People

Faculty
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Jacqui Smith

Jacqui Smith

Research Professor, Survey Research Center - Professor of Psychology, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts - Research Professor, Research Center for Group Dynamics

Dr. Smith is a lifespan developmental and experimental psychologist. Her research focuses on age- and health-related changes in subjective well-being, self-related beliefs, and cognition in midlife and old age and the effects of early-life experiences on late-life outcomes. She combines experimental laboratory studies with survey research to investigate questions about profiles of healthy aging and life quality in midlife, the young old, and the oldest-old. She is a Co-PI of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and PI of a project on experienced well-being in midlife and old age. She teaches courses on the psychology of aging, lifespan cognition, and theories of development across the lifespan.

Curriculum vitae

Lindsay Ryan

Lindsay Ryan

Assistant Research Scientist

Lindsay H. Ryan is an Assistant Research Scientist at the University of Michigan’s Survey Research Center. She received her Ph.D. in 2008 from the Pennsylvania State University in Human Development and Family Studies. Dr. Ryan is an investigator on several ongoing research projects, all of which involve an interest in better measuring and understanding the processes by which adults change over the life course. Her research interests include individual and contextual influences on subjective well-being, physical health, and cognition across adulthood, with a particular focus on the impact of social relations. Dr. Ryan uses her expertise in longitudinal and survey research in multiple projects, including ongoing work with the Health and Retirement Study, serving as a Michigan-site PI on the LongROAD Study of older drivers, and as the PI on a study to develop and test a new measure of experiences of gratitude in older adults.

Curriculum vitae

Post Doctoral &
Graduate Students

Rachel Bergmans

Research Fellow

Rachel Bergmans is a research fellow in the Psychosocial Aging Group at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. Dr. Bergmans received her PhD in epidemiology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and MPH from the University of Michigan. Her research focuses on how social and environmental factors influence health disparities in mental health, particularly depression and suicide.

Curricumlum vitae

Jeongsoo Park

Research Fellow

Jeongsoo Park is a research fellow in the Psychosocial Aging Group at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. Dr. Park received her Ph. D. in Lifespan Developmental Psychology at North Carolina State University in 2020. Her doctoral work focused on the dynamic relationship between views of aging and outcomes, individual differences in the relationship between social cognition and outcomes, and how the effects of cultures, domains of functioning, and age on adaptive functioning change. In her current work, she is interested in how retrospective life history is associated with later-life health and cognitive functioning. 

Curriculum vitae

Monica Williams-Farrelly

Research Fellow

Monica Williams-Farrelly is a research fellow in the Psychosocial Aging Group at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. Dr. Williams-Farrelly received her PhD in Sociology and Gerontology from Purdue University in 2020. Her doctoral research focused on the early origins of adult health, more specifically understanding the links between early disadvantage and later life health and illness and how physical and social environments can alter those pathways. Currently, she is interested in how social relationships and neighborhoods throughout the lifecourse influence physical frailty and cognitive decline among older adults.

Curriculum vitae

Program Administrator

 

Aneesa Buageila

Aneesa Buageila

Research Administrator Senior

Aneesa Buageila is a Research Process Coordinator with the Health and Retirement Study at the Institute for Social Research. Aneesa has worked with the program since 2007.

Research Staff

 

Marina Larkina

Marina Larkina

Data Analyst

Marina Larkina is a Data Analyst at the Psychosocial Aging Group at the Institute for Social Research. Marina received her PhD in Child Psychology from the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota in 2008. Previously, she was a research associate at the Department of Psychology at Emory University, investigating autobiographical memory in children and adults. Marina provides statistical support to the research team on a number of ongoing collaborative projects that involve the analysis of survey, focus group, and experimental data on subjective wellbeing, retirement, and health in older adults.

Curriculum vitae

We have worked with some amazing people, from our research assistants to our faculty. Many of our graduate students have found rewarding positions at top programs and institutions across the country and throughout the world.