Susan Hickman, PhD, is a geropsychologist, Professor in the Indiana University (IU) School of Nursing and IU School of Medicine, Cornelius and Yvonne Pettinga Chair in Aging Research, and Director of the IU Center for Aging Research at Regenstrief Institute, Inc.. She has been educating and conducting research on advance care planning and end-of-life decision making with a focus on the nursing facility since 1998.

Dr. Hickman is currently the Co-Principal Investigator on a National Institute on Aging pragmatic randomized clinical trial to evaluate an advance care planning program for the caregivers of nursing home residents with Alzheimer’s Disease and related dementias as well as a bioethics supplement to explore family experiences with these conversations. Dr. Hickman is also a co-investigator on two trials that include advance care planning interventions and recently completed a study evaluating the quality of advance care planning decisions in the nursing facility setting by assessing concordance between current preferences and existing documentation.