NEWS RELEASE

4/28/03

Lisa Trei, News Service: (650) 725-0224, lisatrei@stanford.edu

Carstensen named 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship recipient

Laura L. Carstensen, professor of psychology, has been named a recipient of the 2003 Guggenheim Fellowships, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation announced recently.

The fellowship winners include 184 artists, scholars and scientists -- selected from more than 3,200 applicants -- who received awards totaling $6.75 million. Guggenheim Fellows are appointed on the basis of distinguished achievement in the past and exceptional promise for future accomplishment.

Carstensen, a member of the Stanford faculty since 1987, received her doctorate in clinical psychology from West Virginia University in 1983. From 1997 to 2001, she served as the Barbara D. Finberg Director of the Institute for Research on Women and Gender. In 1998 she received the Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching.

Her research, supported by the National Institute on Aging, includes socioemotional selectivity theory, motivational and emotional development across adulthood, psychopathology among the elderly and gender differences in old age.

Carstensen proposes to use the award to help fund research for her latest book, tentatively titled The Unexpected Years, which will address the sudden extension of life expectancy in the 20th century and the need for a culture that supports longer life.

"The essential thesis is that demographic changes in the population are being viewed as a crisis on the horizon, when added years of life present an incredible opportunity to improve quality of life at all ages," Carstensen said.

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