Psychology Professor Dr. Neil Charness has been named Director of the Florida State University Institute for Successful Longevity. The institute is devoted to interdisciplinary research on healthy physical and cognitive aging across the lifespan with the goal of translating research discoveries into practices and interventions that maintain or improve adult cognition, including well-being and independence. Dr. Charness has served as Interim Director since the institute was established in 2013.

Dr. Charness is the William G. Chase Professor of Psychology. He received his BA from McGill University (1969) and MSc and PhD from Carnegie Mellon University (1971, 1974) in Psychology. He was an Assistant Professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, Canada (1974-1977), then Assistant, Associate and Full Professor at University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada (1977-1994), before joining the Psychology Department at Florida State University in 1994.

A leading scholar in the field of aging and successful longevity, Dr. Charness' research centers on understanding the aging process and its implications for technology use (particularly for health), work performance, and expert performance. He also conducts human factors research on older driver and pedestrian safety. These research projects are funded by the National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Aging, and the US Department of Transportation and the Florida Department of Transportation.

Dr. Charness is a member of the editorial boards for the Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, Psychology and Aging, and Gerontechnology. He is a Fellow of the Canadian Psychological Association, the Gerontological Society of America, the American Psychological Association, and the Association for Psychological Science. He was made an Honorary Member of the International Society for Gerontechnology. He has been a visiting scholar at the VA Outpatient Clinic in Boston, the University of Victoria, Canada, and the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Education, Berlin.

The institute website is: http://isl.fsu.edu/.