UC Berkeley Faculty Engaged in
Basic and Applied Research on Aging

The following Berkeley faculty are engaged in basic and applied research on aging. To contact a faculty member on campus, call the general information number at (510) 642-6000 and ask for the individual by name. Most of the schools and departments listed below are linked to this page.


Anthropology

Lawrence Cohen

• Theorizing age in social theory
• Culture, subjectivity and dementia
• Global politics of old age
  History of senility from dotage to dementia

Architecture

Galen Cranz

• Residential environmental quality and aging

Demography
and
The Center on the Economics and Demography of Aging

Ronald Lee

• Demographic forecasting
• Analysis of intergenerational transfers
• Training in the demography and economics of aging
• Fiscal impacts of population aging
• Evolution of aging

Kenneth Wachter

• Workshop: Estimating the limits to human life expectancy

Shripad Tuljapurkar

• Stochastic projections of population dynamics, Social Security

John R. Wilmoth

• History of human longevity
• Mortality forecasting
• Rate of aging and models of mortality
• Exceptional longevity

Economics

Alan Auerbach

• Long-run aspects of fiscal policy, generational accounting, social insurance

David Card

• Retirement

Ted Keeler

• Hospital rates and regulation: Do Medicare patients pay their way?

Daniel McFadden

• Economics of aging: Savings behavior, demographic trends, housing mobility, dynamic of health and mortality
  

Haas School of Business

Jonathan Leonard

• Social security disability programs and retirement

Institute of Transportation Studies

Martin Wachs

• Transportaiton needs and problems of the elderly.

Integrative Biology

George A. Brooks

• Effects of physical fitness and gender on substate utilization during exercise

Marian C. Diamond

• Environmental and nutritional effects on the aging brain

Steve Lehman

• Effect of age on muscle fatigue, and on susceptibility to upper extremity neuromuscular disorders.

Molecular And Cell Biology

Bruce Ames

• Delaying the mitochondrial decay of aging
• Nutrition and aging

Stuart Linn

• Changes in DNA repair efficiencies with aging

Lester Packer

• Prevention of human skin aging by antioxidants
• Antioxidant protection of cataracts and disabetes induced complications
• Antioxidant regulation of oxidative stress induced cell growth responses and transcription

Harry Rubin

• Cellular aging, destabilization, and cancer

Richard Strohman

• Aging of the university: loss of function disabilities related to narrowing and hardening of research portfolio and related neuronal apparatus in basic sciences and public health.
  
• Biotechnology and medical cures for aging compared with understanding from perspective of population/evolutionary biology

Paola Timiras

• In-vitro models for senile dementia Alzheimer type
• Effects of hormones and stress on aging of neuroblastoma and glioma cells
• In-vitro models for Alzheimer's disease: Metabolic studies of tau protein

Nutritional Sciences and Toxicology

George W Chang

• Qi Gong and Tai Chi for the very elderly
  

Joe Napoli

• Mutual interactions of the retinoid (vitamin A) endocrine system and aging.
  

Psychology

Mark D'Esposito

• Memory and cognitive function in normal aging
• Neuroimaging

Robert Levenson

• Late-life marriages
• Emotion and aging
• Dementia and emotion

William Meredith

• Intellectual development: Group and individual patterns

Public Policy

Jane Mauldon

• Family structure, co-residence, and care-giving

School of Optometry

Jay M. Enoch

• Visual functions not affected or minimally affected by aging
  
• Visual function in the developing world: premature aging; premature cataracts; and the special needs of the rapidly growing population of aging partially sighted individuals in the deveoloping world.  A test of vision through dense eye media opacities has been developed to help surgeons select eyes for surgery and (prior to surgery) to assess visual prognosis after surgery
  
• The study of retinal receptor orientations and functional properties in mid-high myopias and in individuals with large or long eyes. Characteristic tractional alterations (transient and stable) in alignments of receptors are found in extended retinal areas about, and upon the blind spots of these eyes.  Retina and choroid commonly displace from their attachment nasally on the optic nerve, and over-ride the blind spot with maintained vision! Now we ask, does this represent a release from persistent tractional forces, or does this anomaly portend added serious myopic changes occurring later in life?

Gunilla Haegerstrom-Portnoy

• The Relation between vision function, problems with daily living and driving performance
• Predicting future loss of visual acuity on the basis of low contrast tests of vision.
  Understanding the loss of reading ability with age.

School of Public Health

Teh-Wei Hu

• Economics of aging and health services

Meredith Minkler

• Intergenerational issues
• Health promotion and aging
• The political economy of aging

William Satariano

• Epidemiology of aging and physical performance
• Health and functioning in older women with breast cancer

Helen Schauffler

• Medicare costs and risk factors for heart disease
• Health promotion and disease prevention for the elderly

Ira Tager

School of Social Welfare

Neil Gilbert

• Comparative project on the "Gender Implications of Social Security Reforms," in several countries.

Andrew Scharlach

• Aging policy analysis and development
• Gerontological social work education
• Long-term care services
• Family caregiving

Portions of this page were updated on August 17, 2004