Founding and Developing
Ursula M. Staudinger took office as Rector of the Technische Universität Dresden (TUD) in August 2020. Prior to that, she worked as Professor of Sociomedical Sciences and Professor of Psychology at the Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center at Columbia University in New York, which she founded in 2013. She acted as the center’s Director and President of the affiliated International Longevity Center USA (ILC-USA). Before moving to the USA, Ursula M. Staudinger was Vice President of Jacobs University (Bremen, Germany) and the Founding Dean of the Jacobs Center on Lifelong Learning and Institutional Development (JCLL) for ten years. From 1999 to 2003, Staudinger was already at the TU Dresden as Professor and Managing Director of the Institute for Educational Psychology and Developmental Psychology.
Researching
The research interest of the internationally leading and interdisciplinary oriented psychologist and aging researcher is particularly focused on the plasticity of the aging process and its consequences for demographic change. In light of societies of longer lives, Ursula M. Staudinger explores the potentials of demographic aging and studies the interplay between productivity and aging as well as the development of life insight, life management and wisdom over the lifespan. She was awarded with the “Braunschweig Research Prize 2014” and the “Seneca Medal for Aging Research 2017” for her outstanding research.
Networking and Advising
As Chairwoman of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB) Ursula Staudinger has accompanied the research work and management of the institute and has advised the German Government on questions of demographic change since 2013. She is, among others, Member of the Academy of Europe, Member of the Expert Panel of Population Europe and Member of the German National Academy of Sciences as well as Speaker of their Standing Committee on Demographic Change. In these functions, she helps to share scientific knowledge to inform governments, authorities and the public at national and European level.
Ursula M. Staudinger on Wikipedia.
„We acquire with the years more and more added knowledge and experience. This allows us to balance those deficits in other areas of performance.“