During the last century, the average life expectancy has increased by 30 years. Moreover, we reach this higher age in better health. This longer life creates challenges, but also great chances for the individual and society.
Age and aging as we know and experience it today are a mere snapshot: Human development and aging are not predetermined, they result from constant interactions between biology, the individual, and culture. The process of aging, even in its biological aspects, is alterable through influences by society and the individual – within its biological limits.
The common structures of our lives and the image of age are still formed by a very traditional idea of aging. It comes from a time in which our life expectancy, the quality of life at a higher age, and the distribution of tasks throughout the course of our life were very different from today. The future viability of a society whose members are becoming increasingly old depends on its will to change. Significant steps are made to change obsolete structures in the academic world, the job market and the national economy, on regional and local levels, within families, civil society, and politics, in people’s minds and daily practice. Modern aging research offers important insight into these questions.
Ursula M. Staudinger is an internationally acclaimed lifespan psychologist and aging researcher with a deeply interdisciplinary orientation. Her research focuses on the modifiability of aging processes and its consequences for population aging. In light of a society of longer lives, Ursula M. Staudinger explores the potentials of demographic aging and studies the interplay between productivity and aging as well as the development of life insight, life management and wisdom over the lifespan. Ursula M. Staudinger is Professor of Sociomedical Sciences and Professor of Psychology at the Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center at Columbia University in New York. Between 2013 and 2017 she was the Founding Director of the Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center and the
President of the affiliated international longevity center. Prior to moving to the USA, Ursula M. Staudinger was Vice President of Jacobs University Bremen (Germany) and the Founding Dean of the Jacobs Center on Lifelong Learning and Institutional Development (JCLL). She has acted as Vice President of the German National Academy of Sciences (2007-2017). Since 2012, Ursula M. Staudinger has been Chairwoman of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB). She has acted as Vice President of the German National Academy of Sciences (2007-2017). Since 2012, Ursula M. Staudinger has been Chairwoman of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB). She has released over 200 publications.
She was awarded with the “Braunschweig Research Prize 2014” and the “Seneca Medal for Aging Research 2017” for her outstanding research. Her earlier career also includes positions at Max Planck Institute for Human Development and the Technical University of Dresden.
Please find Prof. Staudinger's personal website here.
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