with one of the highest impact factors for the field, published the research. From there, a new project was born and Chonody and her colleagues received a grant to continue their research. By looking for themes in the previously collected answers, the team is developing a website that will provide older adults an educational program to help them maintain their health and well-being. Users will read materials, complete activities, take quizzes and utilize other resources to learn more about their health and social life. The goal is to facilitate contentment and engagement in their life, particularly through social connections with friends, pets, family, and society.
Aside from research and publications, Chonody is in the process of writing her third book, which is specifically targeted towards social work instructors and involves creative ways to engage students in the classroom. Leaning towards nontraditional models, Chonody’s first book entailed using art as a social work practice while her second was a textbook on aging. Her accomplishments led to Chonody being invited back to her alma mater in 2015 where she gave the commencement address for all the graduate students graduating that year.
Chonody recently traveled to Ireland and gave a presentation on a paper she worked on with two Boise State graduate students, which was an analysis of films with older people as the main characters to see if ageism and sexism has changed over the years. This paper has been accepted for publication in the International Journal of Aging and Later Life.