Staff

Dr. Richard Suzman is the Director of the Division of Behavioral and Social Research at the National Institute on Aging (NIA), National Institutes of Health. The Division of Behavioral and Social Research is one of four extramural research programs at the NIA, and is one of the largest funders of social science research in the country. He has served previously as Chief of Demography and Population Epidemiology at NIA, where he developed and directed the program that funds research and training in demography, epidemiology, and the economics of aging. He was also Director of the Office of the Demography of Aging, the focal point for demographic statistics and research within NIA and across other Federal and international agencies.

Dr. Suzman was Staff Director of the Federal Forum on Aging-Related Statistics, a coordinating organization made up of more than 35 federal agencies and jointly chaired by the National Center for Health Statistics, Bureau of the Census, and NIA. He was instrumental in developing the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) as well as several other national longitudinal surveys on aging. He has played a role in developing and supporting new academic fields such as the demography of aging, biodemography, the economics of aging and including biological and genetic components into social surveys and social science models.

Formerly on the faculty of the University of California, San Francisco Medical School, Dr. Suzman has edited several volumes, including The Oldest Old (Oxford University Press) and Forecasting the Health of Elderly Populations (Springer Verlag). After attending the University of the Witwatersrand, he received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Harvard University, and a Diploma of Social Anthropology from Oxford University. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University, where he also served briefly on the faculty.