CHAR Members

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

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Carolyn Aldwin, Ph.D.

Carolyn Aldwin
Human Development and Family Sciences

  • Stress and coping; stress-related growth
  • Changes in mental and physical health across the lifespan
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Harold Bae, Ph.D.

Harold Bae
Biostatistics

  • Genomics of aging and longevity
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Mike Bailey

Michael Bailey
Electrical Engineering & Computer Science

  • Computer graphics; multiresolution techniques for visualizing and searching large volume datasets
  • Solid freeform fabrication for visualization hardcopy
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Michelle Barnhart

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
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Kelly Chandler, Ph.D.

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
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Chappell Patrick

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
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Cathleen Brown Crowell, PhD, ATC

Cathleen Brown Crowell
Kinesiology

  • Biomechanics of postural stability, movement and movement kinematics and kinetics in fall prevention, joint replacements, and osteoarthritis.
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Naomi Fitter

Naomi Fitter
MIME / Robotics Program

  • Physical human-robot interaction, socially assistive robotics, haptics, robots in education, and robotic entertainers
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Larry Gilley, MBA

Larry Gilley
Health Management and Policy

  • Health care management and administration, especially in long-term care facilities.
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Jadwiga Giebultowicz

Jadwiga Giebultowicz
Integrative Biology

  • Understanding the mechanisms of biological timing
  • Investigating clock genes and their functional significance in healthy aging
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Adrian Gombart

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
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Kathy Gunter, Ph.D.

Katherine Gunter
Oregon State Extension Service, Kinesiology

  • Prevention of falls
  • Exercise and lifespan bone health
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Tory Hagen

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
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Emily Ho, PhD

Emily Ho
Director of the Linus Pauling Institute; OSU Distinguished Professor of Nutrition

  • Understanding dietary influences on cancer susceptibility
  • Understand health benefits of zinc across the lifespan
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Karen Hooker, Ph.D.

Karen Hooker
Human Development and Family Sciences

  • Personality and self processes as related to mental and physical health
  • Processes of intraindividual change during transitions
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David Hurwitz

David Hurwitz
Civil & Construction Engineering

  • Research in the areas of transportation user behavior, driving and bicycling simulation, transportation safety and engineering education.
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Veronica Irvin, Ph.D., MPH

Veronica Irvin
Health Promotion and Health Behavior

  • Examine health literacy and communication methods in order to better understand how people manage their health.
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Urszula T. Iwaniec, Ph.D.

Urszula Iwaniec
Nutrition

  • Regulation of bone metabolism, with special emphasis on interaction of hormones, genetics and lifestyle factors on bone physiology.
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Deborah John
Oregon State Extension Service, Kinesiology

  • 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
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Hyosin (Dawn) Kim, PhD

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.
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Tao Li, MD, Ph.D.

Tao Li
Health Management and Policy

  • Health disparity for low-income individuals, patient-centered medical home, and health care financing and quality
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Mei-Ching Lien

Mei-Ching Lien
Psychology

  • Age related differences in executive control and attentional processes
  • Cognitive processing limitations for multitasking
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Juyun Lim

Juyun Lim
Food Science & Technology

  • Understanding the role of human sensory perception in food preference
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Kathy Magnusson

Kathy Magnusson
Veterinary Medicine

  • Prevention of declines in learning and memory
  • Mechanisms underlying the age-related changes in the NMDA receptor
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Claudia Maier

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
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Luke Marney

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.
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Nathan Mortimer

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.
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Sean Newsom, PhD, FACSM

Sean Newsom
Kinesiology

  • Whole-body and skeletal muscle insulin sensitivity, skeletal muscle lipid and mitochondrial metabolism, acute exercise and chronic exercise training.
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Michael Pavol
Kinesiology

  • Application of biomechanics to fall and hip fracture prevention
  • Exercise interventions against osteoporosis
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Mark Phillips

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.
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Matt Robinson, PhD

Matt Robinson
Kinesiology

  • Skeletal muscle protein turnover, mitochondrial metabolism, insulin resistance, exercise
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David Rothwell, MSW, Ph.D.

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.
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Suzanne Segerstrom, Ph.D., MPH

Suzanne Segerstrom
Human Development and Family Sciences

  • The influence of individual differences in personality, cognition, and emotion on psychological health and physiological functions
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Rick Settersten

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
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Kate Shay

Kate Shay
Biochemistry & Biophysics

  • Diet and Healthy Aging
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Aurora Sherman

Aurora Sherman
Department of Psychology

  • Lifespan social development and socialization patterns
  • Adjustments to chronic illness in older adulthood
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Bill Smart

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.
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Ellen Smit, Ph.D., RD

Ellen Smit
Public Health

  • Diet, Metabolism, and physical activity in relation to chronic disease
  • HIV infection in diverse populations
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Jan Stevens

Jan (Fred) Stevens
Pharmacy

  • Interactions of biological antioxidants with lipid peroxidation products
  • Novel biological functions of vitamin C
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Yumie Takata, Ph.D.

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.
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Maret Traber. Ph.D.

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
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Russell T. Turner, Ph.D.

Russell Turner
Nutrition

  • Regulation of bone mass; disease modeling
  • Effects of alcohol on bone metabolism
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Alysia Vrailas

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.