Overview
I am a Research Professor in the Social Science Research Institute and Co-Director of the Biodemography of Aging Research Unit at Duke University. I am a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries, a Fellow of the Conference of Consulting Actuaries, and an Associate of the Society of Actuaries. My research expertise includes modeling and forecasting for biomedical demography and health/LTC actuarial practice. My expertise in these areas is evidenced by my five books, five monographs, 151 scientific articles, 84 actuarial publications, and my service on the 2007 Technical Panel on Assumptions and Methods of the Social Security Advisory Board, my 2007–2010 position as Deputy Editor of the scientific journal Demography, my winning of the Society of Actuaries’ Edward A. Lew Award in 2008 for the best paper in actuarial modeling (in the LTC area), and my 2011–2012 position as a Member of the NAS/IOM Panel on Measuring Medical Care Risk. My expertise in these areas is further evidenced by my scientific contributions in the areas of mortality, morbidity/disability, Alzheimer’s disease, biodemography of aging, and epidemiology and modeling. I was responsible for developing new algorithms for imputing missing assessments of cognitive impairments (CI) among institutionalized participants in the 1984 NLTCS—a critical step in the discovery of unexpectedly large declines in CI prevalence (compared to ADL declines) during 1984–2004. I was also responsible for the development of the longitudinal Grade of Membership model now being used for Alzheimer’s disease progression in collaboration with Yaakov Stern at Columbia University.