Rate My Professor Eileen Crimmins

Eileen Crimmins is University Professor and holder of the AARP Chair in Gerontology at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology. She earned a PhD and MA in Demography from the University of Pennsylvania and a BS in Mathematics from Chestnut Hill College. Her research centers on the demography of older populations, changes over time in health and mortality, socioeconomic differences in health, biological risk, and global aging. Crimmins co-directs the USC/UCLA Center on Biodemography and Population Health, one of the Demography of Aging Centers supported by the National Institute on Aging. She also co-directs the Multidisciplinary Training in Gerontology Program and directs the NIA-sponsored Network on Biological Risk. She serves as a co-investigator on the Health and Retirement Study. Crimmins has played a key role in promoting the integration of biological indicators into large population surveys and co-chaired a National Academy of Sciences committee examining why U.S. life expectancy lags behind that of other countries. She has co-edited multiple books focused on international aging, mortality, and health expectancy, including Determining Health Expectancies, Longer Life and Healthy Aging, Human Longevity, Individual Life Duration, and the Growth of the Oldest-old Population, International Handbook of Adult Mortality, Explaining Diverging Levels of Longevity in High-Income Countries, and International Differences in Mortality at Older Ages: Dimensions and Sources.

Crimmins is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She has received the Kleemeier Award for Research from the Gerontological Society of America, the Irene B. Taeuber Award from the Population Association of America, and the Provost’s Mentoring Award from USC. Her work has advanced understanding of trends in population health, healthy life expectancy, and the incorporation of biomarkers into demographic research.