Ursula Staudinger decided to live what she preaches as a lifespan psychologist: Changing gears and embracing novelty are spices of life and fuel for development and aging. After 15 years of building institutions – first in Germany at Jacobs University and then in the United States at Columbia University – she did not renew her position as Director of the Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center (CAC), which she was hired to build five years ago.
Instead, Ursula Staudinger is ready for a change and wants to have more time to devote to her interdisciplinary research interests and her writing as well as her advisory work. As of January 2018, she is Professor of Sociomedical Sciences and of Psychology in the Department of Sociomedical Sciences and Faculty at the Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center, Columbia University.
“I have greatly enjoyed the time building the Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center together with a wonderful team of colleagues within the CAC and across Columbia University. It is with gratitude and a sense of pride that I look back on what we have achieved over the last years,” Staudinger says. She sincerely thanks the CAC Team and the Columbia colleagues who have been supporting the CAC and its development.
The CAC has reached visibility and credibility across the University as well as nationally and internationally. It has developed to be a prototype for orchestrating truly interdisciplinary research and has taken on leadership on how science may help to transform societies to be better suited for longer lives to flourish and prosper.