معرفی
Kang Sun serves as Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Work within the College of Human and Behavioral Sciences at Southern Illinois University, joining the faculty in 2024 after completing his Ph.D. in Social Work at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research examines aging, grandparenting, and intergenerational care dynamics with particular attention to rural contexts, technology integration, and health disparities.
Dr. Sun's educational background includes:
- Ph.D. in Social Work, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2023)
His scholarly work investigates how migration patterns influence informal care burdens and employs culture-centered methodologies to analyze structural issues in health communication. Current projects focus on aging and grandparenting within Southern Illinois communities, extending his established research on rural China's socioeconomic transformations and family care systems.
Analysis of Dr. Sun's publication record reveals three dominant research trajectories: (1) chronic disease management and preventive care utilization among midlife/older adults with emphasis on depression's mediating role, (2) innovative simulation-based pedagogy in social work education, and (3) cross-cultural examinations of family care structures in rural China amid migration and economic change. His interdisciplinary approach bridges public health, gerontology, and social work practice.
Committed to experiential learning, Dr. Sun integrates hands-on research methods and critical thinking into his teaching of research methodology, program evaluation, and aging-related courses. He emphasizes library research skills and academic writing to develop students' research competencies, as reflected in his publications on simulation-based education techniques.
