Margie E. Lachman, PhD, Healthy Aging Pilot Core Lead, Massachusetts AI and Technology Center for Connected Care in Aging and Alzheimer’s Disease; Minnie and Harold L. Fierman Professor of Psychology and Director of the Lifespan Development Lab at Brandeis University and the Boston Roybal Center for Active Lifestyle Interventions
About: She is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, Division 20 and the Gerontological Society of America. Lachman’s research is in the area of lifespan development with a focus on midlife and later life. She was editor of the Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences (2000-2003), and edited two volumes on midlife development. She was co-director of the National Institute on Aging (NIA) funded pre and postdoctoral training program, Cognitive Aging in a Social Context (1990-2015).
With funding from NIA, her current work is aimed at identifying psychosocial (e.g., sense of control) and behavioral (e.g., physical exercise) factors that can protect against, minimize, or compensate for declines in cognition (e.g., memory) and health. She is conducting studies to examine long-term predictors of psychological and physical health, laboratory-based experiments to identify psychological and physiological processes involved in aging-related changes, especially in memory, and intervention studies to enhance performance and promote adaptive functioning.
Lachman has published numerous chapters and journal articles on these topics. Lachman was a member of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Successful Midlife Development (1990-98) and is currently collaborating on a 20-year longitudinal follow-up of the original MacArthur midlife sample, with the Midlife in the United States Study (MIDUS). She has conducted intervention studies designed to enhance the sense of control over memory and physical exercise (e.g., Strong for Life), and one of the programs designed to increase control over falls (A Matter of Balance) has been widely adopted internationally and won the Archstone Award for Excellence in Program Innovation from the American Public Health Association.
Lachman has served as an advisor to organizations such as the AARP and the Boston Museum of Science for the traveling exhibit on the Secrets of Aging. She has presented her research on the CBS evening news and the NBC Today show. She received the Distinguished Research Achievement Award from the American Psychological Association, Division on Adult Development and Aging in 2003 and the Distinguished Career Contribution to Gerontology Award in Behavioral and Social Sciences from the Gerontological Society of America in 2015. In 2021, she received the Distinguished Mentorship in Gerontology Award from the Gerontological Society of America Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences.
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=28u0DaoAAAAJ&hl=en