I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and the Training Director at the Center for Demography of Health and Aging at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I recently became the Director of the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, and look forward to continuing and enhancing its legacy as a fantastic resource for learning about the multiple determinants of health and well-being in later life.
My academic path has taken me through several disciplines. I received an AB in History from Harvard, and a PhD in Population & Health along with a MHS in Biostatistics from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Before coming to Madison, I was a member of the Sociology faculty at the University of Chicago. This background has enabled me to bring both statistical and critical lenses to the study of population health, and to consider the ways in which Demography both reflects and shapes our changing understanding of the social world.
My research focuses on the dynamics of population aging and the factors that influence longevity and well-being at older ages. I’m especially interested in the impact of social inequities on health throughout the life course and the connections of individual health trajectories with aggregate mortality and morbidity trends. My current projects include a study titled Research on Epigenetics, Weathering, Aging, & Residential Disadvantage (REWARD), which examines the individual and contextual correlates of accelerated biological aging, and studies exploring linkages between place of birth and later-life mortality and cognitive health. (See recent CV)