Arden O’Donnell, MPH, M.S.W., LICSW, APHSW-C, Ph.D. candidate

Arden O’Donnell is an alum of the Smith College School for Social Work M.S.W. program and a current doctoral student at Boston University. She is a palliative care social worker by training and has more than 15 years’ experience in palliative care both nationally and internationally, beginning with her work with HIV/AIDS patients in the United States and in Africa.

O’Donnell is in the last year of the Ph.D. program; her dissertation focuses on social work’s role in the cultivation of prognostic awareness in patients with serious life-limiting illnesses. She is also doing research at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and looking at the impact of COVID-19 on adults living in public housing. She is the founder of Coalition for Courage, a nonprofit based in Zimbabwe that provides educational and psychosocial support for HIV orphans.