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American Federation for Aging Research Elects New President

NEW YORK, August 17, 2006 -- The board of directors of the American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR) recently announced the election of Terrie Fox Wetle, PhD, a former deputy director of the National Institute on Aging, as president. The two-year term is effective immediately.

Dr. Wetle is associate dean of medicine for public health and public policy, and professor of community health at Brown University. In addition to her position at the NIA, Dr. Wetle also held positions at Harvard Medical School and Yale University as assistant professor of Medicine and director of the Program in Long Term Care Administration, respectively.

As a gerontologist, Dr. Wetle has studied health status and service systems for older adults, with a focus on functional status and quality of life, and epidemiology of diseases common in aging. She has had a particular interest in long term care and in end-of-life care, from the perspectives of older persons, their families, and the service professionals who provide care. Her research includes ethical issues in elder care specifically, and in public health more generally. She has a special interest in qualitative and mixed methods research, with a book on the topic under publication.

"I have always been an enthusiastic supporter of AFAR and its mission to assist early and mid-career scientists, helping them to gain a foothold in the field of aging research and geriatric medicine," said Dr. Wetle. "The work of AFAR is particularly important at a time when aging research holds such promise, but when greater numbers of scientists are competing for fewer and fewer research dollars," she added.

She follows the successful tenure of Mark Beers, MD, formerly editor-in-chief of the Merck Manuals who helped AFAR enhance the image of the study of aging, encouraging more scientists to pursue research in this area.

Dr. Wetle was recently awarded a Docteure Honoris Causa by the University of Geneva and is a past-president of the Gerontological Society of America.

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AFAR is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to support biomedical research on aging. It is devoted to creating the knowledge that all of us need to live healthy, productive, and independent lives. Since 1981, AFAR has awarded nearly $93 million to more than 2,200 talented scientists as part of its broad-based series of grant programs. Its work has led to significant advances in our understanding of the aging process, age-related diseases, and healthy aging practices. AFAR communicates news of these innovations through its organizational web site www.afar.org and educational web sites Infoaging (www.infoaging.org) and Health Compass (www.healthcompass.org).