Denise Scruggs is the Director of the innovative and award-winning Beard Center on Aging in the College of Health Sciences at the University of Lynchburg. She holds a bachelor’s degree in social work and masters’ degrees in counselor’s education and criminology.

Denise has spent over twenty years in higher education. She has been responsible for teaching gerontology courses, conducting student leadership and aging sensitivity training, coordinating a state-wide conference on aging, offering continuing education programs for health care professionals, and providing leadership for a sixty-agency Consortium on Aging.

In addition, she has over twenty years of leadership experience in long-term care and senior services, including managing a memory care unit and conducting in-service training and family caregiver education. Her expertise spans caregiving, elder abuse, leadership development, education, person-centered care, aging sensitivity training, and relationship-building. Denise is a post-acute care certified instructor for the PAC-CSE program.