Eileen M. Crimmins, Ph.D. ’68
When 2007 Distinguished Achievement Award winner Joan Lunney, Ph.D. ‘68 nominated Eileen M. Crimmins, Ph.D. , she especially noted her classmate’s exceptional research credentials as evidenced by her more than 140 professional publications.
Eileen Crimmins is the AARP Chair in Gerontology at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles. She is an internationally recognized expert on aging, whose research focuses on the connections between socioeconomic factors and life expectancy and other health outcomes.
Professor Crimmins leads the USC/UCLA Center on Biodemography and Population Health, which is supported by the National Institutes of Health and provides a research environment that integrates and translates research findings from a variety of disciplines, such as epidemiology, clinical geriatrics, biostatistics, and biology, into their effects on the health status of populations and the expected life cycles of individuals.
Caleb E. Finch, Ph.D., a member of USC’s bio-gerontology department and ARCO and William F. Kieschnick Professor and Chair in the Neurology of Aging, works closely with Professor Crimmins in the classroom and as a research collaborator. "She is a brilliant scientist and has made many contributions to demography and allied inter-disciplinary fields, as well as leadership in national service." Dr. Finch continues: "She is recognized as one of USC’s top faculty members."
Eileen Crimmins earned her baccalaureate degree in mathematics from Chestnut Hill College in 1968, after which she continued with a master’s degree in 1969 and a Ph.D. in 1974, each in demography from the University of Pennsylvania. She has been a member of the sociology faculty at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Rutgers University, and the California Institute of Technology before beginning her association with USC in gerontology in the early 1980s.
Dr. Finch notes that his colleague was one of the earliest researchers in that decade to combine indicators of health and mortality to examine trends and differentials in healthy life expectancy. For example, he says, she pioneered in the use of the healthy life expectancy approach defined by disease or risk factor states. Specifics include the higher prevalence of heart disease in men, but the longer time women live with heart disease. In addition, "work on race and education differences in life expectancy," Dr. Finch states, "has shown the earlier ‘aging’ of the disadvantaged through earlier onset of health conditions among persons of lower SES [socio-economic status], leading to shorter lives, fewer healthy years, and more years of life lost or never lived." This approach, he says, "was applied to show how obesity is related to lower active life expectancy after age 70, but not to total life expectancy."
The author of five books and numerous research articles, Professor Crimmins is recognized for her pioneering research that "alerted us to the fact that older adults’ life expectancies were repeatedly outstripping demographic forecasts," notes Judith Teas, Ph.D., professor of sociology and director of the Center for Demographic and Social Analysis at the University of California, Irvine. Dr. Treas echoes Professor Finch’s observations, noting that Eileen developed the methodology for "healthy life expectancy" and was among the first scientists to answer the question of whether added years of life meant more years of health or additional years of disability for older Americans. Eileen’s "path breaking studies," Dr. Teas says, "funded by the National Institutes of Aging, are using markers of biological functioning, e.g., blood pressure, cholesterol, antioxidants, in order to study these class-based differences and forecast the future health of the older population."
This work, Dr. Teas suggests, "promises to be very important not only in medical interventions for ‘at risk’ populations, but also in planning for future health care needs and financing."
Professor Finch especially notes Eileen’s current appointments, including co-chair of a committee for the prestigious National Academy of Sciences to address the reasons why life expectancy in the U.S. is falling so far behind that of other countries.
Dr. Teas is direct and to the point. "Dr. Crimmins has influenced the whole enterprise of health and aging." She has served on numerous technical advisory committees for the government, consulted on multi-million dollar surveys of older adults, served on the scientific panels that evaluate research proposals, been an editorial board member for many leading scientific journals, and been an elected officer in such organizations as the Population Association of America and the American Sociological Association.
Professor Mark Hayward, director of the Population Research Center and professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin, says, "quite simply, Dr. Crimmins is among the most elite scholars of her field, an international icon for her path breaking work in biodemography, a prolific publisher, a tremendous graduate student mentor, and a tireless builder of intellectual communities and public goods." He notes in particular Dr. Crimmins’ record of securing research grants, a record that "extends for decades, showing clearly that her ideas compete —and win — in an important marketplace of ideas." Her grantsmanship record for research, "research infrastructure, and graduate training is truly remarkable," Dr. Hayward says, " and ranks her among the very best in her field. … She is one of those extraordinarily rare people who shape ideas, people, and institutions."
Indeed, Dr. Teas agrees, citing Dr. Crimmins as an award-winning teacher who has trained "a generation of young scholars now teaching and doing research on aging around the globe. Her record of scientific accomplishment and public service speaks well to the academic foundation and values imparted by your college." The Chestnut Hill College Honors & Awards Committee could not express it better.
The Chestnut Hill College Alumni Association is proud to present its 2010 Distinguished Achievement Award to Eileen Crimmins, Ph.D., Class of 1968, for her singular leadership in the field of biodemography, for her pioneering work that addresses the processes by which the fundamental causes of disease influence aging and age-related disease.
