AFAR is pleased to announce the recipient of The Inaugural George M. Martin Lifetime Achievement in Mentoring Award, Steven N. Austad, PhD.
The Award is named in honor of George M. Martin, MD (1927-2022), a pioneer in the field of aging research and AFAR’s Scientific Director for more than a decade. A Professor of Pathology at the University of Washington, Dr. Martin devoted his long, distinguished career to growing the field of aging research while fostering the careers of junior colleagues. The new generations of aging researchers represent one of his most enduring and powerful contributions. In his honor, AFAR established the George M. Martin Lifetime Achievement in Mentoring Award to recognize individuals who during their careers have demonstrated extraordinary mentorship in the field of aging research. The award carries a cash prize of $5,000 and is one of AFAR’s four annual Scientific Awards of Distinction.
Dr. Austad’s multiple-award-winning research uses a variety of traditional and nontraditional animal species, employing both laboratory and field studies, to seek to discover underlying causes of aging with a long-term goal of developing interventions that slow the age-related decay in human health. He is the author or editor of five books and more than two hundred scientific papers and book chapters covering nearly every aspect of the biological aging process from the level of cells to the level of populations. He also serves as well on the External Advisory Committee of the Mayo Clinic’s Kogod Center on Aging and the Observational Study Monitoring Board of the multi-institutional NIH-supported Longevity Consortium.
Dr. Austad also maintains a keen interest in communicating science to the general public. In that capacity, he has written more than 150 essays and op-eds for print and electronic media has previously served on the Science Advisory Board of National Public Radio and has been a consultant for exhibitions on aging to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (Portland, Oregon), the Perot Museum of Nature and Science (Dallas, Texas), and the American Museum of Natural History (New York City). He has written popular science articles for numerous publications including Natural History magazine, Scientific American, National Wildlife, and International Wildlife. His trade book, Why We Age (1997, 1999), has been translated into eight languages. His latest book, Methuselah’s Zoo: what nature can teach us about living longer, healthier lives (MIT Press), is out now.
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 (UAB). He is also 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. He also serves as co-principal investigator of the National Institute on Aging’s Nathan Shock Centers Coordinating Center and is AFAR’s Scientific Director.
The George M. Martin Lifetime Achievement in Mentoring Award is one of AFAR’s four Annual Scientific Awards of Distinction. Dr. Austad will receive his award at a special ceremony and reception organized by AFAR at the Annual Scientific Meeting of the Gerontological Society of America on November 14th, 2024, at 6:30 pm PT.
Learn more in a related press release here.
Learn more about the November 14th ceremony honoring Dr. Austad here.
Learn more about the George M. Martin Lifetime Achievement in Mentoring Award here.
