Dr. Block is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Utah College of Nursing, where her research focuses on improving care for nursing home residents, particularly those living with dementia and experiencing unmet palliative and behavioral health needs. Her work is grounded in her experience as a long-term care nurse, where she observed the complex biopsychosocial challenges residents and families face at the end of life. She uses mixed methods approaches, combining large-scale data analysis with qualitative inquiry to identify patterns in resident symptoms and inform strategies to improve care delivery. Her current research examines indicators of palliative care need and seeks to develop resident- and family-centered interventions that integrate palliative and behavioral health perspectives to improve symptom management at the end of life, supported by funding from the National Institute on Aging and institutional awards.