Professor of Gerontology at Weill Cornell Medicine
Dr. Sara J. Czaja has a BS in Psychology, and an MS and PhD in Industrial Engineering from the State University of New York (SUNY) University at Buffalo. Dr. Sara Czaja, an internationally recognized behavioral scientist with a background in engineering, has been serving as the Director of the newly launched Center on Aging and Behavioral Research at Weill Cornell Medicine since her recent recruitment to the Division of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine. Under Dr. Czaja’s direction, the new center is achieving major breakthroughs in research in applied gerontology. Advances at the center are rapidly creating a better quality of life for an ever-growing older population. By 2040, it is estimated that 80 million people (or 21%) in the U.S. will be over the age of 65 years old.
Dr. Czaja has extensive experience in aging research and a long commitment to developing strategies to improve the quality of life for older adults. Her research interests include aging and cognition, e-health, caregiving, human computer interaction, and functional assessment. She has published extensively in the field of aging, with numerous books, book chapters, and scientific articles. She also actively promotes aging research at the national level. She is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Gerontological Society of America, and the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. She is also a member of the National Academy of Science/National Research Council Committee on Human Factors in Home Health Care. In addition, she serves as the overall Chair of the Health Services Research and Demonstration study section for the Veterans Administration and a standing member of the Health Disparities study section and served as the Chair of the Risk Prevention and Health Behavior for the National Institute of Health. Dr. Czaja is also an Associate Editor for Human Factors and ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing.