Steven Austad

Dr. Austad joined the Department of Cellular and structural Biology faculty in June 2004. A Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America since 1993, he is a past recipient of the Robert W. Kleemeier Award (2003) for outstanding research and the Geron Corporation-Samuel Goldstein Distinguished Publication Award (1994) from that Society. He received as well the Nathan A. Shock Award (1994) from the Gerontological Research Center of the National Institute on Aging. He currently serves as Section Editor on the Editorial Boards of Neurobiology of Aging and Aging Cell and as Associate Editor of the Journals of Gerontology: Biological Sciences. With Dr. Edward J. Masoro, he co-edited both the 5th (2001) and 6th (2006) Editions of the Handbook of the Biology of Aging. He also serves (since 2001) on the Initial Review Group for aging grants of the Ellison Medical Foundation. He has served on the NIH Cellular Mechanisms of Aging and Development Study Section. In addition, he co-directs (with Dr. Gary Ruvkun, Harvard University) the 3-week summer course on the Molecular Biology of Aging at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory. Dr. Austad maintains a keen interest in the communication of science to the general public, and in that capacity has served on the Science Advisory Board of National Public Radio (1992-1997) and has been a consultant to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry and the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. He has written popular science articles for numerous publications including Natural History magazine, Scientific American, National Wildlife, and International Wildlife. His trade book, Why We Age (1997), has been translated into 7 languages.