Tamara J. Cadet

Leadership PhD, LICSW, MPH Director, Program in Community Engagement Innovation, PC3I

Associate Professor, School of Social Policy and Practice

Associate Professor, Dental Medicine

Tamara J. Cadet, PhD, LICSW, MPH is the Director of the Program in Community Engagement Innovation at the Penn Center for Cancer Care Innovation (PC3I). She is an Associate Professor at the School of Social Policy and Practice. Dr. Cadet is a public health social work researcher who advances health equity by promoting health interventions and translating research to practice. Her work focuses on health disparities of older people, 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 reducing disparities in preventative health behaviors, and health care service utilization among vulnerable populations. Her work has a continuing focus on issues of health among the underresourced, underserved, and underrepresented which has earned her a place as a leading scholar in the arena of social work and public health.

She 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. 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.

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 is currently co-chairing 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 underserved and underrepresented populations.