About the Center: Mission and Objectives

The Penn State Gerontology Center strives to carry out research, instruction, and community-service programs of the highest quality and to make those resources available to the Commonwealth and the nation.

Gerontology is the study of the processes of aging in all their diversity. It is the mystery of how and why we age as we do that presents us with a puzzle worth solving. Whether a cell, a person, an organization, or a population is aging, the secrets of the aging process and how that process can differ from cell to cell, person to person, is what piques the curiosity of our Center affiliates.

The excitement that fuels the ground-breaking research of our faculty also infuses their instructional activities in the classrooms, lecture halls, project laboratories, and one-to-one interactions that provide students with unparalleled access to research-in-action. Students have a wide range of opportunities to learn-as-they-do, building their knowledge and developing their skills in a rich and supportive intellectually stimulating environment.

Gerontological research encompasses many traditional disciplines in the biological, behavioral, and social sciences, as well as numerous professional specialties. We believe that the highest quality research and instruction are achieved when faculty and students are trained not only within their parent discipline but also apply their insights to questions of aging in interdisciplinary projects.

The Penn State Gerontology Center promotes interdisciplinary research that explores the diversity and complexity of the process of human aging. Whether one:

• studies the information programmed into a single gene, the biochemical environment of the human body, or the functioning of various organ systems;
• explores changes in personalities, the magic of memory, or the effects of stress;
• embeds actors in the varieties of family structures, the influence of major societal institutions, the opportunities and constraints of social structure;
• begins the study in adolescence, or mid-life, or among 80-year-old twins,

Finally, as rewarding as research can be for the knowledge it produces, our faculty strives to put their research into action by finding ways to translate what has just been learned into practices and behaviors that are informed by information at the vanguard of each field.

We are grateful to our community partners and to the many alums who provide us with both inspiration and encouragement as we work to improve our understanding of aging and make those new insights accessible to all who translate our findings into 'best practices' in the Commonwealth, the nation and the world.