Members
Center for Healthy Aging Research
The Center has attracted many of OSU’s most innovative scientists to its membership. CHAR members seek to work across disciplines to improve healthspan, a concept that is not just about living longer -- it’s about how to live better longer.
Become a member
Any Oregon State University faculty member, post-doctoral student, or staff member can apply to become a member of the Center for Healthy Aging Research. To apply, complete fillable PDF application and send with your CV to [email protected].
Faculty and research interests
Carolyn Aldwin
Human Development and Family Sciences
- Stress and coping; stress-related growth
- Changes in mental and physical health across the lifespan
Michael Bailey
Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
- Computer graphics; multiresolution techniques for visualizing and searching large volume datasets
- Solid freeform fabrication for visualization hardcopy
Michelle Barnhart
College of Business
- Ways in which providers of products and services treat older consumers like stereotypical “old people”
- How older consumers, family members and paid caregivers create value in caregiving
Kelly Chandler
Human Development and Family Sciences
- Daily work and family experiences, health, and well-being of adults, primarily in midlife
- Spillover and crossover processes among employed adults and their family members
Patrick Chappell
Veterinary Medicine
- Reproductive neuroendocrinology/neurosecretion: sex steroid hormone modulation of neuronal gene expression /activity
- Circadian control of reproductive capacity, at the level of the hypothalamus and gonads; role of the circadian clock in initiation/progression of reproductive cancers
Cathleen Brown Crowell
Kinesiology
- Biomechanics of postural stability, movement and movement kinematics and kinetics in fall prevention, joint replacements, and osteoarthritis.
Naomi Fitter
MIME / Robotics Program
- Physical human-robot interaction, socially assistive robotics, haptics, robots in education, and robotic entertainers
Larry Gilley
Health Management and Policy
- Health care management and administration, especially in long-term care facilities.
Jadwiga Giebultowicz
Integrative Biology
- Understanding the mechanisms of biological timing
- Investigating clock genes and their functional significance in healthy aging
Adrian Gombart
Biochemistry and Biophysics
- Physiological importance of vitamin D in our diet and its impact on immune response
- Investigating how vitamin D deficiency affects the innate immune system of the elderly
Katherine Gunter
Oregon State Extension Service, Kinesiology
- Prevention of falls
- Exercise and lifespan bone health
Tory Hagen
Jamieson Endowed Chair in Healthspan Research, Linus Pauling Institute
- Causes of age-related mitochondrial decay and its consequences with respect to cardiac dysfunction
- Mechanisms causing increased susceptibility to oxidative and toxicological insults
Emily Ho
Director of the Linus Pauling Institute; Co-Director of the Center for Healthy Aging Research; OSU Distinguished Professor of Nutrition
- Understanding dietary influences on cancer susceptibility
- Understand health benefits of zinc across the lifespan
Karen Hooker
Human Development and Family Sciences
- Personality and self processes as related to mental and physical health
- Processes of intraindividual change during transitions
David Hurwitz
Civil & Construction Engineering
- Research in the areas of transportation user behavior, driving and bicycling simulation, transportation safety and engineering education.
Veronica Irvin
Health Promotion and Health Behavior
- Examine health literacy and communication methods in order to better understand how people manage their health.
Urszula Iwaniec
Nutrition
- Regulation of bone metabolism, with special emphasis on interaction of hormones, genetics and lifestyle factors on bone physiology.
Deborah John
Biological and Population Health Sciences
- Conducting CBPR to generate and transfer knowledge of the intersection between healthy aging and rural place
- Exploring how attributes of people and attributes of place interact to differently affect health, health behavior, and lifespan wellbeing of diverse populations
Hyosin (Dawn) Kim
Health Management & Policy
- Exploring health care systems and social supports for people with serious and terminal illnesses and their caregivers.
- Areas of interest include disparity in health care access, access to home-based primary and palliative care for persons with multi-comorbidities and limitations, and culturally tailored care for health equity.
