The Upside of Aging: How Long Life Is Changing the World of Health, Work, Innovation, Policy and Purpose

About the Authors

Laura L. Carstensen is the founding director of the Stanford Center on Longevity, which explores innovative ways to solve the problems of people over 50 and improve the well-being of people of all ages. She is a professor of psychology and the Fairleigh S. Dickinson Jr. professor in public policy at Stanford University. Best known in academia for socioemotional selectivity theory, a life-span theory of motivation, Carstensen has published more than 100 articles on life-span development with her students and colleagues. She is the author of A Long Bright Future: Happiness, Health, and Financial Security in an Age of Increased Longevity (2011). She has chaired two studies for the National Academy of Sciences, resulting in the noted reports “The Aging Mind” and “When I’m 64.” A fellow in the Association for Psychological Science, the American Psychological Association, and the Gerontological Society of America, Carstensen is also a member of the MacArthur Foundation’s Research Network on an Aging Society and the National Advisory Council on Aging. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Distinguished Career Award from the Gerontological Society of America. Carstensen received a BS from the University of Rochester and PhD in clinical psychology from West Virginia University.

Henry Cisneros, the former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and former mayor of San Antonio, Texas, is executive chairman of CityView, ...