BIOGRAPHY
S. Jay Olshansky, PhD
Dr. Jay Olshansky received his PhD in Sociology at the University of Chicago in 1984. He is currently a Professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a Research Associate at the Center on Aging at the University of Chicago and at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The focus of his research to date has been on estimates of the upper limits to human longevity, exploring the health and public policy implications associated with individual and population aging, and global implications of the re-emergence of infectious and parasitic diseases.
During the last fifteen years, Dr. Olshansky has been working with colleagues in the biological sciences to develop the modern "biodemographic paradigm" of mortality – an effort to understand the biological nature of the dying out process of living organisms. Dr. Olshansky's work on biodemography has been funded by a Special Emphasis Research Career Award (SERCA) and Independent Scientist Award (ISA) from the National Institute on Aging – awards that were designed to permit him to obtain additional training in the fields of evolutionary biology, molecular biology, genetics, epidemiology, population biology, anthropology and statistics.
Dr. Olshansky is the current president of the Society for the Study of Social Biology. He is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Gerontology: Biological Sciences and Biogerontology and serves on the editorial board of several other scientific journals. He is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the New York Academy of Sciences. Dr. Olshansky is also listed in Who's Who in Science and Engineering, Who's Who in American Education, Who's Who in Medicine and Healthcare, and American Men and Women of Science. He was an invited speaker at the December, 2002 President's Council on Bioethics, Fortune Magazine's 2004 Brainstorm meeting, The Nobel Conference devoted to the science of aging, the 2005 UNESCO conference on Health and Longevity; and the Institute of Medicine – 2004. He has testified before the trustees of the Social Security Administration, where his research has influenced forecasts of the nation's entitlement programs.
Dr. Olshansky is the recipient of a 2005/2006 Senior Fulbright Award to lecture in France. He has been invited to lecture on aging throughout the world and has participated in a number of international debates on the future of human health and longevity. Dr. Olshansky is the first author of The Quest for Immortality: Science at the Frontiers of Aging (Norton, 2001).