Tao Li
Health Management & Policy
- Health disparity for low-income individuals, patient-centered medical home, and health care financing and quality
Mei-Ching Lien
Department of Psychology
- Age related differences in executive control and attentional processes
- Cognitive processing limitations for multitasking
Juyun Lim
Food Science & Technology
- Understanding the role of human sensory perception in food preference
Kathy Magnusson
Veterinary Medicine
- Prevention of declines in learning and memory
- Mechanisms underlying the age-related changes in the NMDA receptor
Claudia Maier
Chemistry
- Biomarkers and proteomics of oxidative stress
- Development and application of mass-spectromery-based methodology for the structural and functional characterization of proteins and their interaction with other biomolecules
Luke Marney
Department of Chemistry
- Investigates therapeutic botanicals for functional resilience to aging
- Developing and applying analytical chemistry and chemometric methods for in-depth chemical characterization of plant extracts, botanicals, and biological samples.
Nathan Mortimer
Biochemistry and Biophysics
- Studies cell signaling and inflammation in a variety of diseases of aging using Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly) as a model system.
- Also studies the ability of insect venoms to manipulate cell signaling.
Sean Newsom
Kinesiology
- Whole-body and skeletal muscle insulin sensitivity, skeletal muscle lipid and mitochondrial metabolism, acute exercise and chronic exercise training.
Michael Pavol
Kinesiology
- Application of biomechanics to fall and hip fracture prevention
- Exercise interventions against osteoporosis
Mark Phillips
Department of Integrative Biology
- Identifying the factors that drive differences in rates of physiological decline between individuals as they age.
- Studying physiological and molecular differences between fruit fly populations where selected reproductive timing has produced accelerated aging and their controls.
Matt Robinson
Kinesiology
- Skeletal muscle protein turnover, mitochondrial metabolism, insulin resistance, exercise
David Rothwell
Human Development and Family Sciences
- Poverty, families, and social policy across the lifespan. Much of this work compares policies and institutuional frameworks between the U.S., Canada and other OECD countries.
Suzanne Segerstrom
Human Development and Family Sciences
- The influence of individual differences in personality, cognition, and emotion on psychological health and physiological functions
Richard Settersten
Human Development and Family Sciences
- Social meanings and uses of age; effects of historical events, social change, and demographic change on aging and the life course
- Efforts to control human aging: perspectives of scientists, providers, and consumers; social implications
Aurora Sherman
Department of Psychology
- Lifespan social development and socialization patterns
- Adjustments to chronic illness in older adulthood
Bill Smart
MIME / Robotics Program
- Robots and robotic technologies to support people living with disabilities.
- Policy, legal, and privacy uses in the adoption, use, and regulation of new technologies.
Ellen Smit
Public Health
- Diet, Metabolism, and physical activity in relation to chronic disease
- HIV infection in diverse populations
Jan (Fred) Stevens
Pharmacy
- Interactions of biological antioxidants with lipid peroxidation products
- Novel biological functions of vitamin C
Yumie Takata
Nutrition
- Interactions of biological antioxidants with lipid peroxidation products
- Dr. Takata is a nutritional epidemiologist and her research focuses on the etiological roles of nutritional factors in cancer and chronic disease.
Maret Traber
Nutrition
- Vitamin E requirements in human subpopulations at risk of increased oxidative and nitrative stress
- The role of vitamin E in regulating hepatic xenobiotic metabolism in mice, rats and humans
Russell Turner
Nutrition
- Regulation of bone mass; disease modeling
- Effects of alcohol on bone metabolism
Alysia Vrailas-Mortimer
Biochemistry & Biophysics; Linus Pauling Institute
- Researching how and why humans age and the link between aging and age-dependent diseases such as Parkinson’s diseases, Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease and muscular dystrophies
- Using the genetic model organism Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly) to explore how stress response genes play a role in regulating aging and toxin exposure and how this contributes to a disease state.
