Appendix C

Biographies of Workshop Presenters

DEBORAH CARR (she/her/hers) is director of the Center of Innovation in Social Science and A&S Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Boston University. She is a life course sociologist who uses survey data and quantitative methods to study social factors linked with health and well-being in later life. Carr has written extensively on inequality in old age, death and dying, bereavement, family relationships over the life course, and the stigma associated with health conditions including obesity and disability. She has published more than 120 articles and chapters, and several books including Aging in America (University of California Press, 2023) and Worried Sick: How Stress Hurts Us and How to Bounce Back (Rutgers University Press, 2014); her book Golden Years? Social Inequality in Later Life (Russell Sage, 2019) received the Richard Kalish Innovative Publication Award from the Gerontological Society of America. Carr is also co-editor of the Handbook of Aging & Social Sciences (9th ed., Elsevier, 2021). Her research has been funded by National Institutes of Health, RRF Foundation on Aging, Templeton Foundation, Borchard Foundation, and most recently Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Carr was editor-in-chief of Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences and is principal investigator of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979. She currently serves as editor-in-chief of Journal of Health and Social Behavior. Carr has served on the board of directors of the Population Association of America, and as chair of the sections on Aging & the Life Course and Medical Sociology of the American Sociological Association (ASA). She is a fellow of the Gerontological Society of America, a member of the honorary Sociological Research Association, and the recipient of the 2022 Matilda White Riley Distinguished Scholar

Award and 2023 Outstanding Mentorship Award from the ASA Aging & Life Course section. Carr was recently elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Her research and op-eds have been featured in national media including The New York Times, USA Today, CNN, Los Angeles Times, The Conversation, PBS programs including Story in the Public Square and To the Contrary, podcasts including the New Books Network, and other sources. Carr has an M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

MICHAEL ESPOSITO (he/him/his) is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota who interrogates the (re-)production of racial disparities in U.S. population health through his research. His work investigates how broad, racialized social systems—and their constituent institutions—are configured in ways that layer privileges onto White populations and hazards onto populations of Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color and how these privileges and penalties subsequently arrive on population welfare. This includes studies that examine how race-cognizant institutions (e.g., law enforcement agencies) contribute to health disparities, research that considers how racialized systems overlap with one another to gate access to generative health contexts, and projects which demonstrate how racism distorts social processes that are made to be foundational to well-being in the United States (e.g., status attainment and health). Esposito makes use of contemporary statistical methods—for example, Bayesian approaches and techniques for drawing causal(-ish!) inferences from observational data—in addressing these topics. Esposito has an M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Washington.

JESSICA FINLAY (she/her/hers) is an assistant professor in the Department of Geography and Institute of Behavioral Science at the University of Colorado Boulder. She is a health geographer and environmental gerontologist who uses mixed methods to investigate how built, social, and natural environments affect health, well-being, and quality of life. In particular, Finlay focuses on aging in place and cognitive health disparities among underrepresented and underserved older adults. She also investigates impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on neighborhood environments and health among aging Americans. Finlay has an M.A. and Ph.D. in geography and gerontology from the University of Minnesota and completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Michigan.

JASON FLETCHER (he/him/his) is a Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of Public Affairs with appointments in applied economics and population health sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. A specialist in health economics, economics of education, and social genomics,

he focuses his research on examining social network effects on education and health outcomes, combining genetics and social science research and examining how in utero and early life conditions affect later life health, cognition, and mortality. Fletcher is an affiliate of the Institute for Research on Poverty, Holtz Center for Science & Technology Studies, Center for Demography and Ecology, and the Data Science Institute at the University of Wisconsin–Madison; and he is a research associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research and Institute for the Study of Labor. He earned an M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in applied economics. He was a 2023 Guggenheim fellow for his work on U.S. mortality.

PAOLA GILSANZ (she/her/hers) is a research scientist II at Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research. Her work focuses on examining risk and protective factors of healthy brain aging across the life course, especially as they relate to disparities by sex, gender, race, and ethnicity. Gilsanz co-leads the Kaiser Healthy Aging and Diverse Life Experience study, the Study of Healthy Aging in African Americans, and the LifeAfter90 study. Her work also examines modifiable risk and protective factors of dementia among individuals with type 1 or type 2 diabetes. Gilsanz received an M.P.H. in epidemiology and biostatistics from the University of California, Berkeley, and an Sc.D. in social epidemiology from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

ERIC GRODSKY (he/him/his) is professor of sociology and educational policy studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is a co-director for Educational Studies for Healthy Aging Research and multiple principal investigator for High School & Beyond: 80 and the National Longitudinal Study of the Class of 1972. Grodsky also serves as co-director of the Madison Education Partnership, a research-practice partnership between the Wisconsin Center for Education Research and the Madison Metropolitan School District, and deputy director of the Interdisciplinary Training Program in Education Sciences. He has written extensively on inequality in education across the life course, from early childhood through college and graduate education and into midlife. Grodsky’s work has appeared in the American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Social Forces, and the Annual Review of Sociology, among other venues. He earned an M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in sociology.

