He researches ways people and design decisions intersect at experiential and systemic levels. His recent work explores how co-creating end-of-life choices with stakeholders can facilitate meaningful decision-making resources and tools; ways multiple intelligence theories can be applied to facilitate learning necessary for addressing complex problems; and how rhetoric and semantics in design affect aspirations and goals. Dennis is a Scripps Gerontology Center Research Fellow and his current research work is a transdisciplinary research project titled Living Values that focuses on end-of-life choices and advance care planning for underserved populations in southern Ohio and northern Kentucky.