Albert Chosen as GSA’s Next Innovation in Aging Editor

The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) — the nation’s largest interdisciplinary organization devoted to the field of aging — has named Steven M. Albert, PhD, FGSA, of the University of Pittsburgh as the next editor-in-chief of the journal Innovation in Aging, effective January 2021.

“We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Albert as editor-in-chief. He has a stellar career in aging research and has profound leadership and management skills that will be essential in this role,” said Ishan C. Williams, PhD, FGSA, the chair of GSA’s Program, Publications, and Products Committee. “He has expertise across a broad and diverse range of gerontological research. Under his leadership, the journal will continue to undoubtedly reach new heights in innovation, integrating issues of equitable research, interventions, and evaluations for a variety of aging foci, to ensure that the journal maintains its growing success.”

Innovation in Aging is an online open access journal published by Oxford Journals on behalf of GSA. It contains conceptually sound, methodologically rigorous research studies that describe innovative theories, research methods, interventions, evaluations, and policies relevant to aging and the life course.

“In its four years as an online journal, Innovation in Aging has already made its mark as a place for cutting-edge research,” Albert said. “It attracts high-quality research that cuts across the disparate fields of gerontology.”

He added, “it is a great honor to follow Laura Sands as editor-in-chief and to press ahead with the journal’s vision of a truly translational gerontology. It has broken new ground with a series of special issues that stress convergence of disciplines in gerontological science. I look forward to working with contributors, reviewers, and our Editorial Board to build on this success.”

Albert is a professor and chair of the Department of Behavioral and Community Health Sciences in the Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh. He is also the Hallen Chair of Social Justice and Community Health. He has research experience in public health, aging, HIV, neurologic and psychiatric disease, and health behavior.

He has served as principal investigator on three NIH R01 efforts and currently co-directs the Clinical and Population Outcomes Core of the University of Pittsburgh NIA Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center. He also served as co-director and then director of the U Pitt CDC Prevention Research Center and a HRSA Public Health Social Work Leadership training program. He has also chaired an NIH study section. In CDC-funded research, his team completed an evaluation of the Pennsylvania Department of Aging’s statewide falls prevention program that established the evidence base for the program and allowed the program to be certified for Title-IIID ACL/AoA funding. His current research examines the population health of older adults by merging human services program data with hospital electronic health records.

He currently serves on the editorial boards of The Gerontologist, Preventive Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, and the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry. His research has appeared in The Gerontologist, Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences, Innovation in Aging, and Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, as well as journals in public health, psychiatry, neurology, and health policy.

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Innovation in Aging is a peer-reviewed publication of The Gerontological Society of America (GSA), the nation's oldest and largest interdisciplinary organization devoted to research, education, and practice in the field of aging. The principal mission of the Society — and its 5,500+ members — is to advance the study of aging and disseminate information among scientists, decision makers, and the general public. GSA’s structure also includes a policy institute, the National Academy on an Aging Society.