PAMELA HERD (she/her/hers) is the Carol Kakalec Kohn Professor of Social Policy in the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her research focuses on inequality and how it intersects with health, aging, and policy. Herd is also an expert in survey research and bio--

demographic methods. She is currently one of the co-principal investigators for General Social Survey, an investigator with the Wisconsin Longitudinal Survey, and chair of the National Institutes of Health’s Data Advisory Board for the National Study of Adolescent Health. Herd has received grant awards for her work from the National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Aging, the National Science Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and AARP. She also does research on administrative burden, or the bureaucratic obstacles that people encounter when trying to access government benefits, services, and rights. Herd is especially interested in how this burden both is shaped by and further reinforces inequality. She has a book published by the Russell Sage Foundation, Administrative Burden: Policymaking by other Means, which has received numerous awards. Herd earned a Ph.D. in sociology from Syracuse University.

ELIZABETH MUÑOZ (she/her/hers) is assistant professor of human development and family sciences, and faculty affiliate of the Center on Aging Population Sciences and the Population Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research activities center on identifying early and modifiable predictors of adult cognitive health outcomes with a focus on addressing racial-ethnic inequities. Muñoz’s three active lines of investigation include (a) the links and mechanisms between psychological, social, and contextual stress on cognitive functioning across the lifespan; (b) examinations of salient sources of stress and their links with cognitive function among Latinx adults; and (c) applying a within population lens to evaluate associations between social and ethnicity-related sources of stress on cognitive function in Mexican-origin adults. She employs a variety of research designs to address her research questions, including longitudinal studies across years of assessments, ecological momentary assessments, and an integration of both (e.g., measurement-burst designs). Muñoz earned an M.S. and Ph.D. in human development and family studies from the Pennsylvania State University.

PRIYA PALTA (she/her/hers) is an associate professor of neurology in the Department of Neurology at University of North Carolina. She is a chronic disease and aging epidemiologist with a multidisciplinary research portfolio at the intersection of cardiovascular disease, aging, physical function/frailty, cognitive decline, and dementia. She is the principal investigator of multiple NIH-funded epidemiologic studies that examine the role of vascular-related and modifiable risk factors on cognitive function, cognitive decline, and dementia. She received her M.H.S. and Ph.D. in epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in cardiovascular disease epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

DAVID REHKOPF (he/him/his) is an associate professor of epidemiology and population health, medicine (Division of Primary Care and Population Health), health policy, pediatrics, and sociology at Stanford University, and director of the Stanford Center for Population Health Sciences. The aim of his research is to understand the mechanisms and processes linking socioeconomic disadvantage with adult chronic disease risk and aging. Rehkopf’s work integrates statistical and conceptual strengths of public health, economics, and epidemiological methods with consideration of the underlying pathobiology of chronic disease. He received a master’s degree in epidemiology and biostatistics from University of California, Berkeley, and his Sc.D. from the Harvard School of Public Health.

KATRINA M. WALSEMANN (she/her/hers) is the Roger C. Lipitz Distinguished Chair in Health Policy and professor at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy and a multiple principal investigator of the Network on Education, Biosocial Pathways, and Dementia across Diverse Populations. She is a population aging and life course researcher whose work focuses on understanding how race and class disparities in educational quality, school segregation, and educational attainment influence physical, mental, and cognitive health. Walsemann’s current research explores how state and local educational contexts during childhood relate to cognitive impairment and dementia risk later in life. She holds a Ph.D. and M.P.H. in health behavior from the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health.

