About Allison
Dr. Aiello’s research explores how economic, psychological, and biological factors shape healthy longevity, cognitive function, and the development of Alzheimer’s disease. Her work focuses on how stressful experiences across the life course influence biological aging, particularly immune system aging (immunosenescence), as a key pathway linking stress and health throughout the aging process. As Deputy Director of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), Dr. Aiello led the development of the Add Health Cognitive Assessment, Physical and Sensory Function protocol (“Add CAPS”). Through the integration of digital assessments, Add CAPS has created a landmark US representative neurocognitive dataset of nearly 12,000 participants in early midlife. She also directed the collection of physical and sensory function measures- important early indicators of cognitive decline. Together, these efforts are expanding the nation’s research capacity to understand how biological and social factors shape cognitive aging and dementia risk long before symptoms appear.
Organization
Mailman School of Public Health, Colombia University
Presentation
Coming soon
Chair
Jason Fletcher
University of Wisconsin–Madison
A specialist in health economics and social genomics, Professor Fletcher focuses his research on combining genetics and social science research and examining how in utero and early life conditions affect later-life health, cognition, and mortality. He is an affiliate of the Institute for Research on Poverty, Holtz Center for Science & Technology Studies, Center for Demography and Ecology, and the Data Science Institute at the University and a Research Associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). He is co-author of the award winning book, The Genome Factor, and a 2023 Guggenheim Fellow.