Dr. Wong Appointed as the Sheridan Lorenz Distinguished Professor in Aging and Health

Rebeca Wong, PhD, has been appointed as the Sheridan Lorenz Distinguished Professor in Aging and Health in the School of Public and Population Health through June 2025. Dr. Wong is a Professor in the School of Public and Population Health; Director of the WHO/ PAHO Collaborating Center on Aging and Health; and Associate Director of the Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center as well as the Sealy Center on Aging. She is the former Peaches & Shrub Kempner Distinguished Professor in Health Disparities in the School of Medicine.

Dr. Wong is a Mexican scholar, PhD economist; her research interests include old-age consequences of life course decisions and risk factors; mortality and old-age health consequences of Mexico- US migration; cross-national comparisons of trajectories of cognitive and physical function; and impact of health care reform for the aging. Her research has been funded continuously by the National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Aging for more than 25 years. She is best known for leading the 20-year longitudinal cohort entitled, "The Mexican Health and Aging Study" using a national sample of Mexicans in rural and urban areas. 

In addition, Dr. Wong serves as Principal Investigator of a training grant funded by NIA, ‘Health of Older Minorities’, and she has mentored numerous junior faculty, postdoctoral fellows, PhD students, and master’s and undergraduate students. She has served on National Academy of Sciences committees and currently serves on several NIH committees, including as a member of the Advisory Council of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.