James Vaupel
| James W. Vaupel | |
|---|---|
| Born |
May 2, 1945 New York City |
| Nationality | American |
| Fields | aging research, biodemography, demography |
| Institutions |
Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research Duke University |
| Notable awards | Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences |
James W. Vaupel (born May 2, 1945), is an American scientist in the fields of aging research, biodemography, and formal demography. He has been instrumental in developing and advancing the idea of the plasticity of longevity, and pioneered research on the heterogeneity of mortality risks and on the deceleration of death rates at the highest ages.
Vaupel is the founding director of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in , Germany (since 1996). He is also a research professor at Duke University and the director of its Population, Policy, Aging and Research Center. Vaupel is a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, a regular scientific member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has been involved in many endeavors and published over 20 books.
Convinced that formal demography is the source of the discipline’s strength, Vaupel has contributed to the methodological foundations of demography. In 2001 he was awarded by the Population Association of America the Irene B. Taeuber Award for his lifetime research achievements. In 2008 he received the Mindel C. Sheps Award for his work in mathematical demography.
Vaupel has been a leading proponent of the idea of the plasticity of longevity. Many people believe there is a looming limit to human life expectancy. Vaupel’s research shows that life expectancy is likely to increase well beyond the purported limit of 85 years. Furthermore, Vaupel and others (such as Bernard Jeune of Denmark) advanced a new proposition: that the human life span is not fixed, but is a function of life expectancy and population size. He and S. Jay Olshansky have had a disagreement about what this means in terms of future projections of the human life span.
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