Global Aging

Frank J. Whittington, PhD, is professor emeritus of gerontology, Department of Social Work, at George Mason University, and professor emeritus of sociology at Georgia State University (GSU), where he was both a faculty member (1973-95) and director (1995-2008) of the Gerontology Institute. His research interests focus on the social dimensions of health and health care of older persons, especially African Americans. His publications include 11 books and more than 60 articles and chapters on health behavior, medication use, long-term care, and global aging. Based on research funded by the National Institute on Aging, he coauthored, with five colleagues at the GSU Gerontology Institute, Communities of Care: Assisted Living for African Americans, published by the Johns Hopkins University Press in 2005. More recent projects include The International Handbook on Aging, coedited with Erdman Palmore of Duke University and Suzanne Kunkel of Miami University, and the first edition of Global Aging: Comparative Perspectives on Aging and the Life Course, coauthored with Suzanne Kunkel and Scott Brown of Miami University. Dr. Whittington has served as the president of the Southern Gerontological Society, from which he received the Gordon Streib Academic Gerontologist Award in 2009; he also received the 2010 Clark Tibbitts Award for outstanding contributions to academic gerontology from the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education. Suzanne R. Kunkel, PhD, is University Distinguished Professor of Gerontology and executive director of the Scripps Gerontology Center at Miami University. Her research is broadly focused on the social determinants of health, including the system of programs and services designed to support older adults in their goals to remain healthy, active, and engaged in their communities for as long as they choose. Dr. Kunkel has been involved in large-scale projects to assess the implementation and effectiveness of these programs, including innovations such as consumer self-direction and dementia-friendly communities, and the role of cross-sectoral organizational partnerships in enhancing population health. She has served as the principal investigator or the coprincipal investigator on grant-funded projects totaling more than $7 million; she has published more than 45 articles, books, and book chapters and more than 30 research monographs on the Aging Network, innovations in the delivery of home care, population projections, global aging, and gerontology education. Dr. Kunkel is a coauthor (with Leslie Morgan) of Aging, Society, and the Life Course, a gerontology textbook in its fifth edition and currently being revised for a sixth edition with Rick Settersten. With Frank Whittington and Erdman Palmore, she coedited the most recent edition of the International Handbook on Aging. She is a fellow of both the Gerontological Society of America and the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education (AGHE); she has served as the president of AGHE, and she is currently the treasurer of the Gerontological Society of America. Kate de Medeiros, PhD, is the O'Toole Family Professor of Gerontology in the Department of Sociology and Gerontology and a Scripps Research Fellow at Miami University. Dr. de Medeiros's research is broadly focused on understanding the experience of later life using narratives and other qualitative and mixed-methods approaches. Research topics include storying later life, the meaning of home, suffering in old age, generativity, moral development in later life, and friendships and social connectivity among people living with dementia. She has authored or coauthored more than 45 research articles and book chapters and is the author of two books on aging--The Short Guide to Aging and Gerontology (Policy Press, 2017) and Narrative Gerontology: Theory, Research and Practice (Springer Publishing, 2013)--and is the series editor for the Emerald Publishing series, The Humanities and Later Life: Exploring Contexts and Meanings of Growing Old. Working with The Hastings Center for bioethics, she recently coedited a special volume, What Makes a Good Life in Late Life: Citizenship and Justice in Aging Societies. Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Alzheimer's Association, and the Brookdale Foundation.