Jooyoung Kong

Dr. Jooyoung Kong is an Associate Professor at the Sandra Rosenbaum School of Social Work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. With a PhD from Boston College, her research utilizes a life course perspective to examine the long-term impacts of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) on health, family caregiving, and elder abuse victimization.

Her scholarship focuses on critical intersections, including the complex dynamics of intergenerational caregiving—particularly when individuals provide support to parents who were sources of their childhood adversity. She employs advanced longitudinal methodologies to explore how early-life experiences contribute to cumulative disadvantages over time, a program of research supported by a K01 Mentored Research Scientist Career Development Award from the National Institute on Aging (NIA).

Dr. Kong has published extensively in premier journals such as The Journals of Gerontology, Journal of Marriage and Family, and Child Abuse and Neglect. She is an active leader in the field, serving as an editorial board member for Research on Aging and Journal of Loss and Trauma. In 2025, she was honored with the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Boston College School of Social Work. Beyond her research, she is a dedicated educator at UW-Madison, where she maintains affiliations with the Center for Demography of Health and Aging (CDHA), the Institute on Aging, and the Institute for Research on Poverty.