On September 13, 2022, Business Insider featured insights from AFAR Senior Scientific Director and Interim Board Chair Steven Austad, PhD, Scientific Director Nir Barzilai, MD, AFAR Board Member S. Jay Olshansky, PhD, and Board Member Emeritus Jack W. Rowe, MD, in an article on older US Presidents. The AFAR experts explain how beyond chronological age, biological age and higher cognitive function impact the vitality of older Presidents and older adults.
Dr. Austad is the Protective Life Endowed Chair in Healthy Aging Research and a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the founding director of UAB’s Nathan Shock Center of Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging, and co-director of the UAB Integrative Center for Aging Research, as well as the Co-Principal Investigator of the Nathan Shock Centers Coordinating Center.
In addition to serving as AFAR’s Scientific Director, Dr. Barzilai is a 1994 Glenn Foundation for Medical Research and AFAR Grants for Junior Faculty recipient, a 1997 Paul B. Beeson Emerging Leaders Career Development Award in Aging scholar, a 2010 Irving S. Wright Award of Distinction recipient, and the Director at the Institute for Aging Research and distinguished Professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
Dr. Olshansky is an AFAR Board Member and 2016 Irving S. Wright Award of Distinction recipient. He is currently a Professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago, a Research Associate at the Center on Aging at the University of Chicago and at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and the Chief Scientist at Lapetus Solutions, Inc.
The article also featured AFAR Board Member Emeritus President Jack W. Rowe, MD. Dr. Rowe is former AFAR Board President, and 2008 Honorary Leadership Award recipient. He is the Julius B. Richmond Professor of Health Policy and Aging at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.
Read the article, “How the mind of an 80-year-old president is biologically different from a 45-year-old president’s,” here.
For further insights, read the AFAR white paper, authored by Dr. Olshansky, in the wake of the 2020 Presidential Election, “Longevity and Health of U.S. Presidential Candidates for the 2020 Election," here.
