Laura Carstensen: The Purpose and Promise of Longer Lives

What is the goal of living longer? It’s not simply to celebrate a number, but to do something meaningful with that time. Renowned Stanford psychologist Laura Carstensen speaks with Gordon about the experience of aging, in the past and in the future, and why changes in culture must accompany changes in healthspan so we can flourish as a society.

Laura L. Carstensen is Professor of Psychology at Stanford University where she is the Fairleigh S. Dickinson Jr. Professor in Public Policy and founding director of the Stanford Center on Longevity. Her research on the theoretical and empirical study of motivational, cognitive, and emotional aspects of aging has been funded by the National Institute on Aging without interruption for more than 30 years. Carstensen is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She served on the MacArthur Foundation’s Research Network on an Aging Society and was a commissioner on the Global Roadmap for Healthy Longevity.  Carstensen’s awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Kleemeier Award, The Richard Kalish Award for Innovative Research and distinguished mentor awards from both the Gerontological Society of America and the American Psychological Association. She is the author of A Long Bright Future: Happiness, Health, and Financial Security in an Age of Increased Longevity. Carstensen received her B.S. from the University of Rochester and her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from West Virginia University. She holds an honorary doctorate from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium.


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