Dr. Eckert's specialization in social gerontology and medical anthropology includes current work on the health, long-term care, and social adjustment of older people. In 1992, he received a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellowship Award. The following year, he was awarded a Senior Research Fellowship, National Service Research Award, from the National Institute on Aging to study the culture of caregiving among providers of board-and-care services. He is currently the Co-Principal Investigator on a new four-year award from the National Institute on Aging (in cooperation with the University of Maryland, Baltimore School of Medicine) to study the medical and functional outcomes for elderly living in nursing homes and residential care settings. He has published three books, including Small Board and Care Homes: Residential Care in Transition (with L. Morgan and S. Lyon)(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), and 35 articles. Over the past several years, he has become interested in the effects of electronic technologies on culture and society and developed a course "Cyberspace, Culture & Society."