JENNIFER WEUVE (she/her/hers) is a professor of epidemiology at the Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH). Prior to joining BUSPH, Weuve was on the faculty of the Rush Institute for Healthy Aging in Chicago. She is co-director of the international initiative MEthods in LOngitudinal studies in DEMentia and principal investigator (PI) of the NIH-NIA grant that supports it. Weuve is also PI or co-investigator of several NIH-funded projects that examine whether and how exposures to toxicants in the environment—for example, air pollutants, noise, heavy metals—affect the aging brain and body. With engagement of multidisciplinary teams, this research informs the use of environmental policy and other strategies outside of the clinical medicine realm as a means for reducing dementia and disability risks in whole populations. This research also comprises a foundation for extending inquiries into the role of environmental injustice in generating dementia inequities. She earned an M.P.H. in epidemiology at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health and an Sc.D. in epidemiology at the T.H. Chan Harvard School of Public Health, and held a postdoctoral fellowship in environmental health at the T.H. Chan Harvard School of Public Health.

REBECA WONG (she/her/hers) is a professor of population aging and Hispanic health at the University of Texas Health San Antonio. Her research agenda focuses on the social and economic consequences of population aging, particularly in Mexico and among immigrant Hispanics in the United States. Wong’s population-based research has been continuously funded by the NIA for over 30 years. She serves as the principal investigator of the Mexican Health and Aging Study (MHAS), currently funded by NIA and the Statistical Bureau in Mexico. The study follows a national sample of adults in urban and rural Mexico, focusing on Mexico’s unique health dynamics in a broad socioeconomic context. The MHAS is a collaboration among institutions in Mexico and the United States and is highly comparable to the U.S. Health and Retirement Study. Wong has edited volumes, published in numerous professional journals, and regularly presents at national and international conferences. She has served on national and global committees, including as a member of the boards of the Population Association of America and the Mexican Society of Demography. She has contributed to the editorial boards of the publications Demography, Journal of Aging and Health, Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, and Papeles de Población. Wong has served as member of scientific committees for the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, including its Committee on Population, and as member of the Advisory Council of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. In 2024, she was elected as an honorary member of the National Academy of Medicine of Mexico. She, a Mexican-born scholar, received a bachelor’s degree in actuarial science from the National University of Mexico, followed by a master’s degree in applied economics and a Ph.D. in economics with a concentration in population economics from the University of Michigan.

YANG CLAIRE YANG (she/her/hers) is the Alan Shapiro Distinguished Professor at the Department of Sociology and the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, and fellow of the Carolina Population Center and Carolina Center for Population Aging and Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is a biodemographer, medical sociologist, and social statistician interested in population health, aging and the life course, and quantitative methodology. Yang conducts transdisciplinary research that aims to explicate the life course process by which social stress contributes to aging related diseases and mortality, to uncover how it is that exposures and experiences “get under the skin” to manifest in health differences, and to understand and find solutions to problems arising from reciprocal interactions between individuals’ social and physical worlds. She has extensive expertise on the social biology of aging and health and new statistical methodologies of cohort analysis for interdisciplinary population health sciences. Yang has led a number of National Institute on Aging--

funded projects that brought integrative biosocial theoretical perspectives to bear on the analysis of diverse forms of big health data (e.g., vital statistics, household surveys, clinical biomarkers, and administrative records) and revealed new knowledge about social disparities and underlying biological mechanisms in life course trajectories of chronic diseases of aging. Her current research focuses on innovative life course research designs and methodologies of complex coordinated analysis and integrative data analysis of multiple longitudinal cohort studies. Yang and her team recently employed novel integrative data and methods to model cognitive aging across the full lifespan, reveal early and midlife social disadvantages (socioeconomic and social relationship deficits) that are associated with cognitive declines with aging, and explicate the biological pathways (inflammation, cardiometabolic dysregulation, chronic infection) linking social disadvantages with cognitive impairment over the life course. She received an M.A. in sociology from Ohio State University, an M.S. in statistics from Duke University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from Duke University.

ADINA ZEKI AL HAZZOURI (she/her/hers) is an assistant professor of epidemiology at Columbia University. She is a social epidemiologist, and her primary research focus pertains to how social and cardiovascular exposures from across the life course influence cognitive function, Alzheimer’s Disease and other dementias, stroke, and other related health outcomes in old age. In Zeki Al Hazzouri’s work on cognitive aging, she also focuses on minority health and health disparities. Her ultimate research goal is to employ life course models to better understand how modification of social and cardiovascular factors or their timing may reduce the burden of cognitive aging and dementia disparities. Zeki Al Hazzouri is currently leading several NIH-funded R01 projects that use causal inference methods to understand determinants of dementia and selection biases. She received an M.Sc. from the American University of Beirut at Lebanon and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

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